Annual Nordic Institutional Investor Forum

Patrick Bronger

Portfolio Manager, APG Asset Management

Drs. Patrick Bronger has been an Expert Portfolio Manager for Hedge Funds and Alternative Alpha at APG Asset Management based in Amsterdam since 2017. He also has been a Senior Lecturer in Investment Management at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam since 2002.

Between 2014 and 2017, Patrick was Chief Investment Officer & Member Executive Board at Conservatrix Group in Baarn. Prior to that, he was Head of Investment Strategy at ASR Nederland in Utrecht in 2010-2014. He also worked as Senior Portfolio Manager responsible for Hedge Funds & Tactical Asset Allocation between 2002 and 2010. In 1999-2002 he was an option trader at the German Derivatives Exchange Eurex. Between 1994 and 1999, Patrick was a researcher and a lecturer at Rotterdam School of Management.

Patrick followed the PhD programme at Rotterdam School of Management. He has a Master’s Degree in Financial Modelling from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam as well as a Master’s Degree in Philosophy from Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is a non-executive board member of several organizations in the healthcare sector and the cultural sector.

Rosie Conder

Responsible Investment Manager, CQSM

Rosie is Responsible Investment Manager at CQS, supporting the Portfolio Managers, Research team and wider business with the integration of environmental, social and governance considerations. She is co-Chair of the Engagement Group and a member of the Responsible Investment Governance Committee.

Prior to joining CQS, Rosie was a Global Investment Consultant at Mercer, advising UK and international pension schemes in over 150 countries on all aspects of the investment cycle, including how to integrate sustainability policies and ESG beliefs across asset classes. She also advised multinational corporates on diversity and inclusion, employee benefits and mergers and acquisitions.

Rosie holds a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics with Finance from the University of Liverpool, is a Chartered Financial Analyst charterholder and holds both the CFA UK Investment Management Certificate and Certificate in ESG Investing.

Harold de Boer

Managing Director , Transtrend

Harold is the architect of our Diversified Trend Program, responsible for R&D, portfolio management and trading. Harold was born and raised on a dairy farm in Drenthe. And from a young age, he has been intrigued by linking mathematics to the real world around us.

In the final phase of his studies, while working on the project that would later become Transtrend, he became fascinated by the concept of leptokurtosis — or ‘fat tails’ — in probability distributions, a topic which has inspired him throughout his career. Harold’s approach to markets is best described as a combination of a farmer’s common sense and mathematics, never losing sight of the underlying fundamentals.

Thomas Deinet

Executive Director, SBAI

Thomas Deinet was appointed Executive Director of the SBAI (previously known as the HFSB) in 2008. In 2007, Thomas joined the working group to project manage the development of practice standards proposed by 14 leading international alternative investment managers that led to the establishment of the SBAI.

Prior to joining the SBAI, he was a senior manager at Oliver Wyman, where he extensively worked with major financial institutions in Europe covering asset management as well as corporate and investment banking. Thomas also worked as an analyst in energy trading for a major commodities trading firm.

Thomas is a graduate of the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, with a major in industrial engineering and holds an MSc from Purdue University, USA. Thomas is a CFA charterholder.

Gregoire Dooms

Head of Sustainability , Systematica

Grégoire joined Systematica at launch in January 2015 as a Product Manager. He has responsibility for the firm’s Alternative Risk Premia strategies, the BlueMatrix Equity Market Neutral strategy and leads the firm’s efforts in Responsible Investments and Corporate Social Responsibility. Prior to joining Systematica, Grégoire worked as a Product Manager at BlueCrest.

Grégoire joined BlueCrest in July 2008 from Brown University where he gained post doctorate experience as a researcher in Computer Science, specialising in solving large scale dynamic stochastic optimization problems. Whilst at Brown he helped launch Dynamic Decision Technologies Inc. (a Brown University spin-off).  Grégoire holds a PhD in Applied Sciences from UCLouvain, Belgium. 

Pontus von Essen

Head of Strategy, AP7

Pontus von Essen is responsible for developing the business strategy for The Seventh Swedish National Pension Fund (AP7). He acts as an advisor to the CEO and deputy CEO in both business, strategy and macro analysis. Previously he was Head of Fixed Income, FX and Alpha at AP7, managing a team of four PMs.

