Dave Cassan - Securities Industry Advisor
Dave is a multi-faceted securities industry professional with 25 years of executive leadership experience in financial operations, securities sales/trading, asset securitization and brokerage management. He was most recently Managing Director and a member of Countrywide Capital Markets Executive Management team (acquired by Bank of America). In this capacity, between January 2000 and September 2008, Dave was involved in providing direction and leadership for the support of all facets of CCM’s securities business during a period of unprecedented growth.
Prior to Countrywide he was the Director of Operations for UBS Securities where he provided operational support and infrastructure development for all fixed income securities and whole loan transactions. He contributed to the development of straight through processing and other industry automation standards through leadership participation in the Bond Market association (now SIFMA). Between 1987 and 1994 he was Vice President of J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. As a charter member of Morgan’s newly formed Mortgage Backed Securities trading business Dave was involved in all facets of building and supporting this business.
Upon graduation from the University of Florida in 1984 Dave began his career with Salomon Brothers in their Mortgage Backed Securities department where he supported Salomon’s explosive growth in the agency MBS pass-through trading business.
Martin Higgs - Senior Vice President, State Street Bank and Trust Company
Martin has over 25 years experience working in the financial services industry. Although most of his experience has been within operations he has also worked in a legal department negotiating ISDA Master agreements and in internal control. He has wide ranging knowledge and experience across all products and functions, including accounting and technology.
Lucy P. Marcus - CEO Marcus Venture Consulting
Lucy is the Founder and CEO of Marcus Venture Consulting, Ltd., an Associate in Leadership & Innovation at the University of Cambridge's Judge Business School, a non-executive chair of the Mobius Life Sciences Fund, chair of the Mobius Life Sciences Fund Investment Panel, non-executive director and incoming chair of the board audit committee of BioCity Nottingham, independent non-executive director and treasurer on the board of the International Step-by- Step Association (ISSA) and a non-executive director and board treasurer and fellow of the British-American Project. She is co-founder, judge and chair of the board of the Aspen Institute Energy and Environment Awards, a member of the international advisory board of the Instituto de Empresa Business School in Madrid, on the board of the Wellesley College Business Leadership Council, is the chair of the global task force on building women leaders, and the founder of HighTech Women.
Lucy has worked in a number of sectors from software and the internet to government and financial services. Prior to founding Marcus Venture Consulting she was co-founder and vp of marketing and sales of an enterprise management software company, in charge of marketing and business development for EMEA at Infinity Financial Technology, ran the EMEA operations of a communications consulting company, worked at Price Waterhouse in the East European Services Division and at the U.S. Treasury's Economic Policy Division.
A regular speaker on global economic trends and best practices for investment, private equity, venture capital, entrepreneurship, technology, corporate governance and women in business she is frequently quoted in the press, including the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the International Herald Tribune, Newsweek, Reuters, Investment Dealers' Digest, Les Echos, the Guardian, Globes, Financial News, Venture Capital Journal, Infoconomy, and Red Herring.
Andrew Nicholson - Credit Suisse First Boston, Singapore
Andrew has over 20 years experience in the financial industry having initially trained as an auditor with Deloittes. After spending 3 years at Bankers Trust in the Regulatory Reporting and Product Control areas, he joined Credit Suisse Financial Products in 1991. He held a variety of positions in Operations at CSFP including Head of the Control Department, OTC Derivatives Business Analyst and OTC Derivatives Line Management. Andrew has managed CSFP's Operations in Europe, New York and the Asia Pacific region.
Following the integration of CSFP into Credit Suisse First Boston's Fixed Income Division at the start of 1999 Andrew became Global Head of OTC Derivatives Operations at CSFB. In 2000, he then went on to lead Global Strategic Change for CSFB Operations. In the summer of 2003 Andrew moved into Credit Suisse, managing Operations, IT and Strategic Change for Credit Suisse Private Banking. He currently works in Singapore.
Ellen O'Dwyer - President, O'Dwyer Group, New York
Ellen has over 20 years experience in the financial technology industry. Prior to founding the O'Dwyer Group in 1999 she held various sales and management positions with global technology solution providers.
Ellen began her career at Bloomberg Financial (then Innovative Market Systems) during her junior year of college and upon graduation in 1985 became the tenth full-time employee. In 1987 she went to Tokyo to jointly open and run the first Far East office where she stayed until 1989. In 1989 she decided on a career change and during her leave of absence from the industry opened and ran two music stores. In 1990 she joined Chicago based David Bruce and Company to manage their sales operation in New York. David Bruce marketed a UNIX based cross asset trading and risk management software solution. In 1993 she joined London based Lombard Risk Systems (a trading and risk management solution provider) to open and run their New York office. She left there after three successful years to join Infinity Financial Technology (IFT) where she was responsible for bringing in over 15 million dollars worth of license and consulting business during her four-year tenure. During her tenure, IFT went public and the company was acquired by SunGard Data Systems one year later. She left Infinity, a SunGard Company in October 1999 to start her own recruitment firm specializing in financial technology.