Damian Bierman is the Head of Asia-Pacific Operations for Portware LLC. His primary responsibilities include overseeing client services for the region, as well as looking after day-to-day operations for Portware in Asia-Pacific.

Prior to joining Portware, Damian served as the Head of FIX Product Services in Asia-Pacific for Javelin Technologies (a subsidiary of NYFIX, Inc), and ran the NYFIX office in Hong Kong. Damian joined Javelin in 2000 as a Client Manager, acting as the primary technical resource for a long list of buy- and sell-side customers. In 2002 he accepted the offer to manage the Javelin Quality Assurance team, and spent the next three years establishing a solid QA process for the company’s industry-leading FIX Technology Suite, building and managing a motivated team of test engineers and product specialists. In 2004, Damian relocated to Hong Kong to establish NYFIX Asia-Pacific, to further develop the company's regional FIX Product offering.

Damian received his B.S. in Cognitive Science from Carnegie Mellon University in May 1997.

 

Prashant is Senior Manager in the Principal Strategies Group at Edelweiss Securities. He co-heads the algo trading group there. Prior to Edelweiss Prashant spent more than 5 years in the IT and BPO industry. He is an engineer from IIT Delhi and MBA from IIM Calcutta.

 

Daniel Burgin is the Chief Executive Officer of MetaBit, a leading solution provider in Japan and Asia in the area of buy-side DMA trading solutions and low latency exchange connectivity built around the FIX Protocol. The company is headquartered in Japan. Mr. Burgin joined MetaBit late 2001 and was appointed CEO in April 2002. Prior to that he was Executive Director at UBS Securities responsible for Equities IT in Asia Pacific. Mr. Burgin has spent the last 16 years in Asia and witnessed the start, growth and acceptance of the FIX Protocol in Asia.

 

Paul Cherian is an Executive Director with the Information Technology (IT) division of Morgan Stanley. He currently heads IT for Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM), India. Paul Cherian is part of the global MSIM IT Management committee.

Paul Cherian joined Morgan Stanley in 1996 as a project manager. During his thirteen year tenure with the firm he has successfully worked on or led a variety of technology initiatives ranging from Electronic Trading & Straight Through Processing, Global Order Management (servicing cash and derivative products), the European Equity STP program and the global outsourcing strategy for Morgan Stanley IT.

Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Paul worked for Tata Unisys, India as a software engineer.

Paul Cherian received a Bachelors degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Pune, India in 1992. He also has a MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies.

 

Siddharth Chhabria is part of the Goldman Sachs Electronic Trading (GSET) team, currently based out of Singapore covering sales and marketing. He has been with Goldman Sachs since 2007 and was previously a sales team leader for Bloomberg L.P. in India(2002-2007). Prior to Bloomberg Siddharth has been a broker in the fixed income markets with various firms.

 

Kalpak is a Senior Software Architect for FIX based Solutions at Omniscient, with over 5 years of experience of working on some of the most challenging Direct Market Access and Exchange Connectivity Solutions in some of the leading Asian Markets like Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and India. He has worked on widely varied implementations of the FIX Protocol across most asset classes, covering the pre-trade, trade and post-trade work-flows. He has a passion for working on projects which have very “ambitious” latency requirements and has been the key architect of Omniscient’s BlueJay FIX-Test Harness, & Latency Management Platform. Kalpak has a Bachelors degree in Engineering and a Masters Degree in Computer Science from the International Institute of Information Technology, Pune.
 
  

Kumar Goradia manages the equity technology initiatives of Citigroup in India. Prior to Citigroup, he looked after application technology, algorithmic trading, quantitative studies, and India access products for the Institutional business of MF Global India. He has also managed treasury technology at ICICI Bank, and brokerage industry software services at Mphasis Ltd.

Additionally, Kumar spent 10 years with a private Indian brokerage, where he looked after all aspects of the equity business including arbitrage trading, B2B franchise solutions, clearing, risk management, compliance, back office, & sales. He also served on the BSE’s technology committee during that period.