Mr von Essen has over fifteen years of asset management and capital markets experience. Previously, he was Deputy CIO at Ericsson Pension Management with assets of 8bn USD. Earlier in his career he held positions within proprietary trading and institutional sales at the Swedish bank, SEB.

Mr von Essen holds a Master of Science in Finance with a major in Investments from the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE).

Stuart Fiertz

Co-Founder, President and Director of Research, Cheyne Capital Management

Stuart Fiertz is the Co-Founder, President and Director of Research of Cheyne Capital. From 1991 to June 2000, and prior to establishing Cheyne Capital, Stuart worked for Morgan Stanley where he was responsible for the development and implementation of customised portfolio strategies and for credit research in the convertible bond management practice.

Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Stuart was an equity research analyst for the Value Line Investment Survey, and a high yield credit analyst in Boston at Merrill Lynch and in New York at Lehman Brothers. Stuart is a CFA® charterholder and a CAIA designee. He is chairman of the Alternative Credit Council (ACC) and a Founder & Trustee of the Standards Board for Alternative Investments (SBAI). From 2014 until 2020, Stuart was also a council director of the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) board.

Stuart has been awarded the CFA Certificate in ESG Investing. Stuart was educated at the International School of Geneva and at Dartmouth College where he was awarded a BA degree in Political Science and Economics.

Ilkka Harju

Director, Tax Department, Finnish Ministry of Finance

Ilkka Harju, graduated with a Master of Laws degree from the University of Helsinki in 1987 and joined the Ministry of Finance in 1992. He served almost 20 years (1998-2017) as an advisor to the director general and a member of the management group of the financial markets department and a deputy member of the board of the Financial Supervision Authority (1993-2008) and the board of Insurance Supervision Authority (1999-2008).

From March 2009 to September 2017 he was a Finnish member in the European Securities Committee (ESC) within the EC (DG FISMA). He was a member of an expert group on removing tax obstacles to cross-border venture capital investments (2008-2010). During the 1999 Finnish EU Presidency he was Council working group chairman in charge of the UCITS III Directive negotiations and was also the Finnish delegate in Council negotiations on various financial services directives and regulations. Since October 2017 he has mainly focused on tax issues with regard to financial services.

Tuomo Hietaniemi

Portfolio Manager, Private Debt & Infrastructure, Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Company

Tuomo Hietaniemi is an experienced private credit professional who works as private debt fund portfolio manager at Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Company in Finland. Previously Tuomo worked a decade with privately negotiated bilateral and club loans to mainly midcap companies and has invested a half a decade in European leveraged loans.

Tuomo holds a MSc in Economics and Business Administration from Helsinki School of Economics.

Helen Idenstedt

Head of External Partnerships & innovation, AP1

Helen Idenstedt is Head of External Partnerships and Innovations at AP1, the First Swedish National Pension Fund. The role includes actively managing AP1’s SDG aligned Private Equity portfolio as well as managing the team responsible for High Yield, Small Cap Equity and Emerging Market Equity investments. She has over 16 years of experience in the alternative asset management industry. Helen joined AP1 in 2015.  Prior to joining AP1, Helen worked as Head of Product Management and Risk Manager at RPM. RPM is an alternative investment house, focusing on directional investment strategies, specifically Managed Futures and Global Macro.

She started her career as a statistician at Statistic Sweden and holds a Master in Mathematical Statistics as well as a Bachelor in Economics.

Mika Jaatinen

Portfolio Manager Hedge and Equity Funds, Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Company

Mika Jaatinen is a Portfolio Manager of Elo’s Hedge Fund investments. Mika joined Pension Fennia (Pension Fennia and Pension Tapiola merged in 2014) in 2004 as a risk analyst covering Fennia’s capital market investments. Mika became portfolio manager of hedge fund investments in 2007. Mika has also been responsible for equity mutual fund selection in Fennia from 2010 until the merger with Pension Tapiola.

Mika holds an MSc in economics degree from the Jyväskylä University.

Chris Jones

Chief Executive, Graham Capital LLP

Chris Jones is Chief Executive of Graham Capital LLP, Graham Capital Management’s (GCM) London-based affiliate, and is responsible for managing the business operations of GCM’s London office. Founded by Kenneth G. Tropin in 1994, GCM is an alternative investment manager with approximately $18.9 billion in AUM as of November 1, 2022 and a diverse roster of global institutional and private client investors. The firm has three main pillars of its business, comprised of quantitative macro, discretionary-oriented, and blended macro trading strategies.

