Asset Owner Bios

Deepika Sharma, CFA, is a Director at BlackRock and heads research and product strategy for multi-asset factor strategies. In this role, she is responsible for driving an intensive research agenda to identify the future generation of systematic strategies across major asset classes working with key internal partners such as PMs, and fostering specific product recommendations in the context of business objectives, competitive landscape, and overall firm strategy.

Prior to this role, she was Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of Investments at Astor Investment Management LLC, a quantitative global macro asset manager, where she co-managed $2bn in assets across retail and institutional channels. She has previously worked on the Fixed income Proprietary Desk at Nomura, as well as in macro strategy at Roubini Global Economics. Deepika began her career as an Analyst on the Structured Credit Desk at Lehman Brothers.

Deepika currently serves as Treasurer on the Board of Directors at CFA Society New York (previously, the New York Society of Security Analysts). She holds a Masters in International Finance at Columbia University and is a CFA charter holder.

Thomas Brigandi is an associate lead analyst in the Global Project and Infrastructure Finance Group at Moody’s, where he serves as a lead analyst for 34 power, toll-road, airport, port, and project finance credits. Brigandi also serves on Moody’s public pension steering committee, ESG Americas working group and veteran recruiting sub-committee. Brigandi previously worked at the ~$180bn NYC Pension Fund, where he focused on energy and natural resources and reported directly to the chief investment officer. Brigandi, CFA Institute’s Inaugural Global Outstanding Young Leader and CFA Society New York’s (CFANY) 2016 Benjamin Graham Distinguished Service Award, 2017 and 2015 Volunteer of the Year and 2013 Young Investment Professional Award recipient, has organized 58 CFA Society conferences that were attended by +10,500 investment professionals, in addition to over 380 speakers who collectively and directly oversee or advise on +$35 trillion. Brigandi, the founder of CFANY’s Asset Owner Series, Emerging and Frontier Market Series, Investment Employment Outlook and Professional Development Series and Annual Global Infrastructure Conference, leads a team of several hundred investment professional CFA Society volunteers globally. While serving as the Director of Global Volunteers of the American Foundation for African Children’s Education, Brigandi organized the NASDAQ Closing Bell Ceremony on September 23, 2011, hosted for the President of Sierra Leone. Brigandi has cultivated personal relationships with thousands of asset owner and buy-side investment professionals who collectively and directly oversee or advise on +$50 trillion, in addition to thousands of sell-side investment professionals, government officials and corporate executives globally. Brigandi maintains over 10,100 connections ‎on LinkedIn and holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance, Accounting and Economics from the Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York, from where he received the college’s inaugural Alumni Pioneer Award.

Roberto Peralta, CFA, has been with Société Générale New York since 2001, most recently as Head of Institutional Client Relations for the Americas. Prior positions at SG include experience as a  Structured Solutions salesperson for Latin America and as a senior credit analyst for banks and brokers located in Latin America and the US. Peralta earned a double Bachelor degree in Business  from Comillas Pontifical University/ICADE in Madrid, Spain and from the Ecole supérieure de Commerce de Reims in Reims, France. Peralta was awarded his CFA charter in 2007 and holds FINRA Series 3, 7, 24, and 63 licenses.

Robert Discolo, CFA, CAIA, is CEO and CIO of River Partners Family Office, a $1 billion+ registered investment advisor, whom he joined in 2016. Previously he was Executive Vice President, Investments, at Permal Group (a $22 billion alternative investment firm) and prior to that he spent 14 years working at Pinebridge Investments (formerly AIG Investments) where he was Managing Director and Head of Hedge Fund Solutions Group, ultimately responsible for managing $10 billion+ in proprietary and client assets in hedge funds and other alternative asset classes. Prior to joining AIG, Mr. Discolo spent seven years at Bank Julius Baer where he was Head of the Public/Private Funds Group, and before that was at Merrill Lynch in Partnership Financing, having started his career at Drexel Burnham Lambert in their Fund Services Group. He has authored and co-authored several papers and magazine articles on alternative investing and is a frequent speaker at investment conferences. Mr. Discolo is a CFA® and CAIA Charterholder, and holds an M.B.A. from Pace University, Lubin School of Business, New York, and a B.S. in Accounting from St John’s University, Jamaica, New York.

Jae Yoon, CFA, is the Chief Investment Officer of New York Life Investment Management, joined NYLIM as a managing director in 2005. He most recently served as the CIO of the Strategic Asset Allocation and Solutions group. Previously, he was responsible for risk management efforts at boutique affiliate MacKay Shields. Prior to joining NYLIM, Mr. Yoon was head of Quantitative Research, Analytics, and Risk Management at Western Asset Management. Previous roles include serving as head of Risk and Performance for the EMEA-Pacific regions of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers and regional head of Risk Management Control for Fixed Income and Equity Derivative Trading at J.P. Morgan Securities in Asia. Mr. Yoon earned his master’s degree in Operations Research and bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University. Mr. Yoon is a CFA® charterholder and holds FINRA Series 3 and 7 registrations.

Kevin Maxwell, CFA, is Managing Director of Asset Management Business Development and a member of the Senior Leadership Team for the TIAA organization.  Mr. Maxwell is responsible for marketing the organization’s global real asset products.  Prior to joining the TIAA organization in 2007, Mr. Maxwell was a Senior Vice President at LaSalle Investment Management responsible for marketing their institutional real estate products and held similar positions at J.P. Morgan and The O’Connor Group. Mr. Maxwell serves on the editorial board of The Institutional Real Estate Letter and is a member of Publication Committee for the Pension Real Estate Association, of which he previously served as Chairman.  He is also on the Alternative Investments Committee at the CFA Society New York.  He formerly served as Chairman of the Corporate Governance Committee of INREV.  Mr. Maxwell holds a B.S. in Accountancy from the University of Illinois and an M.B.A. in Finance from Northwestern University.  He is a CFA charter holder.

Sammy Suzuki, CFA, is Portfolio Manager of Strategic Core Equities at AllianceBernstein. He has been managing the Emerging Markets Strategic Core portfolio since its inception in July 2012 and the Global, International and US portfolios since 2015. The Strategic Core platform that he co-founded has grown to $4.5B in assets. Suzuki has managed portfolios for over 13 years and emerging-markets portfolios for a decade. From 2010 to 2012 he also held the role of director of Fundamental Value Research, where he managed 50 fundamental analysts globally. Prior to managing portfolios, Suzuki spent a decade as a research analyst. He joined AB in 1994 as a research associate covering the capital equipment industry, and then became an analyst covering the technology industry. From 1998 to 2004 Suzuki served as senior research analyst for the global automotive industry. Before joining the firm, he was a consultant at Bain & Company. Suzuki holds a BS in materials science and engineering and a BS in finance from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a CFA charterholder.

Peter Sang, CFA, is a Research Analyst on Lazard Asset Management’s Emerging Markets Debt team covering global EM sovereign credits. Prior to joining Lazard, Peter was responsible for Enterprise Risk Management at ING Bank fsb. While at ING, he also had roles at ING Investment Management in the Latin America Investment Office. Peter also served as an Advisor for the Central Bank of Chile where he developed an Early Warning System (EWS) model of countries at risk of a sovereign downgrade in their international investment portfolio. Peter is a graduate of Columbia University’s Program in Economic Policy Management (PEPM), a specialized degree in economic policy making for emerging markets. Peter also has an MBA from the University of Western Ontario – Richard Ivey School of Business and a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University in Canada.