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Yvonne is a Principal with Carne Global Financial Services Limited and CEO of Carne’s Irish business. Carne employs 180 people across 9 global locations and is a governance and substance provider for asset managers with $700 billion in Assets Under Management. Yvonne is currently Chair of Irish Funds Council, the official representative body for the Irish investment fund industry. She also acts as a Chairman and Director to traditional funds, hedge funds and management companies domiciled in Ireland and Cayman. Yvonne has over 25 years’ experience within the funds industry and is a specialist in governance, product development, compliance, financial reporting and operations. She also has experience in assisting fund managers and service providers with various aspects of operational development, control and risk management. She is a recognised expert in back office operations and change management and regularly speaks at fund industry conferences. Prior to joining Carne, Yvonne was Head of Operational Development at State Street (International) Ireland (formerly Deutsche Bank), where she looked after new business take on, product development, system implementation and change management. As a member of the senior management team at State Street, Yvonne reported directly to the CEO and was a key contributor to the overall strategy and direction of the business. Yvonne trained as a chartered accountant with KPMG, specialising in corporate taxation. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. Yvonne is a member of multiple industry associations including Irish Funds, the Institute of Directors in Ireland, 100 Women in Finance and the 30% Club.

Tilman Lüder holds a doctorate in law from the University of Tübingen.

Before joining the European Commission in 1999, Tilman was as an associate in Cleary Gottlieb Steen and Hamilton LLP. He worked on European and German antitrust and merger control issues.

His first job in the Commission was that of a case manager dealing with antitrust and state aid cases in the area of post and telecommunications in the Directorate General for Competition.

In 2002, he became the spokesperson to Commissioner Mario Monti, responsible for Competition, a position he successfully held until being appointed, in 2005, Head of the Copyright Unit of Directorate General for the Internal Market (DG MARKT).

He pursued his career to become Head of the Asset Management Unit (2011-2015) in DG MARKT, later the Directorate General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and the Capital Markets Union (DG FISMA).

As of September 2015, Tilman heads the Securities Markets Unit in DG FISMA.

Elaine is an investment fund specialist focusing on the structuring of UCITS and AIF for a wide variety of asset managers, investment banks and private equity managers pursuing a broad range of investment policies and mandates.

Elaine has extensive experience in advising those funds, their management companies, directors and service providers of their regulatory, compliance and corporate governance requirements.

Elaine has a particular expertise in ETF having advised several large asset managers and ETF specialists on the establishment of their Irish domiciled ETF product and is a member of the Irish chapter of Women in ETFs

Duncan Lidgitt joined Muzinich as Head of Legal, Europe following three years at Neuberger Berman where he was Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel for Neuberger Berman EMEA & Latin America. Prior to joining Neuberger Berman, Duncan was legal counsel at Henderson Global Investors for four years and trained at the law firm Travers Smith in London.

Duncan graduated from Oxford University with a First in Philosophy, Politics and Economics before completing his law conversion at the College of Law.

Muzinich & Co is a privately owned, institutionally focused investment firm specializing in public and private corporate credit. The firm was founded in New York in 1988 and has offices in London, Frankfurt, Madrid, Manchester, Milan, Paris, Singapore, Zurich and Dublin. Muzinich offers a broad range of corporate credit funds across both developed and emerging markets and has over US$36 billion of AUM.

Ian’s banking career spans 30 years of on-the - ground experience in the Americas, Africa, CEE and Asia. Ian joined GIB (UK) in 2016 as a Senior Portfolio Manager in the Trade Finance Asset Management team. He currently manages a global diversified conventional trade finance Fund and segregated mandates. Prior to that, as a senior banker and corporate financier, Ian has been involved in all aspects of trade finance for over 21 years covering origination, structured trade & finance, syndication, portfolio management, asset valuation and asset recovery/restructuring.

Mr. Zavahir is a Founding Partner of AlbaCore Capital and has 18 years of experience in legal and compliance work across corporate finance and credit markets. Prior to AlbaCore, he served as European Head of Corporate Legal and Compliance for Davidson Kempner Capital Management, a $25 billion asset manager. Previously, he worked as European Counsel and Head of Compliance for Millennium Partners, a $30 billion hedge fund.

Mr. Zavahir graduated from the University of Otago, New Zealand, with a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance and a LLB with honours. He was admitted as a Solicitor in England and Wales in 2002.

Ronan is a founding Partner of Centaur Fund Services and a Director of Centaur Financial Limited. Ronan is a non-executive director of a number of investment funds.

Ronan qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales in 1991 and qualified as a Barrister and Attorney in Bermuda in 1995. From 1994 to 2008, he held senior roles at Citi Hedge Fund Services, BISYS, Hemisphere Management and The Bank of Bermuda Limited. Ronan was educated at The University of Manchester and The College of Law, London. He worked at London law firm, Berwin Leighton, from 1989 to 1993.

