Speakers
Alexander Eydeland
Morgan Stanley
Dr. Alexander Eydeland is Managing Director at Morgan Stanley in charge of global commodity strategists. His previous positions include Head of Research at Mirant Corp., vice president with Lehman Brothers and Fuji Capital Markets, and associate professor of mathematics at the University of Massachusetts. Eydeland holds a Ph.D. degree in Mathematics from Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. His papers on risk management, scientific computing, optimization and mathematical economics have appeared in a number of major publications and he has lectured extensively on these subjects throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. Eydeland is a co-author (with K. Wolyniec) of the book Energy and Power Risk Management published in 2002 by Wiley and Co.
Hélyette Geman
Director, Commodity Finance Centre
Birkbeck, University of London & ESCP- EAP
Hélyette GEMAN is a Professor of Finance at Birkbeck, University of London and ESCP-EAP. She is a graduate of Ecole Normale Superieure in mathematics, holds a Masters degree in theoretical physics and a PhD in mathematics from the University Pierre et Marie Curie and a PhD in Finance from the University Pantheon Sorbonne.
Professor Geman has been a scientific advisor to major financial institutions and energy and mining companies for the last 18 years, covering the spectrum of interest rates, catastrophic risk, oil, natural gas, electricity and metals. She was previously the head of Research and Development at Caisse des Depots. Professor Geman was the first president of the Bachelier Finance Society and has published more than 95 papers in top international finance Journals including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Mathematical Finance. She is a Member of Honor of the French Society of Actuaries. Professor Geman's research includes interest rates and catastrophic insurance, asset price and commodity forward curve modeling, hedge funds and alternative investments, as well as exotic option pricing for which she won the first prize of the Merrill Lynch Awards in 1994. Her work on catastrophic options and CAT bonds and book Insurance and Weather Derivatives (1998) received the AFIR (actuarial approach to financial risk) prize. Prof Geman was named in 2004 in the Hall of Fame of Energy Risk and received in July 2008 the ISA medal for Sciences of the Alma Mater University of Bologna for the CGMY model, a pure jump Levy process widely used in finance since 2002.
Her reference book Commodities and Commodity Derivatives: Energy, Metals and Agriculturals was published by Wiley Finance in January 2005. Prof Geman is a Member of the Board of the UBS-Bloomberge Commodity Index. She edited in 2009 the book Risk Management in Commodity Markets, Wiley Finance.
John Guerard
McKinley Capital
John B. Guerard, Jr., Ph.D., is Director of Quantitative Research at McKinley Capital Management, in Anchorage, Alaska. He earned his AB in Economics from Duke University, MA in Economics from the University of Virginia, MSIM from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Texas, Austin. John taught at the McIntire School of Commerce, the University of Virginia, Lehigh University, and Rutgers University. John taught as an adjunct faculty member at the International University of Monaco and the University of Pennsylvania. He worked with the DAIS Group at Drexel, Burnham, Lambert, Daiwa Securities Trust Company, Vantage Global Advisors, and served on the Virtual Research team at GlobeFlex Capital. John co-managed a Japanese equity portfolio with Harry Markowitz at Daiwa Securities Trust Company. While serving as Director of Quantitative Research at Vantage Global Advisors (formerly MPT Associates), Mr. Guerard was awarded the first Moskowitz Prize for research in socially responsible investing. Mr. Guerard has published several monographs, including The Handbook of Financial Modeling (Probus, 1989, with H.T. Vaught), Corporate Financial Policy and R&D Management (Wiley, 2006, second edition), Quantitative Corporate Finance (Springer, 2007, with Eli Schwartz) and The Handbook of Portfolio Construction: Contemporary Applications of Markowitz Techniques (Springer, 2009). John serves an Associate Editor of the Journal of Investing and The International Journal of Forecasting. Mr. Guerard has published research in The International Journal of Forecasting, Management Science, the Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Investing, Research in Finance, Research Policy, and the Journal of the Operational Research Society.
Chris Hovis
Earnest Partners
Chris Hovis is responsible for research and portfolio management at EARNEST Partners. Prior to joining EARNEST Partners, he served as a Senior Analyst with Morgan Keegan where he was recognized as a top-ranked analyst by the Wall Street Journal in 2007 for U.S. Software. His extensive background also includes experience in the high-tech industry and in Equity Research with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey and CQ Partners. Previously, he was VP of Marketing and Business Development at Lancope, and a senior software engineer at Intel and Alliance Semiconductor. He holds an MBA with Distinction from The Wharton School of Business and Bachelor degrees with Highest Honors in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech and in Physics from Centre College.
Melanie Petsch
Petsch Analytics, LLC
Melanie Petsch is the Principal and Senior Quantitative Researcher at Petsch Analytics, LLC, a consulting firm she recently founded. Ms. Petsch has fourteen years of experience doing quantitative financial research on Wall Street, with five on the buy-side preceded by nine on the sell-side including eight at Goldman Sachs writing quantitative equity and commodities research.
Ms. Petsch has published in various practitioner journals, including a paper that won an award for "Outstanding Article" in the Journal of Portfolio Management and the lead article in the inaugural issue of the II journal Risk Finance. Ms. Petsch has also written a book, Commodities of an Asset Class, and chapters of other books on commodities.
Ms. Petsch studied in the finance Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University.
Aram Sogomonian
Edison Mission Energy
Aram G. Sogomonian is Vice President and Head of Risk Management at Edison Mission Energy a competitive power generation producer and subsidiary of Edison International. Aram's responsibilities include taking a lead role in the risk management activities for the EMMT business and assisting in the design and implementation of an Enterprise Wide risk organization. Prior to EME, Aram was Senior Vice President and Head of the Risk Management Group at Constellation Energy Resources the full-service global commodities business of Constellation Energy Group. Dr. Sogomonian received his Ph.D in Management Science from the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, a master of science degree in Operations Research and bachelor of arts degrees in Applied Mathematics and Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.
Savita Subramanian
Merrill Lynch
Savita Subramanian is the head of U.S. Quantitative Strategy within the Investment Strategy Group of Merrill Lynch. She is responsible for developing and marketing the firms quantitative equity strategies to institutional and individual clients. She has been with the team since 2001. Prior to Merrill Lynch, Savita was an analyst at Scudder Kemper Investments in New York and San Francisco. Savita frequently appears in print and media journalism and is a regular guest speaker at financial conferences. She is on the membership committee of Q Group, and is a member of the Chicago Quantitative Alliance, the Society of Quantitative Analysts and Women on Wall Street. Savita received a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in Mathematics and Philosophy with honors from University of California at Berkeley, and an MBA degree from Columbia University, with a concentration in Finance.
Zhaoou Yu
Goldman, Sachs & Co.
Currently Zhaoou Yu is a Muni Structured Product Strategist at Goldman Sachs, responsible for credit derivatives modeling for the Muni desk of Goldman Sachs. Prior to that he was a CVA (Credit Valuation Adjustment) Strategist and a Market Risk Strategist covering firmwide credit/mortgage products at Goldman Sachs. Before joining Goldman Sachs in 2005 he served as a Credit Analytics Modeler at AMBAC Financial Group and a Credit Risk Portfolio Manager at Hypovereins Bank. Certificates: Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), 2007 Education: Ph.D. in Physics, Yale University (2002); B.S., University of Science and Technology of China (1997)