Prior to joining Graham in 2016, Dr. Jones was Managing Director and Head of Investment Advisory at bfinance, an investment consultancy, from March 2012 to February 2016, where he advised a variety of global institutional clients. From January 2005 to February 2012, Dr. Jones was Chief Investment Officer of Key Asset Management, a fund of hedge funds, where he was responsible for the oversight of the investment and risk management of several funds of hedge funds.

Dr. Jones is currently a Fellow of the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, where he lectures postgraduate courses on Alternative Investment Management. Dr. Jones received a BA in Mathematics from Oxford University in 1992 and a PhD in Mathematical Finance from the University of Cambridge in 2000.

Simon Judes

Co-Chief Investment Officer , Winton Group Ltd

Simon is Co-Chief Investment Officer, with overall responsibility for investment and research. He is also a member of Winton’s executive management and investment committees.

Simon joined Winton in 2008 as a researcher focused on designing commodity trading systems. In subsequent years he led research into new macro and equities trading strategies and portfolio construction methods, before taking overall responsibility for futures strategies in 2016.

Simon has a first-class honours degree in physics and philosophy from Oxford University, and a PhD in physics from Columbia University, with a thesis on string theory and cosmology.

Roman Kogan

Executive Vice President and Portfolio Manager, PIMCO

Mr. Kogan is an executive vice president and portfolio manager overseeing private real estate debt investment in Europe.

Prior to joining PIMCO in 2020, he was head of origination for U.S. commercial real estate and European head of commercial real estate at Deutsche Bank. Previously, Mr. Kogan worked in the structured credit groups at Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank and was a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy.

He has 16 years of investment experience and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School. He received an undergraduate degree from the United States Naval Academy.

Mikko Koivusalo

Head of Special Situations , Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company

Mikko Koivusalo Has been Head of Special Situations since the January 2022 and joined the company in 1997.

Before that he worked in equity asset management and credit analysis in Postipankki Oy (Danske Bank) 1991-97 and as an auditor in Salmi, VIrkkunen & Helenius Oy (PWC) 1988-91.

He holds MSc degree (accounting) at Helsinki School of Economics, Finland.

Henrik Kruse

Head of Distribution Nordics and Country Head, abrdn

Henrik Kruse joined Aberdeen Asset Management Denmark A/S in September 2008 and holds the position as Head of Distribution Nordics and Country Head. Henrik is responsible for the management of the Danish office and also the primary responsible for sales and customer relationship management with new and existing clients/investors in Denmark. Additionally, he is responsible for the management of the Business Development teams in the Nordics. He studied at Copenhagen Business School graduating with a Diploma in Business Administration (Finance) 1994.

Eveliina Leino

Sustainability Manager , Veritas Pension Insurance Company

Eveliina Leino is Sustainability Manager at Veritas Pension Insurance Company. She is responsible for coordinating and developing the corporate responsibility and sustainable investment activities.

Prior to her current role, she worked as a Responsible Investment Specialist and Corporate Responsibility Specialist.

Eveliina holds a MSc in Economics from University of Vaasa. She is a CESGA (Certified ESG Analyst) holder.

Abraham Lioui

Professor of Finance, EDHEC Business School

Abraham Lioui is Professor of Finance at EDHEC Business School where he was also Head of Data Science, Economics and Finance faculty and Director of the Ph D program in Finance. He is doing research on portfolio construction, derivatives risk management and factor models for asset pricing with a recent focus on ESG and climate finance. Research output has been published in several academic outlets including Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis and Management Science.

Maria Long

Research and Content Director , SBAI

Maria Long joined the SBAI as Research & Content Director in August 2020. She is responsible for content development and co-ordination of the ongoing and future working groups on a wide variety of topics, including governance, insurance linked strategies, standardisation of disclosure, valuation, alternative credit, responsible investment, asset management regulation and compliance as well as new topics to be determined in the future.

Prior to the SBAI, Maria spent 12 years at Man FRM, most recently in Operational Due Diligence (2015-2020) and before that as Head of FRM Middle Office (2008-2015). Maria also has worked in Fund Administration in Dublin and in Operations at Investment Managers in London.

