Hedge Fund Alpha is on the ground at Future Alpha 2026, taking place March 31 – April 1 at the New York Marriott, Brooklyn Bridge. Over two packed days, some of the sharpest minds in quantitative finance, risk management, and trading technology will come together to share insights on everything from machine learning-driven alpha generation to next-generation execution infrastructure.
We’ll be covering the key sessions, panels, and conversations shaping the future of systematic investing. You can find the full agenda below, and coverage links will be added as they become available.
Also see:
- 2026 Capstone Student Investment Conference: Bluegrass, Equinox, Iben, Schurr, Brennan, Robotti & More Pitch Top Ideas
- Value Invest New York 2026: Best Ideas From Gabelli, Smead, Pzena, Juniper, Patient, And More
Future Alpha 2026 Coverage
- PureStream’s Armando Diaz On Opportunistic Trading Around VWAP
- 85% of AI Projects Fail, And It Has Nothing To Do With The Technology
- AQR’s Bryan Kelly On The Virtue Of Complexity: Why Bigger Models Are Better [Future Alpha 2026]
- The $2 Trillion Blind Spot: Pricing Covenants In Private Credit [Future Alpha Conference]
- CSCB Management’s Amaral On Evaluating Different Approaches To Systematic Portfolio Design
- Invesco’s Kenneth Blay On What Is Wrong About “Uncertainty”
Future Alpha 2026 Agenda
Day 1, Tuesday, March 31
| Time | Session | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| 8:00am – 8:45am | Registration And Networking | – |
| 8:45am – 9:00am | Chairs Opening Remarks | Rob Morgan, Senior Vice President and Market Strategist – Mosaic |
| 8:55am – 9:30am | Machine Learning, Market Risk, and the Future of Asset Pricing | Bryan Kelly, Head of Machine Learning – AQR Capital Management |
| 9:30am – 10:10am | Rethinking Portfolio Construction: Risk, Uncertainty, and the Active Edge | Daniel J Sandberg, Global Head of Quantitative Research & Solutions – S&P Global Market Intelligence George Patterson, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer – PGIM |
| 10:10am – 10:50am | Evolving the Quant Toolkit: Data, Models, and AI in an Evolving-Alpha World | Yuyu Fan, Principal Data Scientist – AllianceBernstein Harry Mamaysky, Co-Founder – Quantstreet Capital |
| 10:50am – 11:10am | Systematic Approaches to Opportunistic Trading | Armando Diaz, Chief Executive Officer – PureStream Trading Technologies |
| 11:10am – 11:20am | Chairs opening remarks and ice breaker | Moderator: Robert Simon, Executive Director – Carnegie Mellon University |
| 11:10am – 11:40am | Networking Break | – |
| 11:20am – 12:20pm | Careers that outperform: The human side of alpha | Matthew Healy, Partner – Maven Partnership Erin Holbrook, Partner – Maven Partnership |
| 11:20am – 11:40am | Iteration Is the Alpha | – |
| 11:40am – 12:40pm | Financial Trading with cognitive clarity, technical realism and zero hype | John Thomas Foxworthy, Founder – The Global Institute of Data Science |
| 11:40am – 12:20pm | Multi-Asset Alpha – Signal Integration Across Equities, Bonds and FX | Jacob Bowers, Vice President, Multi Asset Quantitative Strats – BlackRock Matthias Uhl, Managing Director & Head Analytics and Quant Solutions – UBS Asset Management |
| 11:40am – 12:20pm | Multi-Asset Quant Portfolio Construction: Alpha, Risk, and Convexity in a Volatile World | Arun Assumall, Head of Commodities and Global Markets, EMEA – Macquarie Group Daniel DeWoskin, Managing Director of Quantitative Research – Graham Capital Management |
| 11:40am – 12:20pm | Re-Architecting the Edge: Building Scalable, Intelligent Front Office Infrastructure | Alisa Rusanoff, Founder/ Advisory Council Member – Stealth Startup / Ankh Impact Ventures Sujit Khanna, VP, AI Solutions – Cross River Bank |
| 12:20pm – 12:40pm | Closing the Gap: Why Quant Finance needs women and what we’re doing about it | Akshara Desai, Student – Columbia University |
| 12:20pm – 1:00pm | Deep Alpha Capture: Mining Discretionary Investors for Alpha | Frank Ieraci, Senior Managing Director and Global Head of Active Equities & Head of Investment Scienc – CPP Investments Andrew Gelfand, Quant, L/S Equity Alpha Capture – Balyasny Asset Management |
