Robert Stammers, CFA, is director of Investor Education for CFA Institute. Prior to joining CFA Institute, Mr. Stammers was the principal for his founded company A2O Consulting where he consulted to aide real estate owners, lenders, and syndicators, develop and analyze structured real estate investments. There he developed strategy for obtaining debt and preferred equity capital as well as created finance related marketing materials and research papers for various clients. Mr. Stammers has authored over 100 articles on various financial and investment topics for several investment periodicals such as Forbes and Investopedia. He served as a senior equity analyst with Long Term Short Term, Inc, where he was responsible for the creation of new investment tools and instructional products to provide the revenues for two new investment education companies. As a senior executive for several institutional fund managers, Mr. Stammers was the portfolio manager for a $1 billion enhanced real estate fund, a $1.2 billion private timber fund, and several pension fund separate accounts. Mr. Stammers has his Bachelors of Arts in Economics from Connecticut College and his Masters in Business Administration from Emory University and obtained his CFA designation in 1997.
Ray Ruga is the Co-Founder of CVOX Group. He has over 20 years of diversified and specialized international political, governmental and corporate experience along with having worked for five U.S presidential campaigns, The White House, The Pentagon, a U.S. development agency and two Fortune 10 financial services companies.
Ben Wallace joined Henderson in 2011 as an Investment Manager. Prior to that, Ben was a Senior Investment Manager at Gartmore. Before joining Gartmore in 2002, Ben worked at Deutsche Asset Management, where he managed UK equity funds from 1997-2002. Ben graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a BCom (Hons). He is also a member of the UK Society of Investment Professionals.
Sharat Shroff is a Portfolio Manager at Matthews International Capital Management. He manages the firm’s Pacific Tiger and India strategies and co-manages the Asia Growth and Asia Focus strategies. Prior to joining Matthews in 2005 as a Research Analyst, Sharat worked in the San Francisco and Hong Kong offices of Morgan Stanley as an Equity Research Associate. Sharat received a Bachelor of Technology from the Institute of Technology in Varanasi, India and an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management, in Calcutta, India. He is fluent in Hindi and Bengali. Sharat has been a Portfolio Manager of the Matthews Pacific Tiger Fund since 2008, of the Matthews Asia Growth Fund since 2007, of the Matthews India Fund since 2006 and of the Matthews Asia Focus Fund since its inception in 2013.
Lydia So is a Portfolio Manager at Matthews International Capital Management. She manages the firm’s Asia Small Companies strategy and co-manages the Asia Science and Technology strategy. Prior to joining Matthews in 2004 as a Research Associate, Lydia was a Portfolio Associate at RCM Capital Management. She started her investment career at Kochis Fitz Wealth Management. Lydia received a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Davis. She is fluent in Cantonese and conversational in Mandarin.
Teresa Kong is a Portfolio Manager at Matthews International Capital Management and manages the firm’s Asia Strategic Income strategy. Prior to joining Matthews in 2010, she was Head of Emerging Market Investments at Barclays Global Investors, now known as BlackRock, and responsible for managing the firm’s investment strategies in Emerging Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America. She developed and managed strategies spanning absolute return, active long-only and exchange-traded funds. In addition to founding the Fixed Income Emerging Markets Group at BlackRock, she was also Senior Portfolio Manager and Credit Strategist on the Fixed Income credit team. Previously, Teresa was a Senior Securities Analyst in the High Yield Group with Oppenheimer Funds, and began her career with JP Morgan Securities Inc., where she worked in the Structured Products Group and Latin America Capital Markets Group. She received both a B.A. in Economics and Political Science and an M.A. in International Development Policies from Stanford University. She speaks Cantonese fluently and is conversational in Mandarin.
Robert Horrocks is Chief Investment Officer at Matthews International Capital Management, and a Portfolio Manager. He manages the firm’s Asian Growth and Income strategy and co-manages the Asia Strategic Income strategy. As Chief Investment Officer, Robert oversees the firm’s investment process and investment professionals and sets the research agenda for the investment team. Before joining Matthews in 2008, Robert was Head of Research at Mirae Asset Management in Hong Kong. From 2003 to 2006, Robert served as Chief Investment Officer for Everbright Pramerica in China, establishing its quantitative investment process. He started his career as a Research Analyst with WI Carr Securities in Hong Kong before moving on to spend eight years working in several different Asian jurisdictions for Schroders, including stints as Country General Manager in Taiwan, Deputy Chief Investment Officer in Korea and Designated Chief Investment Officer in Shanghai. Robert earned his PhD in Chinese Economic History from Leeds University in the United Kingdom, and is fluent in Mandarin
Nicolas Robin joined Threadneedle in 2010 and is the Co-Manager of the Threadneedle (Lux) Enhanced Commodities Fund. Nicolas started his career at Barep Asset Management (SG Group) in 2002, helping to set up a Commodity Arbitrage hedge fund desk. He became Co-Manager in 2004 and Lead Manager in 2005, seeing assets rise to US$200 million. The strategy was focused on relative value strategies in commodities and aimed to take advantage of short-term dislocations in commodity forward curves. In 2006 Nicolas joined JPMorgan Chase to run the bank’s commodity index trading book. During his tenure, index assets under management trebled making JPMorgan Chase a leading index dealer. Nicolas holds a BSc in Government and Economics and a MSc in Political Theory from the London School of Economics.
