Speaker Biographies


08.45 CDS & OTC Market Regulatory Overview

Thomas Aubrey
Thomas is managing director at Fitch Solutions, responsible for the global P&L of all Fitch Solutions subscription products. Thomas joined Fitch in 2007 and has extensive experience in managing information businesses in the financial services sector. Prior to Fitch, Thomas spent 4 years at Thomson Financial, where he was director of the investment management segment responsible for the Datastream and IBES franchises globally. Prior to this, Thomas spent four years at FT Interactive Data in a number of roles, including Strategy & Markets Group director with the focus of growing the nascent fixed-income valuations business across Europe. Before that, he spent five years as an international management consultant in Europe, North America, and Asia. Thomas is a prominent commentator on trends in the risk management arena as well as the broader financial market sector and has published numerous papers and reports. Recent work on liquidity risk, as well as other studies on the measurement of non-financial risks in conjunction with the World Economic Forum, have been widely cited in the press. In 2007, he coauthored Prediction Markets: The End of the Regulatory State with Frank Vibert. He holds degrees from the London School of Economics and the University of Cambridge. 

Jim Bennett
With more than 25 years of experience helping firms evolve and grow, Jim�s current charter is to deliver business solutions and services that address clients� needs and help them navigate today�s complex regulatory climate and adapt to changes in the marketplace. In his role, Jim draws upon a rich background in global capital markets with a high degree of specialty within derivatives and complex structures. Most recently, he worked on the capital markets build-out in Saudi Arabia. Earlier in his career, Jim served as COO for Countrywide Capital Markets with primary focus on its rates business, alternative investment company and the expansion of its international offices.  Jim spent the first 20 years of his career in various management and executive roles at Bank of America, helping drive rates, clearing, credit, derivatives, and structured finances business lines at the global level. Jim is also a Certified Public Accountant

Jacob Ghanty
Jacob is a Partner in Berwin Leighton Paisner�s Financial Services Regulatory practice. His specialism is non-contentious advisory financial services. Jacob has worked on several significant regulatory developments over the last decade including the implementation of MiFID, the Insurance Mediation Directive and the Payment Services Directive. Jacob has particular expertise in relation to the retail financial services market including advising product providers and intermediaries on their regulatory obligations and on product design and distribution. Jacob�s clients encompass a wide range of FSA authorised firms including retail banks, life and
non-life insurers, intermediaries (including networks), authorised and unregulated fund mangers, multilateral trading facility operators, pension houses and payment institutions. He has acted for clients such as Credit Suisse, Allianz, Barclays and HSBC and a number of other financial institutions. Jacob has done secondments with a large fund manager and a major UK life insurer. He sits on the Editorial Board of In Compliance.

Scott Fitzpatrick,
Scott graduated from Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland with a degree in Business and Computer Studies. The early part of Scott�s career was spent working in California during the Dot Com initiatives assisting banks in moving from legacy technology platforms to distributed computing. In 2001 Scott joined GFI Group in New York to run the GFI FENICS FXO global pricing and risk management business where he stayed until June 2008. Scott then moved to London to manage European Client Relations for the firm. As part of this role, Scott is also directly responsible for monitoring developments within the current Regulatory process as it pertains to GFI�s European business, to our clients and also in terms of the wider impact on GFI�s global business, in particular the US Dodd-Frank Act. In addition to his role at GFI, Scott is a Director and Council Member of the Wholesale Market Brokers Association (WMBA).

Jeffrey Kushner
Jeffrey is the CEO of BlueMountain Europe, overseeing the Firm�s European office. Mr. Kushner is an original partner of BlueMountain and has served in a number of roles at the Firm, including creating and leading the Trade Execution function covering all traded products. Prior to joining the Firm in 2003, he worked in a variety of trading roles within Structured Credit/Credit Derivatives Trading at ING Financial, LLC. Mr. Kushner began his career at Merrill Lynch where he held several trading roles. Mr. Kushner is a member of the board of the Loan Syndicate and Trading Association (LSTA) and was recently honored with the Outstanding Achievement Award from Credit Investment News for his leadership in creating the LCDS contract. Mr. Kushner holds an M.B.A. from Columbia University and a B.A. in History from S.U.N.Y. Albany.