| 12:20pm – 12:40pm | Inside an Ultra-Low-Latency Exchange: A Time-Series Database Case Study with QuestDB | Vlad Ilyushchenko, Co-Founder & CTO – QuestDB Stefan Blackwood, CTO – One Trading |
| 12:20pm – 1:00pm | Precision Under Pressure: Rethinking Market Risk in a Volatile World | Sébastien Laurent, Professor of Econometrics – IAE France |
| 12:40pm – 1:00pm | Execution as a Source of Persistent Alpha: Optimal Execution, Market Integrity, and DeFi Manipulation Dynamics | Natascha Hey, Postdoctoral Researcher – Columbia Business School |
| 12:40pm – 1:00pm | What does good look like for Front-Office Engineering? | Alan Russell, Former Lead Quant Engineer – Head of Front Office Engineering – Brevan Howard |
| 1:00pm – 2:00pm | Networking Lunch | – |
| 1:30pm – 1:50pm | Track the World, Beat the Index: Portfolio Optimization in Minutes | – |
| 2:00pm – 2:20pm | Building AI-Ready Execution Infrastructure at Scale | John Feminella, SVP Platform Architecture – Two Sigma |
| 2:00pm – 2:40pm | Effective oral and written communication skills as a lever to enhance business opportunity | Melina Denebeim, Senior Director, MS Financial Economics and Program for Financial Studies – Columbia Business School |
| 2:00pm – 3:00pm | For Business Leaders: Stay Ahead or Get Left Behind -Embracing the Evolution of Hardware-Based Trading Infrastructure | Beth Geething, Product Manager Lead – HPR |
| 2:00pm – 3:00pm | Modern Day Execution and Li-quidity | Armando Diaz, Chief Executive Officer – PureStream Trading Technologies |
| 2:00pm – 2:20pm | Stress Testing the Future: Integrating Advanced Models Across Economic, Quantamental, and Risk Scenarios | Zoubair Esseghaier, Head of Product, Risk & Performance – Clearwater Analytics Arun Maheshwari, Executive Director, Global Head of Model Risk control – Morgan Stanley |
| 2:00pm – 2:20pm | Using NDX options to generate Alpha and mitigate risk | David Pegler, Global Macro Strategist and Co-Founder – Tier1 Alpha |
| 2:20pm – 2:40pm | AI as a Research Multiplier | Jason Hillary, CTO and Co-Founder – Zerve Ai |
| 2:20pm – 2:40pm | Multi-Period Portfolio Optimization with Discrete Decisions | Silke Horn, Senior Optimization Engineer – Gurobi Optimization |
| 2:20pm – 2:40pm | The ROI in Iterative Thinking and Why Scrappy Quants Are Winning | Jonathan Kay, Founder and Chief Executive Officer – Apptopia Inc Vadim Khidekel, Owner – Khidekel Vadim LLC |
| 2:40pm – 3:20pm | Customization at Scale: Building Front Office Architectures for Performance and Profitability | Theodoros Stamelatos, Former Assistant Vice President – Front Office Systems Product Engineering – MUFG Tom Taylor, MD, Co-Head of Front-Office Engineering – Man Group |
| 2:40pm – 3:10pm | Insightful presentation: Market Microstructure | Elham Saeidinezhad, Adjunct Professor of Economics – Stern School of Business Uri Ravid, Incoming 2027 Investment Banking Summer Analyst – JP Morgan & Co |
| 2:40pm – 3:20pm | Machine Learning in Action: The Next Frontier of Asset Intelligence | Nam Nguyen, Head of Quantitative Trading and Research – Active Digital Asset Management Akhil Khunger, VP Quantitative Analytics – Barclays |
| 2:40pm – 3:20pm | Navigating the Next Frontier, Systematic Strategies Across Fixed Income, FX, Derivatives & Alternatives Integration & Where the Next Edge Lies | Muting Ren, Sr PM, Head of Systematic Credit – American Century Investments Bruno Pajusco, Founder and CEO – Keridion Capital |
| 3:00pm – 4:00pm | Comprehending Import/Export Trade Data to Weed Out Noisy Signals in Commodity Markets | Jade Wolanin, Managing Director – Trade Data Monitor |
| 3:10pm – 3:15pm | Chair’s Closing Remarks | Robert Simon, Executive Director – Carnegie Mellon University |
| 3:15pm – 4:10pm | Networking – Informal CV sharing with sponsors and buy-side talent teams. | – |
| 3:20pm – 3:45pm | Rapid Tech Talks | Zoubair Esseghaier, Head of Product, Risk & Performance – Clearwater Analytics Brad Jones, Senior Product Manager, Trading Analytics – Parameta |
| 3:20pm – 3:45pm | Rapid Tech Talks | Rob Glanzman, Global Strategic Alliances Principal Architect – Everpure Alan Parry, CTO – YellowDog |
| 3:20pm – 3:45pm | Rapid Tech Talks | Anju Marempudi, Founder & CEO, EventVestor Jeremy Ben Sadoun, CRO and founding member – Neuralk |
| 3:30pm – 4:31pm | Networking Drinks with Sensor Tower | – |
