
2021 Fink Investing Conference Highlights
Speakers

PIMCO
Ms. Albrecht is an executive vice president in the Newport Beach office and the head of PIMCO's ESG (environmental, social, and governance) business strategy.
Previously, she led the firm's global fixed income business strategy. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2011, she worked in private equity at Cerberus Capital Management in Frankfurt, Germany. She has also held positions at Lockheed Martin, Mubadala Development Corporation in Abu Dhabi, and the U.S. Department of Defense.
She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, along with a master's degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and an undergraduate degree from Princeton University. Ms. Albrecht was a member of the Big Brothers, Big Sisters Orange County Board of Directors from 2012–2014.

in Responsible Investment,
Mercer
Dave is a financial services executive with over 20 years of experience, including as a proven business leader, trusted advisor to corporate boards and business consultant. Dave is highly regarded for consistently delivering financial strategy, innovation, and investment solutions.
Dave works closely with Mercer’s global RI business and in partnership with local Mercer field consultants to deliver RI client advice and solutions to a wide range of clients including pensions, endowments, foundations and insurers. Prior to this role, Dave held various positions with Pacific Life, including Founder & CEO of the sustainable fintech company Swell Investing, which was a subsidiary of Pacific Life. He previously worked at Mercer as a senior associate, where he was responsible for advising Fortune 500 pension plan sponsors on funding, plan design and asset-liability management strategies.
Dave leads with values of empathy, transparency and innovation and passions for investing, financial literacy and social and environmental progress. Dave is a CFA® charterholder, a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, and holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management and a bachelor’s degree in actuarial science from Ball State University.

for Sustainable Investing,
BlackRock
Jon Posen is Head of Strategy for Sustainable Investing at BlackRock. A key architect of BlackRock’s approach to sustainability, Jon wrote CEO Larry Fink’s influential public letters on climate change and corporate purpose. In his current role, Jon works to make sustainability central to the way the firm invests, manages risk, and executes stewardship responsibilities. In addition, Jon manages company initiatives and external partnerships on a range of topics related to the economic impact of climate change.
Prior to joining BlackRock in 2013, Jon spent four years at the U.S. Treasury Department, where he was Secretary Tim Geithner’s chief writer on the financial crisis, financial reform, the federal budget, and the U.S. economy. Before joining Treasury, Jon managed field operations and special projects for Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign.
Jon holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a BA in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Fink Center for Finance;
Associate Adjunct Professor of Finance and Strategy,
UCLA Anderson
Lori Santikian is an Associate Adjunct Professor in the Finance and Strategy areas and the Director of the Fink Center for Finance at UCLA Anderson School of Management. She holds a B.A. in Economics and Applied Mathematics from UC Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University. Prior to joining Anderson, she was an Assistant Professor of Finance and Business Economics at the USC Marshall School of Business, where she taught MBA and Executive Education courses in valuation and finance. Her research is in the areas of financial intermediation, empirical corporate finance, and organizational economics, and has been published in the Journal of Financial Intermediation.
At Anderson, Professor Santikian has won the Citibank Teaching Award, as well as the MBA Teaching Excellence Award chosen by both the full-time and fully employed MBA students. She teaches core business strategy and electives in valuation and data analysis. She also teaches corporate finance at UCLA School of Law.

Research Affiliates
Feifei Li is head of equities for Research Affiliates, a global leader in smart beta, factor investing, and asset allocation. The firm delivers investment solutions around the world in partnership with leading financial institutions. As head of equities, she leads cross-sectional equity research and strategy design that supports the firm’s systematic active portfolios and smart beta indices. She works in close collaboration with the PIMCO RAE™ portfolio managers and Research Affiliates’ academic advisors.
Feifei sits on both the Research Affiliates Investment Committee and Management Committee. She has been instrumental in the design of Research Affiliates’ innovative investment solutions since she joined the firm in 2005, becoming director of research in 2009, head of investment management in 2015, and head of investment strategy in 2018 before assuming her current role as head of equities in 2020. Feifei has published more than 40 articles and journal papers in both academic and practitioner journals and won best article awards from the Journal of Portfolio Management and European Financial Management.
She has taught undergraduate and MBA finance classes at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California, Irvine. She is a Program Committee member at Q Group and serves as a reviewer for multiple academic and practitioner journals such as the Financial Analysts Journal.
Feifei earned a BA from Tsinghua University’s School of Management and Economics in Beijing and a PhD in finance from the University of California, Los Angeles. She holds the Financial Risk Manager designation.

