James Burron

President

Canadian Association of Alternative Strategies and Assets

James co-founded CAASA in response to industry support for a Canadian alternatives association to serve all aspects including: hedge / alternative strategies; private lending; private real estate; private equity; plus emerging areas where Canada is a leader such as digital assets / blockchain and robo-advisors.

Prior to CAASA, James was the Chief Operating Officer of AIMA Canada where his team of three worked with 12 committees to produce 50-60 events per annum across Canada, organize 100+ committee meetings, and increase member numbers over his 7-year tenure from 66 to 164 corporate entities.

James also has experience in research and writing for the CAIA Association as well as serving on CAIA’s Exam Council and as a grader for the Level II portion of the exam. He also had roles in institutional sales and FoHF structuring in Seoul, South Korea, as a Product Manager at ICICI Wealth Management, and an Investment Advisor at RBC Dominion Securities. He graduated from Simon Fraser University with a BBA (Finance).

Fred Pye

President & CE0

3iQ Corp

Frederick T. Pye is the President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Compliance Officer of 3iQ Corp. Mr. Pye is recognized for creating and promoting creative and unique investment products for the investment industry.

Mr. Pye has managed private client portfolios with Landry Investment Management and various other investment dealers. Prior to this Mr. Pye was Founder, President & Chief Executive Officer of Argentum Management and Research Corporation, a company dedicated to managing and distributing quantitative investment portfolios including the first long-short mutual fund in Canada.

He was also Senior Vice-President and National Sales Manager of Fidelity Investments Canada and an integral part of the team that saw assets rise from $80 million to over $7.5 billion in assets under management during his tenure. He also held various positions with Guardian Trust Company, which listed the first Gold, Silver and Platinum Certificates on the Montreal Exchange.

Mr. Pye obtained a Masters in Business Administration from Concordia University and is a member of the Board of the Anglican Funds and the West Island Youth Residence.

Colin Kilgour

Co-Founder and Managing Director

Kilgour Williams Capital

Colin Kilgour is the founder and president of Kilgour Williams Capital, the portfolio manager of Kiwi Private Credit Fund which is the first Canadian-managed investment fund dedicated to the marketplace lending space. Colin founded Kilgour Williams in 2007, initially to provide advice, risk assessment, valuation, and access to liquidity for Canadian investors who were burdened with restructured Asset Backed Commercial Paper in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. Kilgour Williams Capital has advised on over $2 billion of these structured notes. Colin previously founded and sold a finance company that provided accounts receivable financing to North American companies and funded those receivables with unique securitization techniques he developed. Early in his career, he spent 10 years as a management consultant for financial institutions in Canada, the US, UK and Europe.

Mark Stacey

Senior Vice-President, Co-CIO AGFiQ Quantitative Investing, Head of Portfolio Management

AGF Investments Inc.

Mark Stacey is Senior Vice-President and Co-CIO AGFiQ Quantitative Investing, Head of Portfolio Management at AGF Investments Inc. (AGF). Mark leads the firm’s investment management functions for AGF’s quantitative investment platform, AGFiQ. AGFiQ’s team approach is grounded in the belief that investment outcomes can be improved by assessing and targeting the factors that drive market returns. In addition, Mark is a member of the Office of the CIO – a leadership structure within AGF’s Investment Management Team that encourages and further embeds collaboration and active accountability across the team and broader organization. He began his career with AGF as part of the Highstreet Investment Management* team and has been in the industry since 2002 applying quantitative and qualitative management techniques to the portfolio management process. He previously served as a Portfolio Manager with a major life insurance company. He earned an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business, an MIR from the University of Toronto and is a CFA® charterholder.

*Highstreet Asset Management Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of AGF Investments Inc.  

