Featured speakers

Marguerita (Rita) Cheng helps educate the public, policy makers, and media about the benefits of competent, ethical financial planning. As a Certified Financial Planner® professional Rita helps people meet their life goals through the proper management of financial resources. She is passionate about helping them navigate some of life’s most difficult issues—divorce, death, career changes, caring for aging relatives—so they can feel confident and in control of their finances. Rita is a regular columnist for Kiplinger and MarketWatch, and a past spokesperson for the AARP Financial Freedom Campaign. Rita volunteers her time as a SoleMate, or charity runner for Girls on the Run, raising money for scholarships for girls.

With over 25 years in wealth management, Stacy Coffey is a results-driven executive known for driving firm growth, advancing advisor and client experience, and actionable leadership development. As Managing Director and Head of Advisory Partnership Success at Rise Growth Partners, she expertly guides RIA leaders and advisors on growth acceleration strategies and achieving exceptional outcomes for both firms and their clients. Stacy began her career at Charles Schwab, where she spent over 19 years advising high-net-worth clients, leading advisory teams across the West Coast. She later relocated to Schwab’s corporate headquarters to lead firmwide initiatives focused on client experience, wealth planning, and long-term, sustainable growth. She most recently served as Senior Vice President of Wealth Strategies at Wealth Enhancement Group, where she led specialized teams delivering scalable financial planning, investment consulting, tax preparation, estate planning strategies, high-net-worth services, and insurance solutions. Her leadership drove deeper client engagement and fueled organic growth in net new assets. Known for distilling complex strategies into actionable insights, Stacy has been featured in Barron’s, U.S. News & World Report, and Forbes, reflecting her stature as a respected voice in the industry. Stacy is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER®, a certified executive coach through the UC Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute and holds a BA in secondary education from Ottawa University.

James is a Managing Associate at Simmons & Simmons, based in their Dublin office having joined the firm in 2021. Prior to this, James was a Senior Associate in the Asset Management Department of a top-tier Irish law firm. James focuses on the establishment, structuring, ongoing operation and regulation of UCITS, RIAIFs and AIFs (whether structured as ICAVs, public limited companies, limited partnerships, unit trusts or common contractual funds) for a wide variety of asset managers and investment banks and has extensive experience in the authorisation and approval of UCITS management companies, alternative investment fund managers and investment managers. James has completed secondments with both a large international service provider and a large international asset manager in Dublin, gaining extensive experience in non-Irish structures and the laws and regulations of off-shore jurisdictions. James has worked extensively on ETFs, and has established both active and passive ETF platforms including white-label platforms. James regularly speaks at ETF conferences, panels and industry roundtables regarding developments in the ETF-space, and market trends. James also advises on sustainability and ESG considerations for a wide variety of asset managers and institutional investors.

John Davi has over 25 years of experience spanning across Macro ETF Strategy, Quantitative Research & Portfolio Construction. Before starting Astoria, he was the head of Morgan Stanley’s Institutional ETF Content and advised many of the world’s largest hedge funds and asset managers on ETF portfolio construction. John published hundreds of reports in his research career across a variety of topics from ETFs, indices, futures, and structured products. John’s research has been recognized and featured in ETF.com, ETFTrends.com, Institutional Investor Magazine and he is a regular contributor to CNBC, Bloomberg, and other media outlets.

Peter Diel, Head of Index Product, Europe • Leads index product innovation and partner strategy across Europe, helping asset managers develop custom Indexing solutions and navigate the full product lifecycle. • Over 20+ years of experience in Asset Management and Indexing, including leadership roles at Solactive and DWS Group where he managed institutional passive mandates.