Maria received an BSc Natural Sciences (Astronomy & Planetary Science) with First Class Honours in 2017 from The Open University.

Alexandre Marquis

Director, Head of Client Portfolio Management, Unigestion

Alexandre Marquis, CFA, Director, is Head of Client Portfolio Management within the Equities team and a member of the Equities Investment Committee and the Responsible Investment Committee. He joined Unigestion in November 2012.

Alexandre began his career in 2010 as Portfolio Analyst in Securitisation at Credit Agricole CIB Paris. In 2011, he joined Credit Agricole CIB New York as Portfolio Analyst focusing on Transaction Modeling and Reporting Automation.

Alexandre holds a Master in Science from Ecole Centrale Nantes in France where he graduated with a specialisation in IT and Finance.

Emanuel Moench

Professor of Financial and Monetary Economics, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management

Emanuel Moench is Professor of Financial and Monetary Economics at Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. Prior to joining Frankfurt School, Emanuel was the Head of Research of Deutsche Bundesbank. In that role he co-lead the workstream on climate change and monetary policy as part of the ECB’s framework review.

Emanuel started his career as a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. His work on the intersection of macroeconomics and finance and has been published in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, and the Journal of Monetary Economics among others. He received the Journal of Finance’s Amundi Smith Breeden First Prize in 2015 and the European Economic Association's Young Economist Award in 2008. Emanuel obtained a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Economics from Humboldt University Berlin and an M.A. in Statistics from ENSAE.

Jason Mitchell

Co-Head of Responsible Investment, Man Group

Jason Mitchell is Co-Head of Responsible Investment at Man Group and co-chairs Man Group’s Stewardship and Active Ownership Committee. He has held this position since July 2018.

Jason worked at Man GLG from 2004 to 2008 as a portfolio manager. Between 2008 to 2010, he advised the UK government on infrastructure development across Sub-Saharan Africa. He returned to Man GLG in 2010 as a portfolio manager, before becoming a sustainability strategist across Man Group in 2017.

Prior to Man GLG, he was a Vice President at Andor Capital Management and an investment research analyst with Pequot Capital Management.

Jason serves on the Esmée Fairbairn Investment Committee, SASB (Sustainable Accounting Standards Board) Investor Advisory Group, the CFA Institute’s ESG Technical Committee, the World Bank Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC) Advisory Group and the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) Academic Advisory Committee. He previously served on the EFRAG (European Financial Reporting Advisory Group) Lab Steering Group and chaired the PRI Hedge Funds Advisory Committee.

Jason holds a MSc in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s degree in English literature and classics. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and the British-American Project. He was named one of Institutional Investor’s 2011 Hedge Fund Rising Stars.

Ann-Sofie Odenberg

Head of Sustainability, Brummer & Partners

Ann-Sofie Odenberg is Head of Sustainability at Brummer & Partners and advises all Investment Managers in the Brummer & Partners group on sustainability related matters such as responsible investment policy development, ESG integration practises, sustainable finance regulation, active ownership activities, and reporting and communication. Ann-Sofie is also a member of Brummer & Partners’ Responsible Investment Committee which sets the strategic direction and priorities for the group’s sustainability activities. Ann-Sofie joined Brummer & Partners in 2008 as Executive Advisor and has held various positions in the group, for example as Head of Investor Communication and Sustainability, before starting to focus full time on sustainability and responsible investment in 2016.

Prior to joining Brummer & Partners Ann-Sofie was a regulatory consultant at Kinetic Partners in London focusing on governance related projects in the finance industry, particularly for hedge funds. Previously she was an analyst for a private equity fund focusing on financial institutions in Eastern Europe.

Ann-Sofie holds a Master of Science in Business and Economics from Stockholm School of Economics and her master thesis focused on corporate social responsibility.

Emlyn Palmer

Partner, Head of ESG Investing , Albourne Partners

Emlyn joined Albourne in 2019 and was appointed to lead the development of Albourne’s ESG Investing offerings in July 2020. Emlyn has spent over 20 years in various senior roles in the Alternative Investments industry mostly at Saguenay Strathmore Capital, a fund of funds manager and advisor, where he was Partner and COO.  He was founding COO of Endeavour Capital Management, a relative value fixed income hedge fund, from 2000 to 2003.  Prior to joining Albourne, Emlyn was at Keomo Investments, a company he founded principally to originate investments in Sub-Saharan Africa, and also CFO of Copper Street Capital.

