Ray Dalio, Founder, Co-Chief Investment Officer & Co-Chairman, Bridgewater Associates

In 1975, Mr. Dalio founded an investment firm, Bridgewater Associates, out of his two-bedroom apartment in New York City. Over forty years later, Bridgewater has grown into the fifth most important private company in the United States, according to Fortune magazine, and Dalio himself has been named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Along the way, Dalio discovered a set of unique principles that have led to Bridgewater’s exceptionally effective culture, which he describes as “an idea meritocracy that strives to achieve meaningful work and meaningful relationships through radical transparency.”

David M. Rubenstein Chairman, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Chairman of The Carlyle Group

David M. Rubenstein is a Co-Founder and Co-Executive Chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and most successful investment firms. Mr. Rubenstein co-founded the firm in 1987. Since then, Carlyle has grown into a firm managing $210 billion from 31 offices around the world.

Mr. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Council on Foreign Relations; a Fellow of the Harvard Corporation; a Trustee of the National Gallery of Art, the University of Chicago, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Brookings Institution, and the World Economic Forum; and President of the Economic Club of Washington.

Mr. Rubenstein is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Business Council, Harvard Global Advisory Council (Chairman), Madison Council of the Library of Congress (Chairman), Board of Dean’s Advisors of the Business School at Harvard, Advisory Board of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University (former Chairman), and Board of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community.

Mr. Rubenstein has served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Duke University and Co-Chairman of the Board of the Brookings Institution.

Mr. Rubenstein is an original signer of The Giving Pledge, a significant donor to all of the above-mentioned non-profit organizations, and a recipient of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, and the MoMA’s David Rockefeller Award, among other philanthropic awards.

Mr. Rubenstein has been a leader in the area of Patriotic Philanthropy, having made transformative gifts for the restoration or repair of the Washington Monument, Monticello, Montpelier, Mount Vernon, Arlington House, Iwo Jima Memorial, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, the National Archives, the National Zoo, the Library of Congress, and the African-American History and Culture Museum. Mr. Rubenstein has also provided to the U.S. government long-term loans of his rare copies of the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment, the first map of the U.S. (Abel Buell map), and the first book printed in the U.S. (Bay Psalm Book).

Mr. Rubenstein is the host of The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations on Bloomberg TV and PBS.

Mr. Rubenstein, a native of Baltimore, is a 1970 magna cum laude graduate of Duke University, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. Following Duke, Mr. Rubenstein graduated in 1973 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of The Law Review.

From 1973-1975, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in New York with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. From 1975-1976, he served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. From 1977-1981, during the Carter Administration, Mr. Rubenstein was Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. After his White House service and before co-founding Carlyle, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in Washington with Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman).

Marc Lasry, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Avenue Capital Group

Marc Lasry is the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Avenue Capital Group, a global alternative investment manager focused on distressed and undervalued debt and equity opportunities in the U.S., Europe and Asia. In 1995, Mr. Lasry formed Avenue with his sister, Sonia Gardner, with less than $10 million in capital from friends and family. Today, Avenue is one of the largest distressed debt investors globally, managing assets of approximately $9.6 billion, with headquarters in New York City, and offices in London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, and five offices throughout Asia.

Mr. Lasry is known as a pioneer in distressed investing which has been the focus of his professional career for over 35 years.

After law school, Mr. Lasry clerked for Edward Ryan, Chief Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of New York. He spent the following year practicing law at Angel & Frankel, which focused on bankruptcies.