Kumar has a B.E. from the University of Bombay, and an M.S. from Virginia Tech in the United States.
 
  

Since June 2007, Ravi Iyer has been Executive Director and Co-head of Kotak Institutional Equities (KIE) with a focus on institutional sales. He joined KIE from CLSA India, where he was a part of the Institutional Sales desk. Ravi has 14 years of experience in Institutional Equity Sales, part of this from an earlier stint in the Kotak group. When not chasing targets, Ravi runs with equal dedication and is a committed marathoner.

ravi.iyer@kotak.com
Mumbai: 91-22-6749-3678

 

He oversees risk management and resources planning at Edelweiss. Nikhil works closely with business and enterprise groups on risk policies and processes across products and asset classes. Currently he is also working on the organizational platform for algorithmic trading.

Nikhil has about 8 years of experience across various functions and businesses in the Edelweiss group. Starting with trading and arbitrage with head of arbitrage as the last role, he has done stints in institutional equities sales, trading operations as the COO, and is now looking after risk and resources.

Nikhil is a post graduate in management from SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai. He did his bachelor’s degree in finance from University of Delhi.

 

Mr. Himanshu Kaji is Group Chief Operating Officer - Edelweiss Group.

He oversees the Operations, Technology and Compliance at Edelweiss. In addition to this he is in the process of setting up a Corporate Planning group which will look at Strategy Development and Execution for the group.

Himanshu’s diverse experience of over two decades spans the areas of business strategy, risk, regulatory frameworks, process re-engineering and technology strategy & implementation across the financial services space.

Before joining Edelweiss Himanshu was a corporate advisor to eminent Indian and global financial services companies. His areas of expertise in consulting were strategy for introduction of new products, identifying and leveraging target customer segments, creating and implementing technology solutions, compliance and risk frameworks. He has also been the Honorary Treasurer and Official Spokesperson for The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) where he was involved in the process of corporatization and the de – mutualisation of the BSE. Prior to that he had a 5 year stint ICICI Limited, where he was actively involved in Investment Banking.

Himanshu is a Chartered accountant with a post graduate diploma in Securities Law.

 

R Nanda Kumar has around 22 years of experience in Securities & Capital Market Industry. In National Stock Exchange, he has been working for over 14 years in the areas of trading, clearing and settlement, new product development, business development, international relations etc.

Mr. Kumar’s current designation at the NSE is Vice President. His role is to provide guidance to the teams in new frontiers across the spectrum of front office solutions, clearing & settlement, risk management, surveillance; scanning the landscape for new products and services to the market participants and making the same available; representing NSE at various domestic and international meets WFE, AOSEF, ACG etc.; and spearheading international relations with exchanges/clearing corporations for sharing and implementing the homegrown solutions for other exchanges/clearing corporations.

Prior to NSE, Mr. Kumar has been working in the general insurance industry and the mutual funds industry, with a role that was involved in business process management/engineering and computerization, with a key focus of service to customer.

 

Greg Lee works for Deutsche Bank based in Hong Kong. He is a Director in the Autobahn Equity team and is responsible for the DMA and algorithmic product and sales across the Asia region.
 

 

Mr. Edward Mangles is the founder and Publisher of FIXGlobal, the official publication of the FIX Protocol. He has a long history within the financial technology sector and has worked closely with FPL for a number of years.  He has supported the organisation’s Asia Pacific committee for the past 7 years, playing a key role in promoting FIX adoption across the region. He has also worked for leading financial publishing and marketing firms in both London and Hong Kong. In March 09 Mr. Edward Mangles was appointed FPL Asia Pacific Regional Director.
 
