James Burron

President and Co-Founder

CAASA

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).

Kerem Kolcuoglu

Managing Partner

Penrose Partners

Kerem is an MBA and the Managing Partner of Penrose Partners, a blockchain-focused consulting firm advising startups, enterprises, governments and investors on navigating the blockchain and digital assets space.

Kerem is an advisor to the Canadian Technology Accelerators and to the Premier’s Office of FinTech for the Bermuda Government. He is also a Founding Board Member of the Bermuda Innovation & Technology Association (BITA) and a Founding Partner of the i3 Innovation Incubator in Bermuda.

Previously at PricewaterhouseCoopers and at MLG Blockchain, he has consulted multinational enterprises, governments and educational institutions on understanding and adopting blockchain technology. Bridging his experience in multiple industries, he has foreseen change and advised clients on navigating digital transformation in an age of disruption.

Sarah Morton

Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder

MeetAmi

Sarah is the Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder of MeetAmi (“MeetAmi”) Innovations Inc, a Vancouver-based Fintech company that has built AmiPRO™, the first Digital Asset investing platform in Canada. AmiPRO takes wealth management firms from learning to liquidity with the software tools for trade execution and account management, an ecosystem of vendors, and learning to navigate the world of Digital Assets. The soon to launch Digital Asset Shelf™, a curated listing of Digital Asset and tokenized investment opportunities can be accessed through the AmiPRO platform. MeetAmi empowers advisors to confidently invest in Digital Assets while navigating the Digital Asset world.

Sarah provides strategic leadership and vision to MeetAmi’s team, guiding them to the next level of growth as they take the lead in creating the only Digital Asset investing platform in Canada that will eventually be used worldwide. Sarah is driving the strategy of a bold vision, the first of it’s kind while integrating learning, consulting, product and vendor selection into a compliance and workflow engine to meet Canada’s regulatory requirements.

Sarah is a serial entrepreneur, starting six companies, serving on several boards and acting as an advisor for over eight organizations during the past 19 years. She started her first company in 2005, seeing the opportunity for companies to essentially “rent” their IT computer needs rather than spend large amounts of capital to run their own. This concept eventually became known as Cloud Computing and today is ubiquitous.

Prior to MeetAmi, Sarah was the Chief Strategy Officer for PowerBD Solutions, a Vancouver-based private company, supplying green, renewable power to next generation compute intensive technologies such as blockchain, crypto mining, AI, VR/AR and rendering.

Sarah is a mentor and constant inspiration to many. Her ability to think generationally and keep her cool meeting challenging deadlines keeps MeetAmi’s team focused and confidently driving forward.

Sarah is continuing to oversee the launch of the AmiPRO Digital Asset investing platform during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s an ambitious project in which she is thriving, having worked with her co-founder to build a stellar team with the capabilities, experience and ambition to execute on this vision.

Contact Sarah at [email protected] .

Hashim Mitha

Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder

MeetAmi

Hashim is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of MeetAmi (“MeetAmi”) Innovations Inc., a Vancouver-based Fintech company that has built AmiPRO™, the first Digital Asset investing platform in Canada. AmiPRO takes wealth management firms from learning to liquidity with the software tools for trade execution and account management, an ecosystem of vendors, and learning to navigate the world of Digital Assets. The soon to launch Digital Asset Shelf™, a curated listing of Digital Asset and tokenized investment opportunities can be accessed through the AmiPRO platform. MeetAmi empowers advisors to confidently invest in Digital Assets while navigating the Digital Asset world.

Hashim is a bold visionary who is leading the expert team at MeetAmi to launch the first-ever Digital Asset investing platform in Canada, for wealth management advisors and firms. His authentic, strong leadership enables him to build a culture within organizations that lays a foundation for success. With AmiPRO, he is creating a platform of education, portfolio design tools, trade execution, and a reporting and compliance workflow engine that empowers advisors to invest in Digital Assets while meeting the regulatory requirements for proficiency, disclosure, suitability, and risk.

Throughout his career, Hashim has always had a passion for driving the adoption of new technologies and building effective teams to commercialize innovations. He knows how to restructure organizations for growth opportunities. In 2017 he led the turn-around of a premier Canadian provider of voice, data and media services which received the TSX Venture Top 50 Award as one of the strongest companies on the TSX Venture Exchange. Prior to that, he consolidated corporate learning organizations and created one of the largest education companies in the United Kingdom.

