Meet the Candidates

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.

Jonathan Prin, CFA, , is a Managing Director and Head of Research at Greylock Capital, a hedge fund focused on emerging markets distressed debt. Prior to joining Greylock, he was a portfolio manager and member of the Global Fixed Income Group at JP Morgan Asset Management. At JP Morgan, Mr. Prin was responsible for managing and trading emerging market high yield corporate debt portfolios. Prior to joining JP Morgan, he was a credit analyst at Bear Stearns Asset Management.  Previously, Mr. Prin was a research analyst in the Leveraged Finance Department of Credit Suisse First Boston, as part of an Institutional Investor-ranked group. Mr. Prin has a B.A. in from the University of Pennsylvania, and received his CFA charter holder designation in 2009.

Deepika Sharma, CFA, is a Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of Investments at Astor Investment Management LLC, a nearly $2bn quantitative global macro asset manager, which was previously a subsidiary of Knight Capital Group. As a member of the Investment Committee, she assists with the management of Astor?s multi-asset and global macro strategies and reports directly to the Chief Investment Officer. She previously worked on the Fixed Income Prop Trading Desk at Nomura, as well as in macro-strategy at Roubini Global Economics. Ms. Sharma began her career as an Analyst on the Structured Credit desk at Lehman Brothers.

Ms. Sharma is an active volunteer at the CFA Society New York (CFANY) and was awarded the CFANY Young Investment Professional Award 2015, Volunteer of the Year Award 2016 and the Asset Owner Series Award 2016. As the Vice-Chair of the Global Investing Committee at CFANY, she has organized over 30 CFANY events that were attended by nearly 2,000 investment professionals, in addition to 150+ speakers who collectively oversee over $10tn in assets (10% of global institutional AUM). She is also a member of 100 Women in Hedge Funds and launched the Diversity & Inclusion program at CFANY.

Ms. Sharma holds a Masters in International Finance at Columbia University and is a CFA charterholder.

Maria Weitzer, CFA, is Director, Portfolio Management at TAG Associates LLC, a leading multi-client family office and portfolio management services firm with more than $8 billion of assets under management. Maria is responsible for analyzing and recommending publicly-traded equity and fixed-income strategies and is a member of TAG”s Investment Committee. Prior to joining TAG, Maria spent over eight years at Asset Alliance Corporation, most recently as Director, Research and Investments, focusing on manager research and due diligence across various strategies and asset classes. Prior to Asset Alliance, Maria was at Deutsche Bank where she performed risk management and monitoring functions for Deutsche Bank”s managed account platform. Prior to Deutsche Bank, she was an auditor at the Financial Services division of KPMG LLP. Maria received her B.A in Accounting and Management from Hartwick College. She was awarded her CFA charter in 2006 and holds FINRA Series 7, 63, and 65 licenses.

David Slifka, CFA,, is Senior Portfolio Manager at YMCA Retirement Fund. He joined the Fund in 2011. He has responsibilities across the Fund?s portfolio and the Investment Department. David was formerly Vice President ? Real Assets, responsible for selecting and overseeing the partnerships that make up the Fund?s real assets portfolio. David has thirteen years of investment experience and has built his career in the endowment and pension management industry. From 2001 to 2008 he worked at the Yale University Investments Office where he gained experience across multiple asset classes. From 2006 to 2008 he served as a trustee of the City of New Haven?s pension fund. David earned a BA from Yale University and an MBA from the Wharton School, and is a CFA charterholder.

Philip J. Taylor, CFA, is a Managing Director in the Investment Banking Group at Lazard. In this role he is the Head of the Sales and Trading Desk and is responsible for structuring and distributing exchanges in corporate securities. Prior to this role, he managed a $1bn portfolio at RBC Capital Markets, and has a successful nineteen-year track record in portfolio management. He has served as Vice-Chair and Treasurer of the Board, Chair of both the Market Integrity Committee and Alternative Investments Committee at CFANY, and has contributed to high-level discussions at the SEC regarding changes in trading regulations. Taylor has also published several articles in major hedge-fund research sites. Prior to RBC, he worked at three major hedge funds after starting his career at Bankers Trust. He holds a Masters degree in Mathematics and Management Studies from the University of Cambridge, and has held his CFA designation since 1998.

Alex Urdea, CFA, FRM, CMT, is a Managing Director serving as Director of Risk for Solus Alternative Asset Management LP, a hedge fund focused on distressed opportunities, special situations and liquidations in the credit and equity space. He leads a group responsible for developing and managing a proprietary system that integrates portfolio management, trading, risk, research, operations, legal, and investor relations functions. His daily responsibilities include monitoring portfolio exposures and sensitivities, recommending alpha and beta hedge strategies and working with the analyst team and portfolio management to express the firm?s view in the most effective and efficient manner. Prior to Solus, Alex was managing risk for Stanfield Capital Partners? hedge funds and structured products and he started his career as an Analyst in Global Markets at Deutsche Bank in 2003.  He also founded the Waverly Investment Group in early 2015 with a collection of savvy investors & former entrepreneurs where he collaborates with peers to advise and invest in several startup entrepreneurs, emerging fund managers, alternative credit opportunities and other special situations.

In his time outside of work, Alex volunteers his time in several capacities, currently serving as Board Chairman for the CFA Society New York, on the Young Professionals Committee for Hedge Funds Care, as a Board Member for Oyster Bay Main Street Association, and fundraising for numerous charitable causes throughout the year.  Prior to his involvement on the CFANY Board of Directors, he served as Chairman for the Investment Strategy Committee and was awarded the CFANY Volunteer of the Year Award in 2010.

Alex received a BSE in Financial Engineering from Princeton University in 2002 along with a Certificate in Finance and Engineering Management Systems. He was inducted into the Sigma Xi Research Society and served in several leadership roles.

Michael Weinberg, CFA, is the Chief Investment Strategist at Protege Partners, where he is a Senior Managing Director, and on the investment, risk and management committees. For more than two decades Michael has invested directly at the security level and indirectly as an asset allocator in traditional and alternative asset classes.

Michael is also an adjunct Associate Professor of Economics and Finance at Columbia Business School, where he teaches Institutional Investing, an advanced MBA course that he created.

He spent nine years at FRM, a multi-strategy alternatives solutions provider where he was a portfolio manager and headed the global equity business.  Previously, Michael was a portfolio manager at Soros, the macro fund, and at Credit Suisse.  Before that he was a Real Estate analyst at Dean Witter.

Michael is a board member of AIMA and on its Research Committee. He is on the management advisory council for the Michael Price Student Investment Fund and an advisory board member for the NYU Stern Investment Management and Research Society.  Michael is also on the advisory boards of The Woodlake Group, PeerIQ and YJP, a young professional organization. He is a member of The Economic Club of New York and the NYU Family Office Council. Michael is Chair of the Value Investing Committee at CFANY and  a volunteer at the CBS Hermes Society.

Michael is a published author, having written articles for The New York Times, Institutional Investor, CFA Institute and CAIA. He has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, CNBC, Bloomberg and Reuters. Michael is a frequent panelist, moderator and lecturer for institutional and family office organizations and business schools including II, P&I, SALT, Harvard and The London School of Economics.  He has a BS from New York University, an MBA from Columbia Business School and is a CFA.