John Norman

Portfolio Manager

Spartan Fund Management (Perisen Funds)

John is a board director and portfolio manager for the Perisen Funds at Spartan Fund Management. He co-founded Perisen in 2009 with Rick Brooks-Hill to pioneer the life settlement market in Canada. Prior to starting Perisen, John spent 17 years in the asset management industry in various portfolio management and sales & marketing capacities including co-founding a mutual fund company which was subsequently listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. He was Portfolio Manager & Vice President at J. Zechner Associates between 2005 and 2008, Portfolio Manager with Phillips Hager & North from 1997 to 2005 and began his career at Burns Fry in 1993. John received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Western Ontario in 1991, earned the Canadian Investment Manager (CIM) designation in 1998 and the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 1999.

Christopher Rapcewicz

Director of Risk and Operations

Helmsley Charitable Trust

Christopher Rapcewicz is Director of Risk and Operations at the Helmsley Charitable Trust. He is part of the development and implementation of the overall investment strategy and is principally responsible for the risk management of Helmsley’s investments across all asset classes and for ensuring the integrity and effectiveness of the investment operations. Christopher received the Investor Intelligence Award: Risk Management in 2016.
Prior to joining Helmsley, Christopher was chief risk officer and global head of quantitative solutions at UBP Asset Management,
a multi-billion dollar fund of funds. Prior to that he was vice president of risk at Blackstone Alternative Asset Management where he was involved in all aspects of hedge fund risk management. He was also responsible for the selection of quantitative and systematic hedge funds. Christopher joined Blackstone after four years at Measurisk, a risk measurement vendor that was acquired by MSCI in 2010. At Measurisk, he was managing director responsible for the development and operation of the core risk factory. Christopher received a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Cornell University and his B.Sc. (summa cum laude) from McMaster University in Canada. He has worked as a risk professional for 17 years.

Jonathan Planté

Business Development & Investor Relations

Innocap

Jonathan Planté is Director of Business Development at Innocap, a premier managed account platform for institutional investors. He focuses on structuring investment programs by customizing risk, governance, legal and operational frameworks. To develop effective solutions, Jonathan believes in building partnerships that empower clients with control and transparency.

During his 13 years in the alternative investments industry, he has held various roles across North America and Europe in private and public markets. Jonathan holds a graduate degree in Finance from HEC Montréal, a Master’s degree in International Business Development from ESC Saint-Étienne and the CAIA designation. For the past 5 years, he has been a lecturer at HEC Montréal where he teaches alternative investments to graduate students. He is actively engaged in the field of applied neuroscience both in practice and through youth-centred social initiatives. He is the founder of 4 Next Generation, which advocates for social coherence by advancing children’s cognitive development and learning. He also serves on the Leadership Council of Capitalize for Kids, a non-profit organization focused on building capacity and solutions in support of children’s brain and mental health.

Chris Addy

Founder and CEO

Castle Hall Diligence

Chris is the Founder and CEO of Castle Hall, where he leads a team of more than 80 professionals conducting operational, ESG, risk and cyber due diligence on behalf of more than 100 asset owners worldwide.

Chris is one of the industry’s very first operational due diligence professionals. After audit experience with both Deloitte and PwC, Chris began his due diligence career in 1997 with the Atlantic Philanthropies (a multi billion dollar foundation and early hedge fund investor). Chris then joined UBP (2001) and co-founded Amber Partners (2004).

Chris is an advocate for enhanced best practices across the asset management industry. In addition to his work at Castle Hall, he is a member of the CFA Institute Global Industry Standards Steering Committee, and is a founding member of the Executive Committee of the Fund Governance Association. Chris also served for 6 years (2011-2016) as a member of the CFA Institute Capital Markets Policy Council, acting as Chair for a maximum three-year term.

Chris is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and is a CFA Charterholder.

Brandon Gill New

Senior Portfolio Manager – Capital Markets Group

OPTrust

Brandon Gill New is a Senior Portfolio Manager in the Capital Markets Group at OPTrust.  In her role, she provides strategic direction and oversight over a number of strategies within the plan’s portfolio of C$6B externally-managed public-markets funds.