TCW Special Purpose
Acquisition Corp.
Joseph R. Shaposhnik serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of TCW Special Purpose Acquisition Corp. Mr. Shaposhnik established TCW’s New America business unit in 2015 and serves as Managing Director and Portfolio Manager of TCW New America Premier Equities, Global Premier ESG Equities, and Global Space Technology Equities portfolios. He previously served as a Senior Equity Analyst in the Equity Research group with coverage responsibility for the industrials and basic materials sectors. Prior to joining TCW in 2011, he was an Equity Research Associate at Fidelity Management and Research Company, with coverage responsibility for the semiconductor and entertainment software sectors for the firm’s U.S. domestic equity funds. Mr. Shaposhnik holds a BS in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Kayne Anderson Rudnick
Chris Wright is a portfolio manager and senior research analyst at Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management where he has primary research responsibilities for the financials and real estate sectors.
Mr. Wright began working in the financial services industry in 2001. Before joining Kayne Anderson Rudnick in 2012, he worked at Alvarez & Marsal as a senior associate in Turnarounds and Restructuring and at Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin as an associate in the Investment Banking Financial Institutions Group.
Mr. Wright earned a B.S.E., with a concentration in finance, from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles. Mr. Wright is a Chartered Financial Analyst® (CFA®) charterholder.

Founding Partner, Clear Capital LLC
Accepting an offer to teach as a means of earning some additional income may have been one of Eric Sussman’s more auspicious decisions. Currently an Adjunct Professor in accounting and real estate at UCLA Anderson, Sussman first taught a certified public accountant exam review course after graduating from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and accepting a position with a small real estate investment firm. It was a role he thoroughly enjoyed. So, when he was first offered a lecturer’s position at Anderson by his mentor and former teacher, David Ravetch, he jumped at the opportunity.
Since 1995, he has been teaching courses in the areas of cost/managerial accounting, financial accounting, financial statement analysis, equity valuation, corporate financial reporting and real estate investment and finance to undergraduate, graduate and Executive Education students. In addition, he has advised numerous MBA and Fully Employed MBA field study teams and led student travel groups to Brazil, China, Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. He has also served as a guest lecturer at UC Berkeley, George Washington University and the Helsinki School of Economics, and created a series on accounting and finance for the Great Courses (the Teaching Company).
Throughout his teaching career, Sussman has remained active in the real estate industry. He is president of Amber Capital Inc., manager of Fountain Management LLC and Clear Capital LLC, and managing partner of the Pacific Value Opportunities and Clear Opportunity Fund, which have acquired, rehabilitated, developed and managed more than two million square feet of residential and commercial real estate in the past 20 years. The firms’ portfolio at present consists of industrial, multifamily and single-family residential, and retail properties.
He is also audit committee chairman and former chair (2012-2018) of the Board of Trustees of Causeway Capital’s group of funds (International Value, Emerging Markets, Global Value, Global Absolute Return Funds, International Opportunities, and International Small Cap), which collectively have more than $15 billion in assets. He sits on the board of Pacific Charter School Development Inc. and was former chairman of the Presidio Fund and former audit committee chair of Atlantic Inertial Systems Inc., a producer and manufacturer of electromagnetic sensors.
As an aside, he created Insight FSA™, an analytical software tool that automatically and critically measures, evaluates and reports upon the financial accounting and corporate reporting risk for public companies via EDGAR Online.
With his wide range of expertise, Sussman has consulted for large and small firms, nationally and globally, and is a frequent lecturer on varied financial, accounting and corporate reporting topics. He has served as an expert witness and consultant for commercial litigation, involving matters of corporate financial reporting and disclosure, audit effectiveness, valuation, real estate due diligence and related practices, and overall damage analyses. He is a licensed CPA in the State of California.
Sussman relies on his real-world experiences to make his classes relatable and exciting, aspects that are not lost on the students as well as faculty. He is an eight-time winner of the MBA Teaching Excellence Award, a seven-time winner of the FEMBA Teaching Excellence Award and recipient of numerous other teaching awards and national recognitions. A little-known fact: this native Californian is a third-generation UCLA graduate.
Schedule
2021 Fink Investing Conference |
|
---|---|
10:00 – 11:00 a.m. |
The Accelerating Shift Towards Sustainable Investing The threat of climate change is rapidly bringing sustainable investing to the forefront of asset management. As global business leaders across all sectors grapple with the transition to net-zero emissions, asset owners are facing new risks and opportunities in their investments and increasingly demanding more sustainable portfolios. While regulators ramp up oversight efforts, investors are searching for innovative ways to navigate the fragmented disclosure environment. Our panel will discuss the ongoing challenges and opportunities as asset managers across the investment landscape move to incorporate ESG considerations within their traditional investment frameworks. Olivia Albrecht, Head of ESG Business Strategy, PIMCO Moderator: Lori Santikian, Faculty Director, Fink Center for Finance; Associate Adjunct Professor of Finance and Strategy, UCLA Anderson |
11:00 – 11:30 a.m. |
Networking |
11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. |
Equity Markets Today: Insights from Quantitative and Fundamental Perspectives With the fear and uncertainty of the pandemic's onset giving way to hope and optimism as vaccines roll out, what will this mean for volatility and returns in the equity markets? Amid the appearance of historically high valuations, where can investors look for opportunities? What are the potential market headwinds and how do investors navigate these risks? Our panel will discuss today's equity markets and how investors are approaching these challenges. Chris Wright (‘09), Portfolio Manager and Senior Research Analyst, Kayne Anderson Rudnick Moderator: Eric Sussman, Adjunct Professor of Accounting, UCLA Anderson; Founding Partner, Clear Capital LLC |
12:30 – 1:00 p.m. |
Networking |
2019 Fink Investing Conference Highlights