Ronan has spoken at many conferences and written extensively on the funds industry. He was involved in the IOSCO report on Principles for the Valuation of Hedge Fund Portfolios and the AIMA Guides on Sound Practices for Hedge Fund Valuations and for Offshore Alternative Fund Directors.

Siobhán McBean is a senior associate in the Asset Management and Investment Funds Group at Arthur Cox.

Siobhán advises on all legal and regulatory issues relating to the establishment and structuring of investment funds in Ireland, including UCITS, QIAIFs, ICAVs, hedge funds, property and real estate funds, loan origination funds and private equity funds. She also advises fund managers and other fund service providers in relation to establishment, authorisation and regulation in Ireland.

Shay Lydon is a partner in the Asset Management and Investment Funds Group at Matheson. He practices corporate and financial services law and advises many of the world's leading financial institutions, investment banks, asset management companies and service providers carrying on business in Ireland or through Irish vehicles.

Shay has advised a wide range of domestic, continental, UK and US investment banks and financial institutions in relation to the legal and regulatory issues relating to the structuring, establishment and operation of mutual and alternative investment funds in Ireland, their listing on the Irish Stock Exchange, and the restructuring and amalgamation of such funds. He has advised on the Irish interpretation and implementation of European financial services directives, and has liaised with foreign counsel in many EU member states and other countries with respect to the marketing of Irish investment funds in those jurisdictions. He has also advised in relation to the structuring, offer and sale of investment instruments, the public issuance of equity and debt securities, the provision of investment advice and other financial services.

Shay was a member of the editorial committee of the inaugural edition of the Hibernian Law Journal. He has presented papers to client seminars and meetings on various topics relating to financial services regulation.

Marcus Doherty is Head of Compliance and Anti-Money Laundering at Brown Brothers Harriman's ("BBH") Dublin office. Marcus also acts as the Money Laundering Reporting Officer, Fraud Officer and Data Protection Officer and was previously the Head of Compliance at BBH's London business.

Marcus joined BBH in 2009 from A&L Goodbody Solicitors where he was a Senior Member of the Financial Services, Regulation and Compliance Practice Group. In that role, Marcus advised domestic and international financial services clients on a range of regulatory issues including MiFID, anti-money laundering, data protection law and investment/deposit compensation. Marcus joined A&L Goodbody from Bank of Ireland Asset Management Ltd where he was Assistant Compliance Manager for their Dublin and London businesses.

Marcus holds a Bachelor of Arts, as well as an LL.B from the National University of Ireland, Galway. He is also admitted as an Attorney at Law in the State of New York and lectures on the Irish Institute of Banker's "Professional Diploma in Compliance". He has also contributed to a number of textbooks for the Institute's courses.

Gareth is a Partner in the financial services taxation practice specialising in both domestic and international corporate tax. Gareth advises a range of domestic and international clients.

Gareth has extensive Irish and international taxation experience and advises a wide client base including funds, alternative investments vehicles, green energy providers, banks and aviation companies.

Gareth has considerable experience advising on financial products, debt issuance, securitisations, redomiciliations, portfolio migrations, and structured cross-border transactions.

Gareth regularly advises on cross border and international tax matters in numerous jurisdictions and has developed deep working relationships with his KPMG colleagues in those jurisdictions.

He is Associate of Irish Taxation Institute and an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland

James is a global economist at HSBC. He joined the Economics team in 2013 having previously worked within the Asset Allocation research team. His global work focuses on longer-term trends and themes, and the impact that they have on the economy and policy decisions today. 

Demographic data is at the heart of much of his work, but he has also written about urbanisation, the role of technology in the economy and how the world is moving away from cash. Alongside this, he provides economics coverage of Scandinavia. James holds a BSc in Economics from the University of Bath.

Daniel Lawlor is MD of Aquest, a new firm provide continuous learning (Aquest Academy) and consultancy services (Aquest Advisory) on investment funds regulation and compliance. Daniel is the former Head of the Central Bank of Ireland’s Funds Policy Team. He was involved in designing and drafting investment funds regulatory initiatives in Ireland from 2010 to 2017 year. This work included CP86 – Fund Management Company Effectiveness and contributing to the Central Bank’s ETF Discussion Paper. Daniel has also experience of the broader international investment funds industry having represented the Central Bank of Ireland at IOSCO and ESMA committees. He was a member of the FSB’s team for the peer review of Brazil in 2016. Before that, Daniel worked as an investment funds lawyer for 9 years at William Fry, one of Ireland’s leading law firms.

Laura Bruno is responsible for the Market Entry Solutions (MES) team at State Street. MES provides our clients with market leading information, insights and access to support their global product development and distribution ambitions across two dozen markets in North and Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The globally-dedicated team has resources in Boston, Luxembourg, Hong Kong and London, where Laura is based.

