SMIFC 2024 Conference Speakers
Speakers
Tyler Wood, CMT
Managing Director, CMT Association
Tyler is a familiar voice to many as the co-host of Fill the Gap: the official podcast of the CMT Association and a regular guest in University classrooms through the Academic Partner Program. Tyler is also the co-founder of GoNoGo Charts, a data visualization tool that simplifies market analysis to remove emotional bias from investment decisions.
Prior to joining the CMT Association, Tyler worked in management consulting and publishing. As an executive manager over the past 20 years, he has managed product, brand communications, and sales teams to drive top-line revenue growth for public, private, and non-profit entities.
When he is not immersed in markets, Tyler is hiking the Adirondacks with his family or playing percussion for various bands along the east coast. Tyler graduated from Macalester College and received his MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.
Buff Dormeier, CMT
Partner and Chief Technical Analyst, Kingsview Partners
Buff Dormeier, CMT® provides four important roles to our clientele that of a financial advisor, consultant, analyst, and a portfolio manager. Armed with proprietary indicators and investment programs, Buff dynamically advises affluent and institutional clientele on strategies to help meet their specific investment objectives in what are often uncertain investment climates. As an advisor, Buff has been named a “Best in State Wealth Advisor” by Forbes*. As an analyst in 2007, Buff’s technical research was awarded the Charles H. Dow Award**, distinguishing him as the only financial advisor to thus far win the Award. The Charles H. Dow Award is considered one of the most important recognitions in the field of technical analysis. As an accomplished portfolio manager applying advanced technical/quant analysis, some simply refer to Buff as “the geek”.
However, Buff considers himself to be an evangelist of sorts. He enjoys sharing his investment theories as a foremost expert on volume analysis presenting at international conferences such as TradeStation’s World Conference, Latin America’s Portfolio Manager’s Conference, and the World Money Show.
An award-winning author (2012’s Technical Analyst Book of the Year / Trader Planet’s Top Book Resource 2011), Buff literally wrote the book on “Investing with Volume Analysis” partnering with the Financial Times Press, Pearson Publishing and the Wharton School. Buff’s research has been further featured with press partners including Barron’s, Stock’s & Commodities, Futures and Active Trader magazines, The Financial Times, C-NBC, Market Watch as well as a variety of technical journals. Buff is featured in “Technical Analysis and Behavior Finance in Fund Management” – a European book comprised of interviews with 21 esteemed portfolio managers.
Buff is a former Fort Wayne / Indiana Marathon champion. Although his competitive distance training is on hold, Buff still enjoys a good long run on occasion. Buff is a member of the Chartered Market Technicians Association and Emmanuel Community Church. He is married to his beloved bride Kathy, father of two adored children Hadassah and Kaleo, and best friend to his Rhodesian Ridgeback Dutch.
Rob Langrick, CFA, CIPM
General Manager of the CFA Program
Rob Langrick, CFA, CIPM, is General Manager of the CFA Program based out of the New York office. He was previously Head of Practice Analysis, overseeing annual curriculum updates to the CFA Program. Before joining CFA Institute, he lead Bloomberg’s finance education division where he built and launched Bloomberg’s certification product. He began his career as a sell-side equity research analyst in London and after earning his MBA from Dartmouth worked in the private equity diligence unit of Bain & Company in New York
Dr. Terry Daugherty
Dean, Scott College of Business, Indiana State University
Daugherty earned his B.A. at Western Kentucky University, his M.A. at the University of Alabama, and his Ph.D. at Michigan State University.
He was a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. After that, he went to the University of Texas at Austin as an assistant professor in the Department of Advertising. He started at the University of Akron in 2009 where he served on the faculty and in various administrative capacities, including department chair and assistant dean.
Daugherty’s scholarship is focused on examining consumer psychology and persuasion within digital marketing and advertising. He theorizes and empirically tests how individual characteristics and media properties influence cognitive processing and consumer behavior.
Dr. Tarek Zaher
Professor of Finance, Scott College of Business, Indiana State University
Tarek Zaher has held a number of professional positions with the industry and provided consulting services to a number of international institutions including the World Bank, the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan, and the Academy for Educational Development in the United States and the Ministry of Work in Dubai. He has also offered a number of seminars in investment and international financial management at a number of institutions around the world.
Dr. Zaher is SMIFC Managing Director and Co-founder and Co-Advisor of the Investment Club at Indiana State University. He also manages and supervises other international portfolios for individuals and institutions. Dr. Zaher’s research has been published in numerous prestigious professional and scholarly journals, including the Journal of Financial Research and Journal of Banking and Finance. Dr. Zaher received three research awards from professional conferences and one research certificate of excellence. He was also recognized by the Scott College of Business as the winner of the faculty research award in 2002 and the winner of the exemplary service award in 2004.