| 3:45pm – 4:10pm | Networking Break | – |
| 3:50pm – 4:50pm | Networking Drinks and Snacks with YellowDog | – |
| 3:55pm – 4:15pm | StarQube Live: From raw data to portfolio implementation. One environment. | – |
| 4:10pm – 5:10pm | Advanced Risk Management Techniques – From Dimensionality to Regularisation | Sébastien Laurent, Professor of Econometrics – IAE France |
| 4:15pm – 4:35pm | Customization at Scale: Building Front Office Architectures for Performance and Profitability | David Wood, Chief Quantitative Strategist and Co-Chief Technology Officer – Brooklyn Investment Group |
| 4:15pm – 4:35pm | Discretionary v Systematic and the integration of AI to drive market edge | Arun Assumall, Head of Commodities and Global Markets, EMEA – Macquarie Group Yu Yu, Director of AI Research – BlackRock |
| 4:35pm – 4:50pm | A Context-Engineering Based Knowledge Framework for Quantitative Finance | Haoxue Wang, Quantitative Analyst – Millennium Capital Partners |
| 4:35pm – 5:15pm | From Macro to Models: Embedding Fundamental Data and AI into Alpha Generation | Wangshu Yang, Portfolio Manager and Research, QIS Alternatives – Goldman Sachs Rahul Gupta, Quantitative Research and Trading – DRW Trading Group |
| 4:35pm – 5:15pm | Market Risk in Motion…Architectures and Algorithms | Kyle Balkissoon, Managing Director and Portfolio Manager – Stance Capital Chirayu Gulati, VP – Electronic Trading Risk Manager – Barclays Investment Bank |
| 4:50pm – 5:15pm | Operationalising AI at scale: Integrating investment, operations, and investor relations | Bill Mann, Chief Operating Officer – Anneal Investment Management |
| 5:15pm – 5:50pm | The Intelligent Edge: Information, Uncertainty, and the Future of Active Investing | Kenneth Blay, Head of Strategic Research, Strategy & Insights – INVESCO |
| 5:55pm – 7:00pm | FutureX Awards & Networking Drinks Reception | – |
| 7:00pm – 10:00pm | FutureAlpha After Party – sponsored by Deutsche Borse After Party | – |
Day 2, Wednesday, April 01
| Time | Session | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| 7:30am – 8:30am | Advisory Board Meeting | – |
| 8:00am – 8:45am | Registration And Networking | – |
| 8:45am – 9:00am | Chairs Opening Remarks | Rob Morgan, Senior Vice President and Market Strategist – Mosaic |
| 9:00am – 9:30am | Opening Keynote Address | Allan Houston, Assistant General Manager – New York Knicks |
| 9:30am – 10:10am | Rethinking Portfolio Construction: Risk, Uncertainty, and the Active Edge | Anne-Sophie van Royen, Chief Investment Officer, Quantitative Strategies – Asset Management One Chris Barber, Partner – Armada Technologies |
| 10:00am – 10:20am | Owning your AI Future | Daniel J Sandberg, Global Head of Quantitative Research & Solutions – S&P Global Market Intelligence Sam Hartman, AI Solution Architect – Mistral AI |
| 10:20am – 10:50am | Dean’s in the Hot Seat – The Future of Talent in Finance | Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainou, Dean of Tepper School of Business – Carnegie Mellon University Andrew Karolyi, Professor of Finance, Dean, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business – Cornell University |
| 10:50am – 11:20am | Networking Break | – |
| 11:00am – 11:20am | Come and meet Neuralk, and discover Predictive AI for the Enterprise | – |
| 11:15am – 12:20pm | The rise of AI, automation, and what it means for career paths | Milind Sharma, CEO – QuantZ Capital/ QMIT |
| 11:20am – 12:00pm | Capital Allocation in a Risk-Conscious World | Avi Rosenbluth, Head of Risk – Final Ltd Andrew Greenby, Chief Risk Officer and Chief Data Scientist – Ripple Effect Asset Management |
| 11:20am – 12:20pm | India derivatives and options market structure | Dhiraj Papnai, Head of US Sales – Nuvama Financial Services Inc |
| 11:20am – 12:00pm | Monetizing AI and Alternative Data in Systematic Trading: From Insight to Execution | Dhrupad Bhardwaj, Systematic Head of Research and Applied Machine Learning, Balyasny Asset Management LP Charlie Flanagan, Chief AI Officer – Balyasny Asset Management |
| 11:20am – 12:00pm | Practical AI applications in finance, including LLM workflows | Tim Anderson, Director of Tick History & Quantitative & Economic Data – London Stock Exchange Group Renato Guerrieri, Head of Quantitative Strategy Liquid Alternatives – Downing |