In 2017, Hashim started his journey into the world of Blockchain and Bitcoin learning about Cryptocurrencies, mining operations, liquidity pools, exchanges, custodial providers, investment challenges as well as understanding the regulatory landscape. In 2019, he established MeetAmi with his co-founder, Sarah Morton, to create a technology platform which gives advisors and firms the necessary education and tools to meet their clients’ growing demand for Digital Assets.

Hashim’s vision for the AmiPRO platform is to enable advisors to transact in Digital Assets on behalf of their clients, with a simple to use interface that provides tools and resources to comfortably navigate the world of Digital Assets. Investor demographics are changing and AmiPRO is poised to help firms meet the changing needs and interests of their clients. The AmiPRO interface, combined with how content is provided, will set new standards in Fintech and Regtech and helps to de-risk the process for investing in Digital Assets.

He holds a Bachelor of Applied Sciences in Mechanical Engineering from the University of British Columbia.

Benjamin R. Arnold

Founder and CEO

Meraki Global Advisors

As the Founder & CEO of Meraki Global Advisors, Benjamin Arnold is responsible for running all facets of the business. The concept of Meraki Global Advisors was a direct result of Ben’s rebellious determination to deliver conflict-free outsourced trading services to asset managers with an overriding objective of excellence.

Mr. Arnold has over 15 years of experience in the hedge fund and financial services industry spanning across the globe. Previously, he spent three years at Fillmore Advisors (acquired by INTL FCStone) where he was instrumental in growing the outsourced trading desk. Prior to his move back to the United States, Ben was an Executive Director on the Equity and Equity Derivatives Sales-Trading desk at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong and Mumbai, India. Before joining Goldman Sachs, Ben was a Vice-President on the Equity and Equity Derivatives Sales-Trading desk at BNP Paribas in Mumbai.

Ben began his career as a hedge fund trader with roles at Intrepid Capital Management and Asian Century Quest Capital in New York. He graduated from American University’s Kogod School of Business with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Finance.

Keith Black

Managing Director & Content Strategy

CAIA Association

Keith Black has over thirty years of financial market experience, serving approximately half of that time as an academic and half as a trader and consultant to institutional investors. He currently serves as Managing Director of Content Strategy for the CAIA Association. During his most recent role at Ennis Knupp + Associates, Keith advised foundations, endowments and pension funds on their asset allocation and manager selection strategies in hedge funds, commodities, and managed futures. Prior experience includes commodities derivatives trading, stock options research and CBOE floor trading, and building quantitative stock selection models for mutual funds and hedge funds. Dr. Black previously served as an assistant professor and senior lecturer at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

He contributes regularly to The CFA Digest, and has published in The Journal of Wealth Management, The Journal of Trading, The Journal of Investing, and The Journal of Alternatives Investments, among others. He is the author of the book “Managing a Hedge Fund,” as well as co-author of the second, third, and fourth editions of the CAIA Level I and Level II curriculum. Dr. Black was named to the Institutional Investor magazine’s list of “Rising Stars of Hedge Funds” in 2010.

Dr. Black earned a BA from Whittier College, an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University, and a PhD from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He has earned the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and was a member of the inaugural class of both CAIA and FDP members.

Austin Hubbell

Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder

Consilium Crypto

Austin is the CEO and co-founder of Consilium Crypto (https://consiliumcrypto.ai/), a big data company developing institutional grade investment analytics and liquidity access tools for the digital asset markets, helping funds find alpha and place large orders efficiently in times of thin liquidity. With a background in software development and machine learning, Austin brings a skillset balanced between technology and business. He previously worked with a distributed team based in L.A./San Francisco to build predictive models for crime hotspotting in major US cities, before shifting to the world of Finance to build machine learning trading systems for currency markets.