Prior to joining OPTrust in early 2018, Brandon was a Director at BMO Capital Partners, a proprietary private debt and equity fund at Bank of Montreal.  She also spent a decade at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.  There, she served as a Portfolio Manager in the Alternative Investments Division managing a portfolio of global hedge funds and esoteric investment funds, and as an Assistant Portfolio Manager in the Public Equities Division covering Emerging Markets equities.

Brandon holds an MBA from London Business School and a B.A. in International Economics from Middlebury College in Vermont.  She is also a CFA Charterholder.

Dr. Luis Seco

President & CEO

Sigma Analysis & Management

Luis Seco is a co-founder and the President and CEO of Sigma Analysis & Management. He started his career in financial risk management in 1996, while a Professor at the University of Toronto, creating the RiskLab, a research center that serviced the financial sector in Toronto in the area of risk management. Sigma started in 1999 as a spin-off of research activity at the RiskLab. He is currently the Director of the Mathematical Finance Program at the University of Toronto.
Prof. Seco holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University, and he was the Bateman Instructor at the California Institute of Technology. He has authored numerous papers in financial risk management, investments and market models, has won a number of research awards and is an active participant in professional organizations, including CAASA and PRMIA.

Zoya Shchupak

Managing Partner

Innovobot

Zoya Shchupak is a Managing Partner of Innovobot Fund I.  Ms Shchupak is a seasoned executive with 25 years’ experience in the financial services industry.  Zoya has served as a strategy and M&A consultant at Sagard Holdings, CFO and Head of Corporate Development at Fairstone Financial (formerly CitiFinancial Canada) and held senior positions at Desjardins Venture Capital, CIBC World Markets and Scotia Capital Markets.

Ms. Shchupak earned a graduate diploma in public accountancy and an MBA from McGill University and holds the CA/CPA designation.  Zoya has held positions on several boards, both corporate and non-profit and is currently a board and audit committee member of mdf commerce inc. (TSX:MDF).

Sebastian Zhou

Director of Investments

Alpha Square Group

Founded in 2015, Alpha Square Group (ASG) is a pioneer Asian-background Single Family Office based in NYC.

As a multi-asset class investment firm, we have well divided our allocation across private and public markets. On the private side, we primarily invest in growth to late-stage technology companies under enterprise software and Fintech sectors. Our goal as a strategic investor is to leverage our global network and provide value-add to brilliant entrepreneurs who have international expansion potential.

So far, we have allocated into 30+ portfolios on private side. Selected recent investments include Figure, AvidxChange, Peerstreet, SoFi, Oscar Health, Netskope, Cloudwise, Symbiont and ezCater etc.

Sebastian Zhou joined Alpha Square as technology growth investor since 2017. Prior to joining ASG, he worked at Guotai Asset Management, a $324bn asset manager, focusing on capital allocation of various asset classes across US and Asia. Earlier still, Sebastian worked at Search Fund Accelerator – most advanced accelerator in the search fund world, helping to make acquisitions on recurring-revenue business and operations.

Sebastian holds a B.S. in Management, concentrations in Finance and Information Systems from Boston College.

Steven Abrams

Partner, IT Venture, Strategic Investments and Women in Tech Funds

BDC

Steven Abrams is Partner in BDC Capital’s IT Venture Fund, and Strategic Investments and Women in Technology Venture Funds. He joined BDC in 2001, after almost nine years in investment banking with ScotiaMcLeod and two years as CFO of an interactive advertising agency.

As Director of Corporate Finance at ScotiaMcLeod, Steven participated in many IPOs, privatizations, M&A advisory mandates, and equity and debt financings for companies in sectors including technology, transportation and telecommunications. He previously worked for Diesel Marketing (now Sid Lee), where he raised a first round of venture capital, did three acquisitions, established two start-ups, and helped grow the company from 15 to 145 people. He started his career as a computer programmer.

Based in Montreal, Steven works with BDC portfolio companies across Canada. He is a Board Director or Observer in many of these companies. He is a charter member of the C100, a network of Canadians VCs and tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.

Steven holds an MBA in Finance from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Computer Science from McGill University.