Mr. Lasry subsequently became the Director of the private debt department at R.D. Smith, the firm where he first became involved in “trade claims,” the market in purchasing and selling to investors the unsecured claims of vendors and other creditors against a debtor. In 1987, he moved to Cowen & Company where he was Co-Director of the bankruptcy and corporate reorganization department. It was at Cowen that he caught the attention of the Texas investor Robert Bass, who was a client of the firm. When he left Cowen, Mr. Lasry went to manage over $100 million for the Robert Bass Group, Inc., where he invested in bank debt, senior bonds, and trade claims. The Bass fund Mr. Lasry oversaw was called Amroc Investments, L.P., and, at the time, it stood as one of the largest distressed funds in the U.S. In 1990, he co-founded a boutique distressed brokerage firm, keeping the Amroc name and maintaining the affiliation with the Robert Bass Group.

Mr. Lasry is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and he has served and will continue to serve on various other boards of advisors/directors of both for-profit and not-for-profit private and public companies. He is also co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team.

Mr. Lasry received a B.A. in History from Clark University (1981) and a J.D. from New York Law School (1984).

Martin Whittaker, CEO, JUST Capital

Martin Whittaker is the CEO of JUST Capital. He is responsible for the overall leadership of the organization. Previously, Martin was a founding partner and investment committee member at Sonen Capital, an impact investing firm, where he led private equity, real asset and direct investing activities. Previously, Martin worked as Director of MissionPoint Capital Partners, a private equity firm; a Senior Vice President at Swiss Re, where he was part of the Environmental and Commodity Markets team; and a Managing Director at Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, Inc., a pioneering investment advisory and research firm within the environmental finance space. Martin is also co-convener of the CREO family office investment network; an investment committee member for Sonen’s private investment platform; and a Board member of the Carbon Disclosure Project U.S. Martin received his Ph.D. from University of Edinburgh, an MBA from the University of London, an M.Sc. from McGill University and a B.Sc. from University of St. Andrews. Martin has also served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto, and provided expert testimony on environmental markets to the U.S. Senate.

Jim Aiello, Co-Founder, Greenwich Economic Forum

Jim is the Chairman of the Greenwich First Selectman’s Economic Advisory Committee and has 28 years of real estate and financial services advisory experience serving investors, banks, asset managers, real estate companies, and other for-profit and non-profit entities. Professionally, he is the Principal of MAC Advisors LLC, an advisory firm that works with investors and business owners on business strategy as well as real estate and investment opportunities in select markets in Connecticut, New York, and the rest of New England. Jim’s investment career began in management consulting, focusing on business strategy, operations, and profitability at First Manhattan Consulting Group, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Salomon Brothers. Jim is currently also the co-President of the Greenwich Business Institute (GBI), a non-profit corporation established to promote the benefits of living and working in Greenwich, CT, and to produce the Greenwich Economic Forum. The Greenwich Economic Forum is an elite asset management and finance conference that annually gathers CEO’s and CIO’s from global financial firms and asset owners for peer to peer exchange, and to discuss global financial policy. Education: BA, Harvard College (Cambridge, MA)

Bruce Mcguire,Co-Founder Greenwich Economic Forum

Bruce McGuire, is the President of the Connecticut Hedge Fund Association, Co-Chair of the Greenwich Business Institute and Managing Partner of Global Alpha Research, LLC. Bruce is a member of the Greenwich Economic Advisory Committee, and a Director of the Connecticut-China Council. Bruce has been working with hedge funds and other asset managers for 24 years. Before starting Global Alpha, LLC, Bruce managed the New York office Mesirow Advanced Strategies, and held officer level positions with Merrill Lynch Alternative Investments, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and MFS Investment Management. Bruce holds a JD and is licensed to practice law in Connecticut.

Anne Lamont, Co-Founder, Managing Partner, Oak HC/FT

Annie Lamont has more than 30 years of experience as a venture capitalist investing in transformative companies and entrepreneurs. In 2014, Annie, along with Patricia Kemp and Andrew Adams, launched Oak HC/FT, a venture capital fund investing in early to growth stage tech-enabled companies shaping the future of healthcare information and financial services. Prior to founding Oak HC/FT, Annie served as a Managing Partner at Oak Investment Partners. Annie has been ranked as a top healthcare and fintech investor on the Forbes Midas List, a Top 100 Venture Capitalist by CB Insights and The New York Times and recognized as a top fintech investor by Institutional Investor’s FinTech Finance 40 ranking.

