6:00pm - Welcome Reception
6:45pm - Panel
7:30pm - Networking
Nasdaq, SVP, US Equities & Head of Crypto
Tal Cohen joined Nasdaq in April 2016 as the Senior Vice President of North American Equities. Prior to joining Nasdaq, Cohen was the Chief Executive Officer of Chi‐X Global Holdings, LLC from 2010 to 2016. From 2008 to 2010, Cohen served as CEO of Chi‐X Americas.
Prior to joining Chi-X, Cohen held several senior leadership roles at INSTINET, including Senior Vice President of Business Development and Product Strategy as well as Co‐head of electronic trading for North America, from 1999-2008. Before joining Instinet, Cohen served as M&A Manager at American Express; building out its strategic investment portfolio. Cohen started at Arthur Andersen as an Auditor and Senior Business Advisor focused on the Financial Services and Telecom industries.
Cohen currently serves as a Director on the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) Board and as a Director on the Canadian Depository for Securities (CDS) Board. He is a member of IIROC’s Human Resources committee.
Cohen holds a B.A. from SUNY Albany, an M.B.A. from New York University’s Stern School of Business, and is a Certified Public Accountant. He also holds FINRA Series 24, 7 and 63 licenses, the CSI Partners, Directors, and Senior Officers Designation (PDO).
CME Group, MD, Global Head of Equity Products
Tim McCourt serves as CME Group’s Managing Director and Global Head of Equity Products and Alternative Investments. He is responsible for the development, execution and management of the company’s Equity Index growth strategy across a comprehensive suite of futures, options on futures, and cleared OTC solutions for key global benchmark indices. McCourt also works closely with the company’s Research & Product Development and Business Development groups to provide product and service innovation to broaden the index product portfolio and foster alignment with CME Group’s intellectual property and international exchange partners. He also serves on the S&P Dow Jones Indices U.S. Advisory Panel.
Before joining CME Group in 2013, McCourt worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland, where he was responsible for building and managing the Americas Index and Delta One trading book. Prior to RBS, he held a senior trading role with JPMorgan in New York, spending 10 years with the Equity Derivatives Group on the Equity Financing and Delta One trading desks.
McCourt holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Boston College and a MBA from The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
Coinbase, Director of Institutional Sales
Kayvon Pirestani is a Director within Coinbase’s Institutional division, which includes the GDAX trading platform and Coinbase Custody. Kayvon is responsible for marketing Coinbase’s institutional offerings to the growing number of institutional investors interested in investing in cryptoassets.
Prior to Coinbase, Kayvon ran the Japan OTC equity derivatives sales desk for Morgan Stanley where he marketed structured volatility and synthetic equity products to global institutional investors. Prior to Morgan Stanley, Kayvon was at Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong where he put together some of Asia’s largest-ever equity options transactions.
Kayvon received his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and his Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Kayvon has been investing in cryptocurrencies since 2013.
Canaan, Partner
Michael invests in entrepreneurs building enterprise software and fintech companies. He is interested in talking to founders building the next generation enterprise tools and fintechs solving the structural issues in finance. Deeply passionate about building the entrepreneurial community in fintech, Michael launched Canaan’s FinTech Central in 2015, a quarterly event series covering trends in fintech. Previously, Michael advised technology companies with GCA Savvian and Matrix Capital. He received a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.