Emlyn has a B.Eng (Hons) from Fourah Bay College, the University of Sierra Leone and an MSc in Business & Management Research from Henley Business School, the University of Reading.  Emlyn is a Chartered Accountant (FCA), having trained at Deloitte in London during the early 1990s. 

Iivo Paukkeri

Head of Investments , Aalto University Endowment

Iivo Paukkeri is the Head of Investments at Aalto University Endowment. Iivo joined the endowment in 2009 as a portfolio manager, focusing on investment strategy, asset allocation and manager selection.

Prior to moving to his current role, he was responsible for the endowment’s alternative risk investments, including hedge funds.

He holds MSc (Econ) from Aalto University School of Economics. Aalto University is a foundation-based university in Finland. 

Donald Pepper

Co-CEO, Trium Capital LLP

Donald joined Trium Capital in September 2017 as Co-CEO and is a member of Trium’s Investment Committee. Trium is a Multi-PM Liquid Alternatives firm set up in 2015.

Donald began his career in finance in Fixed Income Sales at Goldman Sachs in 1987, moving to Prime Brokerage Sales in 2000, where he was responsible for Relative Value, Multi-Strategy, Credit and Global Macro hedge funds. From 2003-2008 Donald was Managing Director of Prime Brokerage for EMEA at Merrill Lynch. In 2008 Donald moved to the buy-side, as Head of Hedge Funds at New Star Asset Management/Henderson Global Investors where his responsibilities included being Co-Portfolio Manager of two Fund of Hedge Funds. Donald was an Investment Director at TT International (2010-2012) before joining Old Mutual Global Investors (2012-2017) as Head of Alternatives. Donald’s responsibilities included being a member of the Style Premia Investment Committee.

Donald read Philosophy, Politics & Economics at The Queen’s College, Oxford where he received an MA. He is a CFA Charterholder and holds the CFA Certificate of ESG Investing.

Jukka Reijonen

Head of Alternative Investments, Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company

Jukka Reijonen is the Head of Alternative Investments at Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company. Mr Reijonen heads a department of 10 investment professionals investing in non-listed instruments in Private Equity, Private Credit, Infrastructure and Forest. Responsible of AUM ~12 Bn euros representing 20% of the Ilmarinen’s total assets.

Prior to joining Ilmarinen, Mr Reijonen was Director and Head of Real Investments at Etera Mutual Pension Insurance Company. Prior to this he held roles at Danske Bank. Royal Bank of Scotland, Kaupthing Bank, Municipality Finance and Postipankki Capital Markets and Asset Management.

Mr Reijonen holds a M.sc. Technology in Industrial Engineering.

John Richardson

Chief Operating Officer, Ionic Capital Management

He joined Ionic before it launched in 2006 and oversees all non-investment related aspects of the firm. Prior to joining Ionic, John was a senior attorney in the hedge fund practice group at Bingham McCutchen LLP in NY. John’s practice focused on counseling investment advisers in connection with the formation and management of private investment funds.

John obtained a JD from the University of South Carolina, cum laude, and a BS in Business Administration from the College of Charleston, cum laude.

Kai Rimpi

Senior Portfolio Manager, Hedge Funds, Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company

Kai Rimpi is responsible for Varma's hedge fund investments and joined the company in 2001. Rimpi has done hedge fund allocation and fund selection last +15 years. Prior to Varma he worked as a consultant for several years.

He holds an MSc degree (finance) from the University of Vaasa, Finland.

Vesa Syrjalainen

Responsible Investment Analyst, Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company

Vesa works as a responsible investment analyst at Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company, where he develops responsible investments across all asset classes.

Vesa holds a MSc in Finance from the University of Vaasa, and he is a CFA Charterholder.

Armi Taipale

Head of Department for Capital Markets Supervision , Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority

Armi Taipale is Head of Department for Capital Markets Supervision at the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA). She joined the FIN-FSA in 2019.

She has previously worked at the Ministry of Finance, Financial Markets Department as Head of the Unit for Capital Markets and Market Infrastructure and in various positions as economist and legislative counsellor. Prior to this she was also deputy board membership in the State Pension Fund of Finland and board membership in the Auditor Oversight Board of the Finnish Chambers of Commerce.