Gillian Tett, US Managing Editor, FT

Gillian Tett serves as Editor-at-Large and Chairman of the Editorial Board, leading the FT’s editorial operations in the region across all platforms. She writes weekly columns for the Financial Times, covering a range of economic, financial, political and social issues throughout the globe.
Tett’s past roles at the FT have included US managing editor (2010-2012), assistant editor, capital markets editor, deputy editor of the Lex column, Tokyo bureau chief, and a reporter in Russia and Brussels.
Most recently in 2016, Tett received honorary degrees from the University of Exeter in July and the University of Miami in May. In 2015, Tett was given an honorary doctorate from Lancaster University in the UK, one of the top ten British universities. In 2014, she was named Columnist of the Year in the British Press Awards and was the first recipient of the Royal Anthropological Institute Marsh Award. Her other honors include a SABEW Award for best feature article (2012), President’s Medal by the British Academy (2011), being recognized as Journalist of the Year (2009) and Business Journalist of the Year (2008) by the British Press Awards, and as Senior Financial Journalist of the Year (2007) by the Wincott Awards. In June 2009 her book Fool’s Gold won Financial Book of the Year at the inaugural Spear’s Book Awards.
Tett’s latest book The Silo Effect, published by Simon & Schuster in September 2015, looks at the global economy and financial system through the lens of cultural anthropology.

Oliver Sarkozy,

Olivier Sarkozy is the Founder and Managing Partner of Further Global and serves as the Chairman of the Investment Committee. Prior to founding Further Global, from 2008 to June 2016, Mr. Sarkozy was a Managing Director at The Carlyle Group and head of Carlyle’s Global Financial Services group where he focused on investing in management buyouts, growth capital opportunities and strategic minority investments in financial services. Mr. Sarkozy currently serves on the boards of Celink, Global Benefits Group, and Payment Alliance International, and previously served on the boards of BankUnited, Bank of Butterfield, TCW, Duff & Phelps, DBRS and Athena Art Finance.

Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Sarkozy was Global Co-Head of the Financial Institutions Group at UBS Investment Bank. He joined UBS in January of 2003, after spending 11 years at Credit Suisse First Boston, where he was a Managing Director in the Financial Institutions Group. While at UBS, he worked on many of the largest mergers in the U.S. financial industry, including, amongst others, advising Sallie Mae in its attempted $25 billion take-private transaction and subsequent recapitalization, Mellon on its $17 billion merger of equals with The Bank of New York, Charles Schwab on its sale of US Trust to Bank of America, MBNA on its $36 billon sale to Bank of America, Wachovia in its $14 billion acquisition of SouthTrust, National Commerce in its $7 billion sale to SunTrust and Regions Financial in its $6 billion merger of equals with Union Planters. While at CSFB, Mr. Sarkozy advised Wachovia in its merger of equals with First Union and concurrent defense against a competing hostile proposal from SunTrust, Dime Bancorp in its merger with Washington Mutual, CoreStates Financial in its sale to First Union, Wells Fargo in its merger with Norwest and Wells Fargo in its successful hostile acquisition of First Interstate. In addition, while at UBS, Mr. Sarkozy was involved in a number of important equity capital raising transactions, including CIBC’s $2.9 billion recapitalization and Sallie Mae in its $3.0 billion recapitalization. While at UBS, he also acted as lead advisor in a number of other notable transactions, including Dime Bancorp’s private placement of preferred and other equity securities to Warburg Pincus, as part of their successful defense against a hostile tender offer from North Fork and the recapitalization of Glendale Federal Bank, which at the time was the largest recapitalization in U.S. history.

Mr. Sarkozy received his Masters in Medieval History (with Honors) from St. Andrews University in Scotland.