3rd Annual Professional Development Day

Rob Arnott serves as Chairman of Research Affiliates, LLC, and as Editor of the Financial Analysts Journal.

He has authored of over seventy refereed articles for journals such as the Financial Analysts Journal, the Journal of Portfolio Management and the Harvard Business Review. He has received five Graham and Dodd Scrolls or Awards, awarded annually by the CFA Institute (formerly AIMR), and two Bernstein-Fabozzi/Jacobs-Levy awards, awarded by the Journal of Portfolio Management and Institutional Investor, for the best articles of the year.

In 2002, he joined forces with PIMCO, serving as a subadvisor, to offer the first global asset allocation product to make active use of alternative markets, beyond conventional stocks, bonds and cash. More recently, he introduced the concept of Fundamental Indexation, built on a theoretical foundation which challenges some of the core assumptions of modern finance.

He previously developed quantitative asset management products and teams as Chairman of First Quadrant, LP, as global equity strategist at Salomon (now part of Citigroup), President of TSA Capital Management (now part of Analytic) and as Vice President at The Boston Company (now PanAgora).

He has also served as a Visiting Professor of Finance at UCLA, on the editorial board of the Journal of Portfolio Management and two other journals, and on the product advisory board of the Chicago Board Options Exchange and two other exchanges. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of California in 1977 in economics, applied mathematics and computer science.

David M. Blitzer is a managing director and the chairman of the S&P Index Committee with overall responsibility for security selection for S&P’s indices and index analysis and management. He is a member of Standard & Poor's Investment Policy Committee. Prior to becoming Chairman of S&P’s Index Committee, Dr. Blitzer was Chief Economist for Standard & Poor’s. Before joining Standard & Poor's, he was Corporate Economist at The McGraw-Hill Companies, S&P's parent corporation. Prior to that, he was a Senior Economic Analyst with National Economic Research Associates, Inc. and did consulting work for various government and private sector agencies including the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the National Commission on Materials Policy, and Natural Resources Defense Council. 

Dr. Blitzer is the author of Outpacing the Pros: Using Indices to Beat wall Street’s Savviest Money Managers, (McGraw-Hill, 2001) and What’s the Economy Trying to Tell You? Everyone’s Guide to Understanding and Profiting from the Economy, (McGraw-Hill, 1997). In the year 2000, Dr. Blitzer was named to SmartMoney magazine’s distinguished list of “the 30 most influential people in the world of investing, which ranked him seventh, and in the year 1998, Dr. Blitzer was named the nation’s top economist, receiving the Blue Chip Economic Forecasting Award for most accurately predicting the country’s leading economic indicators for four years in a row. A well know speaker at investing and indexing conferences, Dr. Blitzer is often quoted in the national business press, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and various financial and industry publications. He is frequently heard on local and national television and radio.

A graduate of Cornell University with a B.S. in Engineering, Dr. Blitzer received his M.A. in Economics from the George Washington University and his Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University.

Jim Wiandt is Editor of the Journal of Indexes and Publisher of IndexUniverse.com and Exchange-Traded Funds Report (ETFR). Wiandt also oversees the Financial Technology and Design Group (FTDG) of Index Publications LLC. The Journal of Indexes was originally founded by John Prestbo of Dow Jones Indexes, and has served as the “book of record” for the index industry since 1999. Wiandt took over as Editor of JoI in late 2001, and Index Publications LLC purchased ETFR and IndexUniverse.com in late 2003.

In addition to overseeing the transition of JoI as an independent publication with editorial and financial support from across the index industry, Wiandt also spearheaded a similar effort in which he took on the role of managing Exchange-Traded Funds Report, which was subsequently purchased by Index Publications LLC. Founded by MARHedge and edited by Marsha Zapson, ETFR had established a position as the leading source of ETF news and data for the ETF industry.

In late 2003, Wiandt joined forces with Steven Schoenfeld, and cemented an agreement that facilitated the evolution of Schoenfeld’s Web site IndexUniverse.com, which had been founded to support his book, into a broadly-focused, independent Web site. IndexUniverse now serves as not only the online home of the Journal of Indexes, ETFR and Schoenfeld’s book, Active Index Investing, but also has its own editorial team and includes research, tools and data from across the industry. Index Publications recently completed the purchase of IndexUniverse.com from Schoenfeld, who now serves as Chief Investment Strategist, Global Quantitative Management at Northern Trust Global Investments.

Wiandt was formerly Publisher of IndexFunds.com and is the author of Exchange Traded Funds, a book that was published by John Wiley & Sons. Before being hired as Site Editor at IndexFunds.com, Mr. Wiandt had a diverse and colorful editorial background. Most recently he had served as an editor and writer for Compton's Encyclopedia. There he was responsible for writing and editing mainly content dealing with international finance and global affairs.

Previously he served as a contract journalist in West Africa after serving in the Peace Corps in Niger. He has lived in Boston, New York, London, Spain, Venezuela, West Africa and Japan, serving variously as a teacher, legal assistant, and writer. While in England, he served as an aide in the British Parliament. Wiandt is a 1991 graduate of Tufts University, home of the “Jumbos” and is a longsuffering fan of the Cleveland Indians, Browns and Cavaliers. Of late, Ohio State football has served him, as it has many native Ohioans, as a welcome balm.

Adrian is responsible for quantitative equity research and portfolio management for Wilmington Trust Investment Management. His responsibilities include managing the firm’s internally managed large cap core, value, and growth equity strategies.

