Laszlo Garamszegi, CTO Aurora Spine
Mr. Garamszegi brings over 16 years of executive experience in the medical device industry. He has co-founded several, successful medical device start-up companies, where he then served as Chief Technology Officer and VP of Engineering. He established the Product Development, Quality, Regulatory, and Manufacturing departments for his companies, and during this time he launched 13 FDA 510(k)-cleared implant products.
Mr. Garamszegi is a co-inventor of the ZIP® interspinous implant product line. He has also been awarded seven US and one Canadian patent for his spinal implant designs and has over 10 patents pending; most of these inventions were commercialized and currently being sold in the United States, Canada, Europe and other international markets. Laszlo is the co-inventor of the 4Closure℣ Laparoscopic Fascia Closure Device, a technology that was sold to Synovis Life Technologies in 2007 (NYSE: SYNO) then to Baxter International (NYSE: BAX).
Mr. Garamszegi received his Manufacturing Engineering Technology degree from Banki Donat Technical Institute in Hungary.
Tasha Keeney, CFA-ARK Invest
Tasha joined ARK in January 2014 and is an analyst for ARK’s Industrial Innovation strategy and The 3D Printing ETF. She covers autonomous cars, additive manufacturing, infrastructure development, and innovative materials. Previously, she worked for almost three years as a management consultant for Applied Value, working primarily with manufacturing and automotive clients.
Tasha is a graduate of Boston University’s Collaborative Degree Program with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a Finance concentration, and a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and Statistics with a Pure and Applied Mathematics concentration.
Tasha has appeared on CNBC, BNN, Cheddar Live, and frequent webinars with Robotics Business Review. She has been quoted and had her research featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Wired, the Verge, Bloomberg, CNNMoney, and Marketwatch, among other publications.
Richey Rogers- PTX Securities/Sealy Strategic Equity Partners
Richey is Senior Vice President and National Sales Manger for PTX Securities, LLC. Richey began his wholesaling career at PLANCO/The Hartford and over the past two decades held leadership positions in sales organizations that have launched successful products in both domestic and international markets. He was part of the original management team for The Hartford Leaders Group launching what would become the best selling VA product in the US. And in 2002 Richey re-located to Tokyo where as Chief Sales Officer for HLIKK he led the sales effort for The Harford’s successful entry into the Japanese market. Most recently, he has been a part of teams that brought innovative new products to market for Sammons Retirement Solutions and LoCorr Funds. Richey is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Finance and holds FINRA series 24, 7, and 63 licenses.
Steven Brod- CEO Crystal Capital Partners
Steven Brod
Steven has over 20 years of alternative investing experience, launching and managing multiple low volatility fund of hedge fund vehicles. Having a keen understanding of the industry, he founded Crystal Capital Partners, LLC, providing financial advisors with customized hedge fund portfolio solutions. Steven is primarily responsible for the company’s strategic direction as well as overseeing manager selection and investment support services. He earned his M.B.A. with a specialization in investments from the University of Miami and his B.S. from Bentley College.
C. Thomas Howard, PhD
CEO and Director of Research, AthenaInvest, Inc.
Dr. Howard oversees Athena’s ongoing research which has led to a number of patents, industry publications and conference presentations. Dr. Howard is a Professor Emeritus at the Reiman School of Finance, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver where he taught courses and published articles for over 30 years in the areas of investment management and international finance.
Professor Howard’s thought leadership in Behavioral Portfolio Management has generated significant interest across the country with record downloads of his “Behavioral Portfolio Management” white paper and presentations at the Investment Management Consultants Association® (IMCA®) 2013 Annual Conference and Financial Advisor Magazine’s 4th Annual Innovative Alternatives Conference. Articles by Dr. Howard have been among the most widely read on sites such as AdvisorPerspectives.com, CFAInstitute.org and FAmag.com.
Joseph Julian, PhD- Highmore Group Advisors
Dr Joseph Julian is a Managing Director at Highmore.
Prior to joining Highmore he was Director of Investments at Oppenheimer & Co. where he designed and managed investment portfolios for the private client group of Oppenheimer with a specialization in alternative investment asset allocation, manager selection, portfolio construction, monitoring and risk management for the firm’s more sophisticated clients. Joseph provided a broad spectrum of institutional services to family offices, ultrahigh net worth private clients, foundations and endowments.
Prior to joining Oppenheimer Joseph was Head of Absolute Return Strategies for Witenberg Investment Companies where he provided hedge fund of funds portfolio management, due diligence, manager selection, and risk management overseeing $5 billion of institutional assets. At Witenberg he applied a multi-asset and multi-strategy approach to the markets that was top down with a macro overlay. Before joining Witenberg Joseph served as Lead Market Strategist for Thomas White Asset Management where he was responsible for a weekly “market perspective” publication and provided hedging for the firm’s proprietary assets. Joseph also worked on providing customer advice and guidance for traditional and alternative investments and performed analyst level work for general asset allocation of fixed income, US equities, foreign equities, absolute return, commodity, real assets and private equity due diligence for investment. He also executed risk management with an emphasis on risk factor diversification and dynamic rebalancing of investments. Joseph met with advisors and clients to discuss capital market trends and opportunities and contributed to the significant growth and success of the firm.
Joseph received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from California State University, cum laude, areas of study: mathematics, economics, and science and attended UCLA and earned his Doctorate Ph.D. degree from the University of California, San Diego in Theoretical Physics with original research in sound wave technology applied to music and acoustics. Joseph has received awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Washington D.C. and the 2013 Hedge Fund Institutional Advisor Award.