 

With over two decades of experience in the transaction banking and securities messaging business is Asia, Milan heads the Operations & Technology functions at Omniscient. Over the last decade, he has managed large engineering teams for implementing Direct Market Access and Smart Order Routing Solutions for some of the leading brokerages across Asia. Prior to founding Omniscient, Milan was the CEO of CashTech Solutions (now Fundtech Corporation). Milan has extensive experience in all aspects of the software development lifecycle, starting from project acquisition, to design and development, to implementation and support, with a vast cross-cultural experience of working with teams across India, US, Singapore, Thailand, France and Japan. Milan started his career at CMC Ltd. where he was a key member of the team that designed and developed the trading systems for both the Bombay Stock Exchange as well as the Over the Counter Exchange of India. Milan has a Bachelor’s Degree in Electronics Engineering from Mumbai University and a Post Graduate Diploma in Software Technology from the NCST, Mumbai.

 

Punit Mittal joined Daiwa Securities SMBC in 2009 and heads the electronic trading platform that encompasses DMA, Algorithmic Trading, Liquidity Management and Trade Cost Analysis for Equities and Derivatives business on global markets.

Previously he was Head of Execution Products at BNP Paribas and Barclays Global Investors in Tokyo. Mr.Mittal has earned Bachelors in Commerce and Economics from Mumbai University, India and Masters of Applied Finance from Macquarie University, Australia.

 

David Mulvany joined the trading desk at Fidelity International in October of 2007. During his time in Hong Kong, David has traded a range of developed and emerging markets in Asia. David continues to focus his efforts on promoting the use of various electronic trading platforms throughout Asia.

Prior to his current role, David was a trader at FMR Co. in Boston, covering various sectors of the US market as well as FX.

 

Prakash has been in the business for 19 years. He started his career as an Authorized Assistant and did business on the floor of the Chennai Stock exchange in 1990-1991. He worked as a Head of India sales trading with Cazenove and also worked with ICICI Securities before moving to Franklin Templeton in May 2004.

 

Gerardo Pablo heads BNP Paribas' Global Portfolio Trading team in Asia. Head quartered in Hong Kong, the GPT team covers all equity markets in Asia including Japan and Australia; the team also serves as the gateway for Asian accounts that trade global programs.

The GPT team are specialist traders that manage Agency and Risk programs, algorithmic trading and quantitative analytics. Gerardo joined BNP Paribas in 2006, prior to that he has held numerous roles in Sales Trading with other investment banks, including stints in Citigroup, Macquarie and Nomura over the past fourteeen years.


 

Srinivas Padmasola is Vice President, Electronic Trading Sales for the Asia Pacific Region at Merrill Lynch. Previously, Srinivas worked for SWIFT in Mumbai and Hong Kong as well as a brief stint at Reuters. Srinivas has been an active member of FPL in the region and is the current co-chair of the Asia Pacific Education & Marketing Sub-Committee.

 

Chetan Pandya is Head of IT at Kotak Institutional Equities, India’s premier broking firm. He has over 12 years of experience in the Indian capital markets in various functions ranging from equity sales, trading, operations, projects and IT.

Over the years, Chetan has been closely associated with changing the landscape of front office and operations technologies in Indian capital markets.

 

James Rae is a Credit Suisse Director and Head of AES Sales for Southeast Asia, located in Singapore. James has been with Credit Suisse for 4 years. Previous to joining Credit Suisse he spent 8 years with Instinet in Japan and the U.S.. James moved to Singapore in early 2008 to assist in the further development of the AES product in the Asian region.

 

Based in Chennai as a buy side trader covering cash and derivatives for Indian markets. Total industry experience of 7 years with 4 years in Kotak Securities prior to joining Sundaram BNP Paribas in 2007.

 
 
 

Jim joined the BSE in September 2009 with responsibility for market development, institutional sales and the exchanges international relationships. He is a member of the exchange’s management committee.

Prior to joining the BSE, Jim was Senior Managing Director of Galileo Global Advisors, a New York boutique investment bank, and CEO of Galileo Global Securities. Prior to joining Galileo, Jim worked for 16 years at the New York Stock Exchange in various senior management positions in research, strategic planning and international business development. He holds a B.A. from Harvard College and M.A. and M. Phil. degrees in economics from Yale University.