Michael Hampden-Turner
Michael is a director in Citi's Credit Strategy Group in London, focusing on European cash CDOs, CLOs and synthetic credit products. He advises clients interested in the technical aspects of structured credit, CDS markets etc or those that want a view on credit or portfolio management. For the seven years prior to joining Citi in 2006 he worked in a similar role in structured credit strategy and quantitative research at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Before this he worked in interest rate derivatives research at WestLB, and equities research Smith New Court Merrill Lynch. Michael studied economics and history at Trinity College, Cambridge in the UK and at Harvard in the US.

Mark Lindup
Mark is a director in Fitch�s Pricing Services (FPS) team. Within FPS he focuses on contributor relationships and Credit Default Swap related product development. He also regularly writes content for Fitch Solutions Bi-weekly Liquidity Commentaries. Mark started his working career in software development, working on automated control systems and then financial data platforms. Mark has designed and implemented a number of innovative systems including the first Credit Default Swap consensus pricing service in 1999. After starting this service Mark moved away from software development and focused on operations and product development.Mark has an honours degree in Mathematics and Statistic and 25 years experience in building products from design stage all the way through to operating products.

Terri Duhon
Terri is a market professional with 16 years of experience in financial markets. She graduated from MIT in Maths in 1994 and immediately joined JPMorgan as an interest rate derivatives trader in NY. In 1998, she moved to Credit Derivatives and Structured Products at JPMorgan and was instrumental in developing the credit derivative market as well as building the BISTRO business: a cutting edge securitization technique pioneered by JPMorgan. In 1999 she originated and priced one of the first CDOs of ABS/MBS and pioneered the first synthetic ABS/MBS documentation. Later she moved to London and helped to build the European Structured Finance Business with a focus on managed synthetic transactions and single tranche trades which lead to an explosion in structured credit derivative business globally. In that role she was also the global risk manager for the SPV counterparty credit risk book for all derivatives at JPMorgan in securitizations. In 2002, she joined ABN AMRO for 2 years to help build a global structured credit business which pioneered the CDS index products as well as credit CPPI structures. Terri left in May 2004 to found B&B Structured Finance Ltd. In the last four years, she has led expert witness teams for securitization litigation in both NY and London, assisted fund managers preparing marketing materials and rating agency due diligence for new securitization deals as well as managed over 700 days of training globally for financial institutions in derivatives and structured products.

Benjamin Schiessl�
Benjamin is Head of CDS Risk Management at LCH.Clearnet SA, the LCH.Clearnet Group�s French operating CCP. Benjamin graduated from Ecole Polytechnique and ENSAE, the Paris Graduate School of Economics, Statistics and Finance and also holds a DEA in Probability and Finance. Benjamin started his career at Soci�t� G�n�rale Asset Management and ABN Amro.In 2003, Benjamin joined JP Morgan in London, where he held various positions as Quantitative Analyst and as a Trader, focusing mainly on credit derivatives.

Steve Schiff 

Steve is a founding partner and CEO of ReMATCH Ltd, the credit default swap portfolio rebalancing and market risk mitigation service. Steve started his career as a programmer, arbitrage trader and market-maker in the FX and Interest Rate Derivatives group for Chase Manhattan and JPMorgan. His experience on risk management comes from having traded through the European Monetary System and South East Asian currency crises during the 1990�s, during which times he provided liquidity to clients and built out the risk management infrastructure for the group. He began adapting this expertise to the credit derivatives market in 2005 and joined ICAP to launch ReMATCH in 2009. He holds an MBA from the Stern School at New York University.