Charlie Bobrinskoy
Vice Chairman, Ariel Investments
Charlie manages Ariel's focused value strategy—an all-cap, concentrated portfolio of U.S. stocks. He also spearheads Ariel’s thought leadership efforts and takes an active role in representing Ariel’s investment strategies with prospective investors, clients and major media. Prior to joining Ariel in 2004, Charlie spent 21 years as an investment banker at Salomon Brothers and its successor company Citigroup, where he rose to managing director and head of North American investment banking branch offices. Charlie actively serves the Chicago community, sitting on the corporate boards of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company and ACI Worldwide as well as the boards of the Big Shoulders Fund, La Rabida Children’s Hospital Foundation, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation and the Chicago Club. He also teaches monthly investing classes at two Chicago inner-city schools. Charlie graduated with an AB in economics from Duke University and earned an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Grant Podolski, CFA, CAIA
Client Investment Strategist, LGIM America
Grant is a Client Strategist at LGIM America, a part of Legal & General Group, one of the top ten asset managers in the world by size. He is a CFA charterholder, Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) charterholder, and holds a Series 3 license registered with the NFA. He is involved in the CFA Society of Chicago and Out in Finance.
Grant’s role and career has focused on large institutional client engagement and ensuring custom investment solutions successfully achieve clients’ long-term objectives. Alongside clients, Grant designs, implements, and ensures the success of these custom investment solutions for some of the largest asset owners in the world. He primarily focuses on investment grade fixed income and a variety of derivatives-based strategies, with a focus on liability driven investing, exposure management, and interest rate hedging.
Grant joined LGIM America in 2020. Prior to LGIM America, Grant spent seven years in various positions at NISA Investment Advisors in St. Louis, focusing on Liability Driven Investment portfolio management and derivatives solutions. Grant earned a BS in Business Administration: Concentrations in Finance and Accounting, from Saint Louis University in St. Louis, MO.
Neha Shah, CFA
Associate Director, Federal Reserve Bank of New York (In Chicago)
Neha Shah is an Associate Director of the Mortgage Market staff within the Markets Group of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. She is responsible for thought leadership related to mortgage markets and for managing staff who conduct MBS market analysis and execute monetary policy operations within the agency MBS market.
Prior to starting in her current role in November 2021, over the course of 10 years with the New York Fed, she has held positions with the Money Markets and Treasury Markets staffs and was selected for a nine-month detail at the Department of Treasury within the Office of Capital Markets.
Neha holds a BA in Economics from New York University and an MA in International Affairs with a specialization in International Finance and Economic Policy from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. She also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Ano Glonti, MS
Founder and CEO of TradeUpToWallStreet LLC
Ano Glonti has her Master’s degree from Fordham University, where she majored in Global Finance with a specialization in Compliance and Risk Management. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Finance & Economics from George Mason University (GMU). She was a co-president of the risk committee of Montano Student Managed Investment Fund at GMU in 2018. Ano has an extensive background in financial services, with specific interest in financial modeling, business valuation, stock market and portfolio analysis. Ano has founded TradeUpToWallStreet in 2022 with the mission to increase financial literacy among students.
Madeline Hume, CFA
Senior Research Analyst, Morningstar Research Services LLC
Madeline Hume is a NEXT senior research analyst for Morningstar Research Services LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc. She covers new and emerging asset classes for Morningstar, including cryptocurrencies.
Before assuming her current role in 2021, Hume was a manager research analyst at Morningstar, covering multi-asset strategies.
Hume holds a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Illinois' Gies College of Business. She also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation.
Matt Moran
Head of Index Insights, Cboe Global Markets
Matt Moran is Head of Index Insights at Cboe Global Markets. In this role, Moran is focused on the exchange's educational efforts for pension funds, Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs), mutual funds, and other institutional investors. He has traveled to more than 100 cities worldwide to educate investors and deliver financial presentations. Prior to joining Cboe, Moran served as Trust Counsel at Harris Bank and Vice President at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He is an associate editor of The Journal of Beta Investment Strategies and has written articles for several financial publications, including The Journal of Trading and The Journal of Alternative Investments. Moran holds MBA and JD degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Blake Shaffer, CFA
Director, Capital Markets, Jones Lang Lasalle
Blake is a Director in the Corporate Capital Markets practice group advising corporate clients on capital strategies to optimize their financial alternatives regarding their real estate portfolios. Blake’s clientele ranges from Fortune 10 companies to lower-middle-market private equity sponsored portfolio companies. With a strong corporate finance acumen and background, Blake’s expertise includes in-depth knowledge of capital structuring, financial impact analyses, and financial reporting analysis for certain real estate transactions. Blake advises clients on executing sale-leasebacks, net lease sales, lease monetization transactions, acquisition sale leasebacks, build-to-suits, and other esoteric structured financing including synthetic lease and credit tenant lease transactions. Blake’s single-tenant expertise spans all major real estate asset classes including industrial, office, retail and data centers.
Prior to joining JLL, Blake worked at MB Financial Bank, a Chicago-based regional bank (now Fifth-Third Bank), as a commercial credit analyst supporting the Commercial Real Estate lending groups at the bank. Blake was responsible for gathering and analyzing due diligence, financial and quantitative analysis, and credit underwriting for $100M+ of commercial real estate loans in multiple markets in his first year.
Blake received his B.B.A. in Finance from the Tippie College of Business as well as a Certificate of Leadership Studies at the University of Iowa. Blake earned his Charter from the CFA Institute in September 2019. Blake is a licensed real estate broker in the state of Illinois (Lic. No. 475.184604). Blake is a member of the CFA Society of Chicago, the CFA Society of Chicago Member Engagement Advisory Group, and the Tippie College of Business Young Alumni Mentor Program.