Kevin Diener leads fixed income product management in the Americas for ICE Indices. Based in New York, he manages a team of analysts dedicated to rapidly prototyping and designing index solutions for clients, with a focus on expanding ICE’s suite of fixed income indices. Kevin joined ICE in June 2020 as a fixed income evaluator covering corporate bonds before transitioning to the index team in June 2022. Prior to ICE, he spent eight years at Bloomberg in roles spanning municipal bond evaluation on the BVAL team and data capture within Bloomberg's global data organization. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Clemson University

Aakash is Global Head of Gold for the SPDR ETF business. He manages strategists in North America and APAC and is responsible for the investment outlook, thematic research, and go-to-market product strategy for the SSIM gold ETF suite. He interacts daily with clients, sales leadership, distribution channels, marketing, and fund sponsors. In addition, he collaborates extensively across the investments franchise in the macro, commodities, and alternatives space to provide thought leadership, client insights, and market updates. Prior to joining State Street Investment Management, Aakash spent over 13 years in the institutional sell-side research division at Citigroup, most recently as Head of Commodities Strategy for the Americas. He previously worked in credit derivatives trading at UBS Investment Bank, Asset Management Sales at Alliance-Bernstein, and began his career on the Short-Term Interest Rates Trading desk at GMAC. Aakash holds a Masters in Energy Economics, with distinction, from Columbia University.

Nate is President of NovaDius Wealth Management, an ETF-focused registered investment advisor providing comprehensive wealth management. He also hosts the weekly podcasts “ETF Prime” and “Crypto Prime”, is Co-Founder of The ETF Institute, and offers ETF perspectives at The ETF Educator blog. Nate regularly contributes to major financial media outlets including Bloomberg, CNBC, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Barron’s.

Chris is a portfolio manager and strategist at Simplify. He has spent his entire 25-plus-year career focused on Emerging Markets (EM). Starting with Fidelity Investments in the mid-1990s, he helped to design and build the firm’s risk management and analytical tools, enabling clients to harness the return potential of what was then a poorly understood and niche fixed income market. He was also the primary analyst responsible for fundamental coverage of myriad EM countries.  Subsequently, he joined Pacific Investment Management Co. (PIMCO) as an Emerging Markets Strategist where he spearheaded the building of the world’s largest Emerging Markets Debt (EMD) franchise. During his time there, he was responsible for engaging clients over a wide range of geographies and industries to help them understand the potential benefits of EMD in their portfolios, launching new products, and leading a revamp of the firm’s EM investment process amid persistently weak performance. Most recently, he was a Director on Lazard Asset Management’s EMD team.  Chris holds an MBA from the Carroll School of Management at Boston College and a degree in History from Canisius College (now University). He is also a CFA charter holder. In his spare time, he enjoys playing guitar poorly.

Aisha Hunt is the founder of Kelley Hunt, PLLC, a Denver-based boutique law firm focused on ETFs and tokenization. She advises ETF issuers and institutional asset managers on product design, share class structures, and regulatory strategy for bringing ’40 Act-registered funds and other real-world assets onchain. Previously, Aisha was a partner at Dechert LLP and general counsel at SS&C ALPS, and has led legal strategy for several first-of-their-kind ETF and tokenization initiatives.

Roxanna Islam is the Head of Sector & Industry Research at TMX VettaFi, where she is primarily responsible for equity, alternative, and digital asset research. Prior to joining TMX VettaFi, she spent several years in sell-side equity research at Stifel where she covered industrial stocks. She also spent the beginning of her career at Wells Fargo in closed-end fund and ETF research. Roxanna is a recognized voice in the investment community, frequently speaking at major industry conferences and appearing on webcasts, podcasts, and live financial television. Her insights are often featured in media outlets including Bloomberg, Fox Business, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNBC, US News, and Financial Times. Outside of the office, Roxanna is actively involved in the community. She serves on the Board of Directors of CFA Society of Dallas/Fort Worth, and is an alumna of the Business Council for the Arts Leadership Institute.

Ben Johnson, CFA, is the head of client solutions, working with Morningstar’s clients to leverage Morningstar’s capabilities in advancing our shared mission of empowering investor success. Prior to assuming his current role in 2022, he was the director of global ETF and passive strategies research within Morningstar’s manager research group. Earlier in his tenure in the manager research organization, he served as the director of ETF research for Europe and Asia. He also previously served as a senior equity analyst, covering the agriculture and chemicals industries. Before joining Morningstar in 2006, he worked as a financial advisor for Morgan Stanley. Johnson holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Wisconsin. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation and is a member of the board of directors of CFA Society Chicago.