Keynote: A Conversation with Ric Kayne, Founder and Co-Chairman, Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors.


Panel Discussion: Investing in an Era of Data and Technology Proliferation


Keynote: A conversation with Josh Friedman, Co-Founder, Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Canyon Partners, LLC.


Panel Discussion: The Year Ahead: A Global Investment Outlook

Past Keynotes

Western Asset
Ken Leech is Western Asset’s Chief Investment Officer and has more than 42 years of industry experience. Ken joined the Firm in 1990, and from 1991 to 2019, assets under management grew from just over $5 billion to $460 billion. Ken now leads the Global Portfolios, US Broad Portfolios and Macro Opportunities Teams. He also serves on the Market & Credit Risk Committee, which determines and monitors internal and external risk guidelines, and reviews market and credit risk issues. From 2002–2004, he served as a member of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee. In 2017, Ken and the Western Asset team were nominated for Morningstar’s US Fixed-Income Manager of the Year, the third time in four years. Over the last 15 years, the team has been nominated six times, winning the award in 2004 and 2014. Ken was inducted into the Fixed-Income Analyst Society Hall of Fame in 2007.
Prior to joining Western Asset, Ken was a Portfolio Manager with Greenwich Capital Markets, The First Boston Corporation and the National Bank of Detroit. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. In his four years there, he received three degrees: a Bachelor of Arts, a Bachelor of Science and an MBA, graduating summa cum laude.
1 As of 31 Dec 19. 2 Morningstar Awards 2017©. Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Ken Leech and team; Western Asset Core Plus Bond (WACPX), nominated for 2017 Fixed-Income Fund Manager of the Year, US. Morningstar Awards 2015©. Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Ken Leech and team; Western Asset Core Plus Bond (WACPX), nominated for 2015 Fixed-Income Fund Manager of the Year, US. Morningstar Awards 2014©. Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Awarded to Ken Leech, Carl Eichstaedt, and Mark Lindbloom, Western Asset Core Bond and Western Asset Core Plus Bond for 2014 Fixed-Income Fund Manager of the Year, US. The funds are offered through Legg Mason Investor Services, LLC – www.leggmason.com. The funds are not available to non-US investors. Morningstar Awards 2004©. Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Ken Leech and Management Team; Western Asset Core Bond (WATFX), awarded 2004 Fixed-Income Fund Manager of the Year, US. Morningstar Awards 2003©. Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Management Team: Western Asset Core Bond (WATFX): Runner-Up for Fixed-Income Fund Manager of the Year, US.

Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors
Richard Kayne is the Founder and Co-Chairman of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, a Los Angeles-based manager of alternative investment strategies. The firm serves a distinguished client list of institutions, endowments, foundations, family offices and high net worth individuals.
Mr. Kayne founded Kayne Anderson in 1984, and has grown the firm through a disciplined, personal investment philosophy that emphasizes niche opportunities with attractive return expectations and lower risk characteristics. Mr. Kayne and the firm have long shared the importance of deploying knowledge and sourcing advantages as part of this philosophy. Today, the firm is one of the premier alternative asset managers specializing in oil and gas, energy infrastructure, credit, specialty real estate, growth private equity and marketable securities. Recognized as the industry leader in energy infrastructure investments, the firm is the largest investor in energy pipelines in the United States.
In addition to co-founding Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, Mr. Kayne founded Kayne Anderson Rudnick, a traditional investment management firm. Mr. Kayne grew that firm to over $10 billion in assets under management and sold it in 2001 to the Phoenix Companies. Mr. Kayne is a trustee of and the former chairman of the Investment Committee of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Foundation and is a trustee of and former co-chairman of the Investment Committee of the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles. He began his career in the mid-1960s as an analyst with Loeb, Rhodes & Co. in New York and was a principal of Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., Inc., where he managed private accounts, a hedge fund and a portion of firm capital. Mr. Kayne earned a B.S. in statistics from Stanford University in 1966 and an M.B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1968.

Canyon Partners, LLC
Joshua S. Friedman is Co-Founder, Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Canyon Partners, LLC, a leading global alternative asset management firm headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Canyon specializes in value-oriented investments for endowments, foundations, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and other institutional investors. Its investment strategies focus on distressed loans, corporate bonds, convertible bonds, securitized assets, direct investments, real estate, arbitrage, and value equities. Canyon Partners' flagship fund, the Canyon Value Realization Fund, twice received Institutional Investor's "Credit-Focused Hedge Fund Manager of the Year" Award.
Additionally, the Canyon Structured Asset Fund received Institutional Investor's "Hybrid Hedge Fund of the Year" Award. Mr. Friedman has also received Institutional Investor's "Lifetime Achievement" Award. Mr. Friedman is a graduate of Harvard College (1976) (B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Physics), Oxford University (1978) (M.A., honors, Politics and Economics, Marshall Scholar), Harvard Business School (1980) (M.B.A., Baker Scholar) and Harvard Law School (1982) (J.D., magna cum laude). Prior to forming Canyon, Mr. Friedman was Director of Capital Markets for High Yield and Private Placements at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Prior to working at Drexel, he worked in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department of Goldman Sachs in New York.
Mr. Friedman is a member of the Board of Directors of Harvard Management Company. He is also a member of Harvard's Committee on University Resources; the Harvard Business School Board of Dean's Advisors; the Harvard University Campaign Executive Committee; the Southern California Leadership Council for Harvard Law School; and the Harvard University Task Force on Science and Engineering. Mr. Friedman serves as a Trustee for the California Institute of Technology (Caltech); the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Mr. Friedman is a member of the Investment Committees for the Broad Foundation and the J. Paul Getty Trust and chairs the Caltech Investment Committee and the LACMA Finance Committee. Mr. Friedman also serves on the Boards of Advisors of the UCLA Hospital Department of Neurosurgery and the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Mr. Friedman and his wife, Beth, live in Los Angeles and have three sons.

2018 Keynote Speaker

2018 Keynote Speaker

2017 Keynote Speaker

2017 Keynote Speaker

2017 Keynote Speaker

2016 Keynote Speaker

2016 Keynote Speaker

2015 Keynote Speaker

2014 Keynote Speaker

2013 Keynote Speaker

2012 Keynote Speaker
Sponsored By
For sponsorship opportunities or general questions, please contact us at fink.center@anderson.ucla.edu