The Great Debate | August 14, 3:45 - 4:30 pm | Law School Atrium 

Moderator

Moderator
James Bailey, CFA
SVP, Managing Director, PNC Bank; President's Council Representative for Midwest US, CFA Institute

James is a senior relationship manager who coordinates delivery of products and services to clients in the Central region. His key responsibilities include maintaining close working relationships with existing clients, managing portfolios in accordance with the investment policy statement, providing recommendations for strategic and tactical changes in allocation based on each client's unique needs, and supporting the development of new business opportunities. Prior to joining the firm in 2012, James spent seven years at KeyBank as an interest rate and commodity derivatives senior trader and as a senior member of the Foreign Exchange and International Trade sales team. He also served as a trading associate at TransMarket Group in Chicago, Ill. James earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in finance, as well as a Master of Science degree from Kent State University. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and is a member of CFA Institute. In addition, he previously served as president of the Cleveland CFA Society.

Passive Management Team

Susanna Gibbons, CFA
Managing Director, Carlson Funds Enterprise

Susanna previously was a Senior Portfolio Manager at RBC Global Asset Management, and lead the group’s fixed income Credit Research Team. Susanna’s primary research responsibilities included banking and finance. She has extensive capital markets experience. Susanna joined RBC GAM in 2007 from Jeffrey Slocum & Associates, where she was the director of fixed income research. She also held several senior credit and portfolio management positions at The St. Paul Companies. Susanna began her career in the investment industry in 1985. She earned a BA from Bryn Mawr College and an MBA in Finance from the New York University Stern School of Business. Susanna is a CFA charterholder.

Daniel Romito
Global Head of Investor Analytics, NASDAQ

As Global Head of Investor Analytics, Dan Romito’s responsibilities include overseeing Nasdaq’s Strategic Capital Intelligence team, Insight360 Analytics Platform, ESG/Index consulting and managing a global roster of advisory clients. His advisory work focuses on consulting management teams across the globe on optimizing capital allocation strategies, mitigating risk within their shareholder base and identifying opportunistic investors. Dan also created the “Activist Diagnostic,” a quant model that gauges the vulnerability of a corporate client based on their respective fundamental and ESG profile. 

His expertise centers on executing an array of capital deployment analyses along with overseeing Nasdaq Advisory’s Event Analytics capabilities. Dan’s research on the effects of Index Ownership, Shareholder Activism and ESG-focused investing has been presented to a variety of NIRI and Finance panels across North America, Europe & APAC and has been implemented into the analyses his Strategic Capital Intelligence team provides to global clients. 

His recommendations have also been adopted by a variety of Boards, including Nasdaq’s. Dan is a recipient of Nasdaq’s CEO Platinum and Silver Award for his work modeling out internal capital structure strategies and commercializing a suite of new targeting deliverables, most notably, Nasdaq’s Biotech & Small Cap Investor Analytics services. His Thought Leadership pieces on Activism, ESG and Index Investing has also been featured in a variety of periodicals, including Harvard Business Review, CNBC, Global Investor Magazine and IR Magazine. He received a BA from the University of Chicago, an MBA in Finance from DePaul University, is a Level 3 CFA Candidate, an adjunct professor at Carthage College, is responsible for teaching financial strategy to Non-Finance Executives for the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, and is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Applied Financial Mathematics from the University of Chicago.

 

Active Management Team

Sheila Healy Berube, CFA
Independent Consultant

Sheila was previously a Senior Consultant with NEPC, LLC, a national investment consulting firm.  She has over twenty years of broadly based investment experience in non-profit healthcare, corporate pensions and family offices.  In support of her client relationships, Sheila is responsible for overall portfolio design, including asset allocation and investment policy development, risk budgeting, liquidity analysis, evaluation and selection of investment managers, and performance monitoring. She is a member of the Alternative Assets Due Diligence Committee.   

Prior to NEPC, Sheila was CIO at WLD Enterprises, Inc. a family office of multiple generations. Previous to that she was Manager, Benefit Funds Investment at 3M Company, and has also served as Director, Cash & Investment for Allina Health System (now known as Allina Health), and she also served as the Manager of External Fixed Income assets at the Minnesota State Board of Investment and began her investment career with American Express Financial Advisors.

Sheila earned her M.B.A. in Finance from the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis and a B.A. in English with a minor in Business from Marquette University. Sheila has been an active community volunteer and currently sits on the investment committee of The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. She is a recipient of the Minneapolis /St. Paul Business Journal’s Women in Business Award, and Institutional Investor’s Award for Excellence in Investment Management.