| 12:00pm – 12:20pm | B2B Spend Data: The Next Frontier in Alternative Data | Benjamin Petersen, Head of Data Feeds – YipitData |
| 12:00pm – 12:20pm | Beating the Market with Numbers: A probability-driven trading approach | Giulio Occhionero, Head of Quantitative Research and Development – IRH Global Trading |
| 12:00pm – 12:20pm | Inside the Machine: How Man Group Architects its Technology Teams | Barry Fitzgerald, Co-Head of Front-office Engineering – Man Group |
| 12:20pm – 12:50pm | Bridging the skills gap for Early Career Hires | Paul White, CEO and Co-Founder – Quantbot Technologies Sanam Bosler, Director, Campus Recruiting – QuantBot |
| 12:20pm – 1:20pm | Crypto And Digital Assets | Tom Costello, CIO – Bedrock Digital Assets Management LLC |
| 12:20pm – 12:40pm | Designing the Next Generation of Alpha: From Machine Learning to Agentic AI | Mike Chen, Head of Next-Gen Research – Robeco |
| 12:20pm – 12:40pm | Evolving Role of Asset Allocation Teams in Risk Design | Anthony Huang, Quantitative Investment Analyst – Bank of America Merrill Lynch Anna Semakhin, Senior Asset Allocation Quantitative Analyst – Fidelity |
| 12:20pm – 12:40pm | Practical applications of quan-tum tech in finance | Laurence Filby, Senior VP – Quantitative Strategies – Futures First Juan David Suarez, Research Quant Associate – Sigma Quantum Lab |
| 12:40pm – 1:00pm | Compute is the new Alpha: Building quant platforms that scale productivity, performance, and ROI | Alan Russell, Former Lead Quant Engineer – Head of Front Office Engineering – Brevan Howard Ritesh Bansal, Managing Director, Risk Quant Platforms – Citi |
| 12:40pm – 1:00pm | Session Reserved for Similarweb | Aria Ertefaie, Principal Customer Success Manager, Enterprise – similarweb |
| 12:40pm – 1:00pm | Unlocking data-driven insights across securities lending and ETFs | Mark Klein, Executive Director, Head of Business Development for Equity Analytics Products – S&P Global Market Intelligence |
| 1:00pm – 2:00pm | Networking Lunch | – |
| 1:50pm – 2:10pm | Zoom to success! Present like a pro…Tips on how to present on camera | – |
| 2:00pm – 2:20pm | Engineering execution platforms for speed, scale, and resilience | Krishna Kanchibhatta, Head of Software Engineering – Maxim Group LLC Vijay Gurusamy Raju, Lead Engineer – Financial Services Company |
| 2:00pm – 2:40pm | Macro outlook & Quant opportunities in Multi-Asset Investing | Cayla Seder, Macro Multi Asset Strategist – State Street Corporation Florian Ielpo, Head of Macro and Multi-Asset Portfolio Manager – Lombard Odier Investment Managers |
| 2:00pm – 3:00pm | Private Equity | Arnav Sheth, Quantitative Researcher, Vice President – ICapital |
| 2:00pm – 2:40pm | Signal Fusion in Multi-Factor Models – Beyond Momentum and Mean Reversion | Somya Harjai, Quantitative Researcher – ClearBridge Investments Gabriel Tucci, Global Head of Cash Equities Quant – Citi |
| 2:20pm – 3:00pm | What’s Next in Alternative Data? Trends and Challenges in Systematic Investing | Irina Bogacheva, Head of Systematic Global Macro Research – Millburn Justin Xu, Chief Quant and AI Officer – MillTech |
| 2:30pm – 2:50pm | Session Reserved | Robert Simon, Executive Director – Carnegie Mellon University |
| 2:40pm – 3:00pm | How Should You Diversify? Evaluating Approaches to Systematic Portfolio Design | Jacob Amaral, Computer Systems Analyst, Quantitative Research – CSCB Management |
| 2:40pm – 3:00pm | The Future of Work in Quant Research – Leaner Teams, Greater Intelligence | Milind Sharma, CEO – QuantZ Capital/ QMIT Nan Xiao, Chief Intelligence Officer & CTO – Greenland Capital Management LP |
| 2:50pm – 2:55pm | Chair’s Closing Remarks | Milind Sharma, CEO – QuantZ Capital/ QMIT |
| 2:55pm – 3:30pm | NETWORKING – Informal CV sharing with sponsors and buy-side talent teams. | – |
| 3:00pm – 3:20pm | Networking Break | – |
| 3:20pm – 3:50pm | Macro in Motion: Portfolio Strategy, Asset Correlations, and Cross-Market Dynamics | Michael J. Sager, MD and Chief Investment Officer, Multi-Asset & Currency – CIBC Miles Sampson, Head of Asset Allocation Research – Franklin Templeton |
| 3:50pm – 4:00pm | Closing Remarks | – |
| 3:50pm – 4:00pm | End of Future Alpha 2026 | – |