Steve Hawkins

President and CEO

Horizons ETFs

Steve Hawkins is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Horizons ETFs (a member of the Mirae Asset Global Investments Group), where he is responsible for the day-to-day business and affairs of the firm. With more than 30 years of experience in the investment industry, Mr. Hawkins has been with Horizons ETFs for more than 13 years including as its CIO, prior to becoming CEO in 2015. Mr. Hawkins is partly responsible for the proliferation of ETFs in Canada, bringing many first-of-their-kind ETFs to market. He spearheaded the launch of the first family of actively managed ETFs in Canada, the world’s first marijuana ETF and more recently, the world’s first psychedelics ETF. As an innovative ETF and capital markets thought leader, he is frequently quoted in the news media, appears regularly on business television and is a globally sought-after speaker for his expertise on his three favourite topics: ETFs, derivatives and cannabis. He was recognized as CEO of the Year at the 2018 Wealth Professional Awards and is the past Chair of the Canadian ETF Association. Mr. Hawkins studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Toronto and holds a Derivative Market Specialist (DMS) designation.

Paul Cappelli

Portfolio Manager

Galaxy Fund Management

Paul Cappelli is a Portfolio Manager at Galaxy Digital Asset Management. Prior to joining the firm, he was a Director of Fixed Income at State Street Global Advisors. Previously, he was a Director in High Yield at Oppenheimer. Paul has also held positions in Fixed Income Sales and Trading at Citigroup and Foreign Exchange at HSBC. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame.

Seth Ginns

Head of Liquid Investment

CoinFund

Seth is Head of Liquid Investments, Managing Partner, and a key member of the Venture Investment Committee. He has twenty years of Wall Street experience, and has been deeply involved in the crypto community since his angel investment in Coinbase in 2012.  He is also an angel in Chainalysis, participated in the Ethereum ICO in 2014, and loves traveling globally to developer events as a way to keep a finger on the pulse of the market.  His angel portfolio also includes Instacart and DoorDash, and many earlier stage, high growth startups.

Prior to CoinFund, Seth invested in public growth equities over 18 years at Jennison Associates. He holds a BA in Mathematics and South Asia Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, where he is an Overseer at the School of Nursing and Co-Chair of the Innovation Committee, and serves on the International Advisory Board of the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the School of Arts and Sciences.

Fred Pye

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

3iQ Digital Asset Management

Frederick Pye, Chairman and CEO: Fred kick-started his career as a precious metal and foreign exchange trader at Guardian Trust. In 1986, they were the first to list gold, silver, and platinum certificates on the Montreal Stock Exchange. Fred later joined Fidelity Investments, where he was part of a team that saw its assets rise from 85 million to over 7.5 billion. Through the launch of creative and exotic investment products, Fred started his own firm, which worked diligently with Canadian regulatory bodies to establish the first mutual fund in Canada that was allowed to take short positions. Finally, as founder and CEO of 3iQ, he and his team worked cooperatively with the Ontario Securities Commission for the last 4 and a half years to launch the first regulated Bitcoin fund in North America. In a landmark victory, 3iQ was given the green light by the regulator to file a prospectus and apply to list “The Bitcoin Fund” on a Canadian stock exchange. 3iQ is now Canada’s largest digital asset investment fund manager with more than C$3.5 billion in assets under management.

Mr. Pye obtained a master’s in business administration from Concordia University and is a member of the Board of the Anglican Funds and the West Island Youth Residence.

Mitchell Nicholson

Senior Consultant

KPMG

Mitchell is a Senior Consultant in KPMG’s Technology Risk Consulting practice, working primarily on its cryptoasset and enterprise blockchain initiatives. At KMPG, Mitchell helps lead educational workshops, vendor assessments of cryptoasset service providers, and its cryptoasset marketing strategies. Prior to joining the firm, Mitchell worked for 2.5 years as an Economist at the Bank of Canada. During this period, he conducted research on traditional payment methods, including cash and credit cards, as well as frontier technologies, like Bitcoin, stablecoins and central bank digital currency. In his personal time, Mitchell researches and invests actively in the cryptoasset space. He has published original research with Deribit Insights and given a podcast with On the Brink.