She has a master’s degree in Law from the University of Helsinki and a master’s degree in Economics from the Helsinki School of Economics (now part of Aalto University).

Antti Vartiainen

Senior Portfolio Manager, The State Pension Fund of Finland

Antti Vartiainen is a Senior Portfolio Manager at The State Pension Fund of Finland.

He Joined The State Pension Fund in 2007 as an Analyst in the Alternative Investments team mainly covering hedge funds. Currently, he is a Senior Portfolio Manager in the Position Management team and responsible for hedge fund investments.

Antti has a Msc. degree in finance from the Lappeenranta University of Technology.

Kari Vatanen

Chief Investment Officer , Veritas Pension Insurance Company

Kari Vatanen is the Chief Investment Officer at Veritas Pension Insurance Company (AUM EUR 4 billion). He is responsible for the whole investment management and asset allocation function of the company. In his previous roles, Kari worked as a head of cross asset derivatives as well as a chief risk officer in Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company, and as a quantitative analyst in various investment organizations.

As an investment practitioner, Kari has over 20 years of experience in the asset management industry and he has spent over 10 years trading derivatives on the equity markets, rates, FX and commodities, and by developing alternative risk premia strategies.

Kari holds a MSc in Engineering Mathematics from Helsinki University of Technology and a MA in Philosophy from University of Helsinki. He is a CFA Charterholder and holds the Financial Risk Manager (FRM) certification. He has been a speaker at several international quant and derivative conferences and written articles on risk management and alternative risk premia investing.

Sapna Vir

Director of External Relationships , New Holland Capital

Sapna Vir is the Director of External Relationships at New Holland Capital (NHC), an NYC-based hedge fund advisory company with discretionary and advisory vehicles for several pensions. The firm currently manages ~$20bn of assets in absolute return strategies across the liquidity spectrum. Sapna is responsible for overseeing manager sourcing efforts, peer relationships, and business development. She is an observer on the firm’s Investment Committee and a member of the firm’s ESG Committee. Sapna is also a member of the North American Committee of the Standards Board for Alternative Investments (SBAI).

Prior to joining NHC in 2014, Sapna was a Vice President within the Product Management team at Napier Park Global Capital (fka Citi Capital Advisors). She began her career in finance at Morgan Stanley in their Debt Capital Markets group specializing in structured solutions for insurance companies.

Sapna graduated from Georgetown University with a BSBA in Finance and International Business and received an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Despina Xanthopoulou

Director, Business Development and Sustainability, Lynx Asset Management AB

Despina has been with Lynx since 2015, responsible for business development in the Nordics including both institutional investors and third-party distribution. Despina also chairs Lynx´s ESG forum which coordinates the firm´s efforts with regards to responsible investment.

In 2006 she joined Länsförsäkringar Asset Management as a senior manager research analyst making large capital allocations to investment funds on a global basis across all asset classes with an emphasis on hedge funds.

After graduation Despina worked as an investment consultant and portfolio analyst providing asset management services to large institutional investors in the Nordics.

Despina holds an MSc in Business Administration and Economics, Finance from Stockholm University.

John Young

Chief Investment Officer , Orchard Global Asset Management

Mr. Young is the Chief Investment Officer for OGAM and senior portfolio manager for the Taiga Special Opportunities Fund, the EleganTree Fund, the Black Forest Fund and the EleganTree 2015 Tactical Fund. Mr. Young began working with OGAM in 2009 and joined full time as a principal in 2010.

Prior to OGAM, Mr. Young worked for Merrill Lynch International in London where he started and built up the Structured Illiquid Credit Trading desk, which executed a number of bespoke transactions including several regulatory capital-related trades. Before Merrill Lynch, Mr. Young worked for Deutsche Bank where he worked first in the firm’s Global Relative Value Group and then helped form a solutions-driven trading desk within the credit trading platform where he originated, structured and executed structured finance transactions. Mr. Young began his career in the property and casualty insurance sector where he specialized in working with natural resource companies to structure and place innovative insurance and re-insurance programs.

Mr. Young received his BA (Hons) from the Plan II Honors program at the University of Texas at Austin and earned his MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.