Laura joined State Street in 2014 as part of the Professional Development Program and rotated through various Compliance and regulatory-focused positions across the organization. Previously, Laura interned as a paralegal in New York City at international law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld, LLP, as well as within the Office of Public Engagement at The White House in Washington, DC.

Laura received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics and Italian Studies from Wellesley College in Massachusetts and studied abroad at the Università di Bologna in Italy. She speaks Spanish and Italian.

Ken is PwC Ireland’s Asset and Wealth Management Advisory Leader.

Ken has been a Partner in the Asset Management Group at PricewaterhouseCoopers since 2001 and has been with PwC for 28 years. 

During a 17 year career as partner Ken worked with a range of global asset managers who were using Ireland as a location for the establishment and/or servicing of UCITS funds, hedge funds, funds of hedge funds, ETFs, money market funds, private equity funds.

Ken is involved with numerous industry working groups and technical committees and currently chairs the Irish Funds (Industry Association) Brexit Steering Group. 

Based in Ireland, Des is Global Head of Product Development at carne Group. He has over 15 years of experience in senior roles in the funds sector. He works closely with fund clients and regulators on regulatory and listing procedures and has in-depth expertise of day to day fund operations and Irish and EU fund regulations. His experience extends to working with all types of UCITS and AIFs and he has assisted a number of hedge fund managers in launching UCITS products. Des acts as a Director to a number of UCITS and AIF Funds.

Des joined Carne from J.P. Morgan Bank (Ireland) plc, where he was a Vice President in the Bank’s Trust & Fiduciary services division in Dublin, managing a large portfolio of trustee clients, including UCITS and hedge funds managed by both large institutional and boutique managers. Prior to that Des held senior roles in the Irish Stock Exchange including as Listing Manager in the Funds Department, overseeing listing and compliance functions for funds and as an Executive in the corporate finance department. He sat on the Exchange’s policy committee, the Company Law Review Group and worked closely with the Irish Central Bank and EU bodies to adopt new regulations in the funds and securities area. Des was centrally involved in the launch of a number of new markets while at the Exchange. Des began his financial services career with the Trustee Department at Deutsche International in Dublin.

Simon is the BNPP SA Global Markets Programme Manager for UMR, responsible for the 2019 and 2020 waves. Prior to this, Simon was at EY for several years and was responsible for delivering a wide range of regulatory implementation projects and regulator-mandated investigations, working in both advisory and assurance practices. Prior to EY, he was a MD at Bear Stearns in Derivatives Product Control. Simon is a Chartered Accountant with over 25yrs experience of the financial services industry

Fergal is a principal and the COO of Three Rock Capital, a discretionary global macro manager based in Dublin, Ireland. Fergal has responsibility for operations, risk management, technology and analytics. Prior to starting the firm in 2012, Fergal was a senior fixed income trader for Rabobank Ireland (2002-2012) and Bank of Ireland (1995-2002). He holds a Bachelor of Actuarial and Financial Studies degree from University College Dublin.

Three Rock Capital Management Limited is a discretionary global macro manager based in Dublin, Ireland. Established in 2012, Three Rock only trades liquid exchange traded futures across G10 FX, equity indices, fixed income and precious metals and currently manages $91mio. The firm is authorised to operate as an Alternative Investment Fund Manager by the Central Bank of Ireland.

Etain is an expert on the establishment, structuring, financing and ongoing operation of investment funds. She specialises in alternative investment and related custody, administration and brokerage services. Her practice covers derivatives and securities law and the provision of credit facilities including structured credit to Irish domiciled schemes. 

Etain’s clients include a wide range of financial institutions carrying out business in Ireland or transacting with Irish-domiciled counterparties from other jurisdictions. Etain’s experience with Dillon Eustace includes a secondment to Goldman Sachs International, Global Securities Services Division.

Mr. Hector McNeil serves Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of HANetf Limited and served as a Co-Chief Executive Officer at WisdomTree Europe Limited. Mr. McNeil was Head of Sales and Marketing at ETF Securities Ltd. Mr. McNeil was responsible for sales and marketing for the ETF Securities group of companies. Mr. McNeil started his career at the London Stock Exchange. He left the LSE to study full time for an MBA at Warwick Business School. He then had a short stint at BZW before moving to Morgan Stanley for five years. From Morgan Stanley, Mr. McNeil moved to become Chief Operating Officer at Jiway, the Exchange joint venture between Morgan Stanley and OM Gruppen. Mr. McNeil spent time at Nomura, and then was Head of Business Development at Susquehanna International Securities, setting up a highly successful market making and liquidity provision business which included ETF, stock future and equity market making. He serves as a Director of Boost Issuer PLC. He studied at the University of Hull. He also holds MBA at Warwick Business School.