Prior to joining Wilmington Trust in 2005, Adrian served as Director, Deputy Head of Quantitative Equity Products at Schroder Investment Management Limited in London, where he focused on strategic and tactical asset allocation, proprietary quantitative research, and discretionary fund management. He also managed a group of 8 analysts and fund managers covering over $3 billion in client assets under management.

Adrian holds a Ph.D. in Macroeconomics and Econometrics and a master’s degree in Economics and Finance from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. He also earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics, with honors, from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He is a member of the CFA Institute, the Atlanta Society of Financial Analysts, and the U.K. Society of Investment Professionals. Additionally, he holds an Investment Management Certificate from the U.K. Institute of Management Research.

Robert R. Johnson, Ph.D., CFA, is the Managing Director of CFA Institute responsible for the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Certificate in Global Investment Performance Standards (CGIPS®) Programs Division. As Managing Director, he is one of nine members of the CFA Institute Management Committee (including the CEO) responsible for determining policy and managing the organization. He received his BSBA in finance (cum laude) from the University of Nebraska-Omaha, MBA (concentration in finance) from Creighton University, and PhD in finance/investments from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He earned his CFA charter from the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts in 1991.

Dr. Johnson has extensive media experience both in the United States and abroad. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Barron’s, Forbes, Toronto Globe and Mail, South China Morning Post, Singapore Strait Times, LeTemps, and Nikkin Weekly Newspaper, among others. He has appeared numerous times on ABC World News, Bloomberg TV, and CNN. He has made presentations to over 50 CFA Institute-affiliated societies in over 25 countries on a wide variety of topics including monetary policy and the CFA Program. He has made numerous research presentations to professional finance groups including the Financial Management Association, European Financial Management Association, Southern Finance Association, and the Midwest Finance Association, among others. He has also made presentations to various regulatory bodies including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the New York Stock Exchange, and the Financial Services Authority.

He previously taught at Creighton University from 1984-1996 where he was a Professor of Finance. In 1994, Dr. Johnson earned the university-wide Robert F. Kennedy Award for Teaching Excellence. He is the author of a CFA Institute Research Foundation Monograph and has written over 50 articles on a wide variety of investment topics in both practitioner and academic journals. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Portfolio Management, Financial Analysts Journal, and Journal of Investing, among others. He is currently a member of the Advisory Board of The Journal of Portfolio Management and The Journal of Wealth Management. He is also a member of the Education Advisory Group of the International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation and the Creighton University College of Business Administration Advisory Council. He is a Board member of the Midwest Finance Association, and a former Board member of the Eastern Finance Association. He has served as a manuscript reviewer for numerous financial journals including The Journal of Portfolio Management, Financial Management, The Journal of Financial Research, and The Journal of Alternative Investments.

Kenneth E. Volpert, CFA, is Principal and Senior Portfolio Manager at The Vanguard Group, in Valley Forge PA., where he oversees Vanguard’s bond indexing group which manages over $60 billion in mutual fund assets and where he also co-manages Vanguard’s $9.5 billion Inflation-Protected Securities Fund.

Mr. Volpert currently manages over $45 billion in four bond index mutual fund portfolios, $4.5 billion in seven offshore non-dollar bond index funds, and co-manages the $9.5 billion Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities Fund. The investments in his portfolios cover the full range of domestic markets (Treasury, mortgage-backed, and corporate securities with maturities out to 100 years) as well as the world government and corporate markets.

Mr. Volpert wrote a chapter on “Managing Indexed and Enhanced Indexed Bond Portfolios” published in numerous Fabozzi publications, including the Handbook of Fixed Income Securities. In addition, he wrote a chapter entitled “Core Fixed-Income Management” contained in the book “Core-Satellite Portfolio Management”, edited by J. Clay Singleton, and published by McGraw-Hill. Mr. Volpert is a member of the Lehman Index Advisory Council, the Institute of CFA’s, and the Philadelphia Analysts’ Society. In 1998, Mr. Volpert testified before a Congressional sub-committee on bond market transparency.

Mr. Volpert has over 25 years fixed income management experience (over 20 years bond indexing experience), holds his Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation, and holds a B.S. Finance from the University of Illinois-Urbana and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.

Bruce D. Phelps is Managing Director and Senior Analyst in the Quantitative Portfolio Strategies Group in Fixed-Income Research at Lehman Brothers. Bruce works both on empirical studies evaluating various investment strategies (both alpha – outperformance and beta – replication) and on the development of portfolio management tools such as the global multi-factor risk and performance attribution models and liability-based and book accounting indices.

Before Lehman, Bruce was Managing Director and Fixed-Income Portfolio Manager at Ark Asset Management in New York and Senior Economist at the Chicago Board of Trade where he designed derivatives contracts and developed the CBOT’s electronic trading platform. Bruce was also an International Credit Officer and Foreign Exchange Trader at Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco.

Bruce has a Ph.D. in Economics (Monetary Theory) from Yale University and an A.B. in Economics from Stanford University.

Publications (joint authorship) include: “Using Treasury Bond Futures to Enhance Total Return,” Financial Analysts Journal, Jan/Feb 1990; “Electronic Trading, Market Structure and Liquidity,” Financial Analysts Journal, Jan/Feb 1994; “Tradable Proxy Portfolios,” Journal of Fixed Income, December 2001; “Optimal Credit Allocation for Buy & Hold Investors,” Journal of Portfolio Management, Summer 2004; “Managing against the MBS Index,” Handbook of MBS Securities, McGraw Hill, 2006; and Quantitative Management of Bond Portfolios, Princeton University Press, forthcoming Oct 2006.

Bruce is also on the Editorial Board of the CFA Digest.