David Royal
Chief Investment Officer, Thrivent Financial

David Royal oversees all investments at Thrivent Financial, including mutual funds, variable products and the general account. His responsibilities include president of Thrivent Asset Management, and president and trustee/director of the Thrivent Mutual Funds and the Thrivent Series Funds.

Prior to being appointed chief investment officer, Royal served as president of Thrivent Mutual Funds and Thrivent Series Funds. He previously served as deputy general counsel of Thrivent Financial and chief legal officer of Thrivent’s mutual funds. Before joining Thrivent in 2006, Royal was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, an international law firm based in Chicago, where he practiced in the investment management and private equity groups. Since 2008, Royal has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, where he teaches investment management law.

Royal served for nine years on the board of the Fairview Foundation, based in Minnesota, where he served as Vice Chair. He also serves as a director of the Children’s Cancer Research Fund in Minneapolis. Royal has served in a variety of leadership positions at his church, Trinity Lutheran Church in Long Lake, Minnesota.

Royal received his bachelor of arts degree from Yale College and his juris doctorate from Yale Law School. He lives in Orono, Minnesota with his wife Stacey and two boys.

 

Expert Luncheon Panel | August 15, 12:00 - 12:50 pm | Law School Atrium

Moderator
Evan Ramstad
Journalist, StarTribune

A journalist since 1987, Evan is currently a deputy editor on the business news desk of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Before that, he was chief Korea correspondent for the Wall Street Journal from 2006 to 2013. Ramstad previously wrote for the Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong and Dallas and for the Associated Press in Dallas, Minneapolis, Washington, and New York.

 

Panelists

Bob Deere
Chief Portfolio Manager, Dimensional Funds

Robert T. "Bob" Deere is one of Dimensional Fund Advisors' chief Portfolio Managers and trading strategists. He brings many years of experience managing Dimensional portfolios to his role as a member of the Investment Committee. Bob has general oversight of US equity, non-US equity, and fixed income strategies. He plays a key role in communicating with clients about how the portfolios are constructed and operated.

Bob joined Dimensional in 1991 as a general Portfolio Manager in domestic equities. When the firm expanded to include value strategies, Bob was the primary Portfolio Manager. While his responsibilities have expanded to include general management of the US equity desk, he continues to devote particular attention to the value strategies.

A former rocket scientist, Bob spent four years as an engineer with General Dynamics in space shuttle-related projects. He holds an MBA in finance from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a BS in chemical engineering and BA in chemistry from the University of California, San Diego.

 

Jessica Murray, CFA
Portfolio Manager, Thrivent

Jessica Murray, CFA is part of the portfolio management team for the Thrivent Small Cap Core mutual fund. She has been with Thrivent Financial for 7 years leading quantitative analytics efforts driving high performance for large cap value and small mid cap funds and served for 10 years as the treasurer of CFA Society Minnesota.

Prior to joining Thrivent, Jessica worked at FactSet Research Systems and as a quantitative analyst for U.S. Bancorp Asset Management (now FAF Advisors). She received her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Richmond in 1998 and her CFA charter in 2002.  In her free time, Jessica enjoys participating in community service efforts, traveling, hiking, cooking, and spending time with her family.

 

Scott Opsal, CFA
Director of Equities, Leuthold Weeden Capital Management
Director of Research, Leuthold Group, LLC

Scott is Director of Equities for Leuthold Weeden Capital Management.  In this role, Scott oversees all processes and procedures relating to construction and implementation of the firm's domestic and global equities strategies, both as standalone products and as components of the firm's tactical allocation portfolios. Scott is a member of the firm's Asset Allocation Committee, led by Doug Ramsey, Chief Investment Officer.  

Scott is also Director of Research for The Leuthold Group, LLC. His responsibilities include conducting in-depth research projects and exploring fundamental and quantitative studies that support the firm’s portfolio and strategy recommendations. He also coordinates idea flow among the firm’s research team, and is a regular contributor to The Leuthold Group’s institutional research publications.

Just prior to joining the Leuthold team, Scott fulfilled a lifelong career goal by serving as Director of the Applied Investments Program and teaching Security Analysis and other finance classes at the University of Wisconsin ̶ Whitewater.

Scott received his B.S.B.A. from Drake University in 1982 and an MBA from the University of Minnesota in 1983. He earned his CFA designation in 1986 and recently served on the CFA Society Madison Board of Directors.