Giles Anderson

Director, Sales and Relationship Management

Fidelity Clearing Canada ULC

Joining FCC in 2018, Giles brings more than 20 years of experience in financial technology and operations across both the buy and sell sides of the industry. He began his career in the retail operations of a major Canadian bank-owned firm which provided him with a deep level of understanding of FCC’s clients’ needs and how best to service them. Prior to joining FCC, Giles was based in Toronto, London, and New York working for some of the industry’s most respected technology providers in sales leadership roles. He has a proven track record working with both small and large clients to deliver enterprise projects which enable clients to focus on their core differentiators and enjoy reduced risks and costs. He successfully completed the Canadian Securities Course and the Conduct and Practices Handbook courses with the Canadian Securities Institute.

Kunal Bhasin

Senior Manager

KPMG

Kunal is a Senior Manager with KPMG’s Risk Consulting practice with a focus on governance, risk and compliance for emerging technologies, specifically Blockchain, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Kunal possesses over 8 years of experience in the IT and business process, risk and control based services to clients in Financial Services (FS), Asset Management, Power & Utilities, Mining & Metals, Telecom, and Software Provider industries. He has led various IT risk and maturity assessments, SOX-404 audits, internal audits, third-party attestations and emerging technology design reviews, including blockchain and DLT. Kunal has also been actively engaged in conversations regarding the technology and functional risks in cryptoasset space and the regulatory framework in Canada to enable innovation by adequate management of these risks in crypto exchanges, brokerages, and custody providers. He has also supported these clients to establish, test and monitor the internal controls to safeguard entities’ and consumer’s assets. He is currently a member of the Standards Council of Canada committee for blockchain and distributed ledger standards (ISO/TC – 307).

Kunal continues to educate himself with the tools and skillsets required to enable secure adoption of blockchain and crypto. He is a Certified Bitcoin Professional (CBP), a Certified Cryptocurrency Investigator (CCI), an active member of the ISACA community and is proficient with CryptoCurrency Security Standard (CCSS), COSO, COBIT and ITIL standards.

Jason Zaluski

Head of Technology

Hut 8 Mining

Jason is an experienced technologist and strategist. He joins Hut 8 after building his own consulting company specializing in the operation of cryptocurrency mining facilities as well as providing blockchain infrastructure services. Jason has worked closely with numerous leading hardware providers, as well as preeminent organizations, analysts, and investors in the space. Prior to starting his own company, Jason was a founding member of a blockchain startup in Toronto, leading the initial product management, as well as the crypto mining community. Jason has a Bachelor in Computer Information Systems from Mount Royal University (Calgary, AB) and an MBA from Saint Mary’s University (Halifax, NS).

Jerome Dwight

President

Brane Capital

Jerome is a former Chief Executive Officer of Bank of New York Mellon Canada, part of the world’s largest custodian, and former Global Market Head for Royal Bank of Canada’s International Wealth Management, Corporate, and Institutional businesses, where he oversaw RBC’s rapid global expansion across Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

During the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, Jerome was part of an industry task force enlisted by the Government of Canada to develop financial services sector reforms. As an industry advisor to then-Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty, he co-led a Canadian delegation to Wall Street and worked with banking leaders and regulators on preventative measures to stabilize and instil public confidence in the Canadian financial sector. Throughout the crisis, Jerome also advised Canadian federal and provincial governments on public-private partnerships, economic stimulus, mortgage markets, and securitizations. He led the restructuring of the $32-billion asset-backed commercial paper class of securities, the largest of its kind in Canada, and played key roles in overseeing over $50 billion in public-private partnership stimulus funds, the $2-billion GM Canada bailout restructuring, and the $12-billion automotive sector stimulus program.

An experienced executive and entrepreneur, Jerome has a record of selecting high-potential markets, starting and acquiring businesses, and driving companies to sector leadership. He has completed strategic investments and exit transactions with global institutions including Barclays Bank, HSBC, RBC, CIBC, Quebecor, Sun Media, the Allegis Group, IBM, and Cox Enterprises. Jerome serves as special advisor Framework Venture Partners, one of Canada’s leading fintech venture investors and has also advised the Portland Private Equity Fund and the Michael Lee-Chin family office.

Jerome received an MBA from York University’s Schulich School of Business and holds Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Chartered Public Accountant (CA-CPA) designations. In 2020, he was recognized by the Canadian Lenders Association as one of the top 25 Lending Executives in Canada. Mr. Dwight also received the Award of Distinction conferred by the Institute of Chartered Accountants (Canada) and is a recipient of Canada’s Top 40 under 40.