In 2018 Hazem took over the SME Forum and focuses most of his efforts there. Since its founding more than 15 years ago, The Forum has been a growing dynamic community of practitioners from the Asset Management industry who have roles in supporting the Sales, Marketing, Operations and Technology departments of their respective organizations.  The deep degrees of trust in sharing best practices, avoiding pitfalls, and learning from one another are hallmarks of how valuable this community continues to be for each firm and the individual employees.

As one of the original members, he has been a continual driver of the Forum’s growth and maturity since its inception in 2003.  Initially the senior representative for OppenheimerFunds, he grew to be a leader in the development of the CRM Forum,  providing  guidance,  mentorship,  facilitation  and participation in various aspect of the organization’s events over the years.  Hazem took over ownership and primary responsibilities for running the organization in 2018.  He also continues to provide consulting services to the industry under his Thoth Advisory Services organization.

Prior to the Forum, Hazem spent more than fifteen years at OppenheimerFunds in several different roles, always as a proven change agent to help define and implement appropriate and necessary improvements to propel the business.  He worked  most closely with the sales and marketing divisions directing their technology needs and adoption, onboarding third-party services, in addition to portfolios such as data management, reporting and analytics, business continuity and disaster recovery, among other responsibilities.

Loren is the Director of Ignites Research, a Financial Times unit offering business intelligence on the asset management business.

Previously, he was a senior research analyst at Strategic Insight, producing market intelligence on the mutual fund industry. Prior to that, Loren was a business journalist for many years, having worked at Institutional Investor, Business 2.0, and other publications, and he is the author of the book Enron: The Rise and Fall (2002).

As an industry expert, Loren has spoken at numerous conferences and has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and other publications. He earned his BA from Johns Hopkins University and his MS from Columbia University.

Ken joined Principal Global Investors in September 2019 as part of the build out of their business intelligence and analytics team. Recently, Ken was named the Head of Digital Enablement and Analytics, which is the combination of the BI and Analytics, Digital Marketing, CRM, Marketing Automation, and Sales Enablement teams. This new organization supports the US Retail, US Institutional, and International distribution and marketing teams. Before Principal, Ken spent 8 years at Macquarie Investment Management (formerly Delaware Investments) where he led the Distribution Intelligence and Sales Enablement (DISE) team. Before forming the DISE team, Ken managed the internal and hybrid sales teams. Ken spent time at three other asset managers over his 20-year career, including Fidelity Investments, Evergreen Investments (Wells Fargo Asset Mgmt.) and Oppenheimerfunds (now Invesco). At these firms he held various sales and sales management positions.

Ken is originally from Hershey, Pennsylvania and earned his bachelor’s degree from The Pennsylvania State University.  He earned an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University and is currently completing a Doctoral program at Capella University, specializing in Strategy and Innovation. The title of his dissertation is Business Model Innovation During a Time of Disruption in the U.S. Asset Management industry. Ken lives in Chatham, New Jersey with his wife and 17-year-old son.

Abhijeet is responsible for overseeing application development and technical business solutions, across all business units at Natixis.

He is a solution-oriented technologist, providing technical strategy in delivering efficient, customer centric and value-driven solution.  He has a proven leadership experience, ranging from evaluating technology to building solutions for both internal and external partner clients. In the past, he has worked with multiple clients and organization in various industries, delivering value added solutions.

Abhijeet also holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Boston University.

Duncan leads AdvisorTarget’s data efforts and focuses specifically on how to solve client problems with behavioral data solutions. He blends his unique mix of finance experience and behavioral science training to create distribution alpha for asset managers.

Prior to AdvisorTarget, Duncan worked at Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch in equity research and sales-trading. Duncan has a BA in Anthropology from the University of Oregon, an MPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford, and a PhD (DPhil) in Anthropology (2022) from the University of Oxford. 

Alev is a growth–focused marketing and analytics leader with a career built around helping organizations leverage data and automation to enhance performance, drive growth and retain customers. Throughout her career, she’s built the infrastructure, processes, capabilities and teams that enable industry leading organizations to acquire and more deeply engage audiences to drive notable growth.

Areas of specialization include: marketing analytics and data science, direct marketing strategy, project and campaign management, marketing automation, sales enablement, segmentation and product strategy.

Alev holds a PhD in economics from SUNY – Binghamton.

John is responsible for the strategic direction, vision, and growth of two SalesPage data management products, Advisor Atlas team data, and LumaSuite managed data service.

John brings over 25 years of experience in the investment management industry. He literally grew up at Eaton Vance, starting as an intern at age 18.  John has worked in various sales roles throughout his career on the sales desk, as a manager and a trainer.  Over the last 10 years,   John’s work at Eaton Vance focused primarily on sales data and analytics, as well as CRM development. This focus on data and technology solutions, in addition to John’s exceptional relationship management skills, is what prompted John to make his recent move to SalesPage and is what makes John a true expert in the growing field of investment management data analytics.

John is a graduate of Fairfield University with a B.S. degree in Business Administration. John’s appetite for life is evident in both his professional and personal endeavors. He and his wife are avid travelers, especially enjoying time in the Dominican Republic, and John is a well-known partner with animal charities in his local community.

Andrew has spent the last 10 years at Fundamental Media, working across London, Dubai and Hong Kong offices before moving to the US in 2015 to set up Fundamental Media in Boston.

As President of North America he has been integral to the growth and management of a multi-million dollar business working with leading  global asset management brands.

Prior to Fundamental  he co-owned a specialist fund management publisher and held a number of senior management positions at leading media companies.

Mark is a senior Marketing Executive with deep international experience in the asset management industry, having worked in financial services across North America, the United Kingdom and Europe and South Africa. He has held senior Marketing positions at Invesco, Bank of New York Mellon Asset Management and J.P. Morgan Asset Management here in the US and Morgan Stanley and Consensus, a Property Investment and Venture Capital firm in London.  Prior to that, Mark cut his teeth in the Asset Management Industry in South Africa, working for Investec Asset Management (now 91 Asset Management).

Mark currently consults to Asset Management and Fintech start-ups on the setting and execution of digital, data-driven marketing approaches to build brand, generate demand and drive sustainable long-term revenue growth. Mark attended the University of South Africa and holds a post-graduate degree in Advanced Finance and International Business Strategy.

Joining Natixis in 2014, George has an extensive background in delivering digital solutions to drive opportunities and mitigate operational risk across business lines.

As an agent of digital transformation, George’s deep experience in the design and execution of technology solutions has resulted in innovative solutions in a very cost-efficient approach.

Current Natixis focus areas include; Digital Workers, Hybrid Cloud, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), data democratization and leverage of open source.

With over 20+ years working with financial services clients, Bill knows the most effective data–driven sales and marketing approaches for banking and investment clients.

Prior to rejoining MarketBridge,  Bill was the Chief Solutions Officer atAngossSoftware, with overall responsibility for the design, development and deployment of predictive analytic solutions within major financial services accounts, including; Great West, MetLife, Oppenheimer, Allianz, and Alliance Bernstein among others. Recently Bill has been helping investment firms navigate the changing distribution landscape and align sales and marketing teams in digitally focused initiatives.

Michael is an executive with broad experience in asset management and data analytics. Recognized as an expert in the areas of data strategy, he currently serves as Managing Director, Head of Distribution Intelligence at Virtus Investment Partners.

Prior to joining Virtus, Mr. Bicks was Director, Head of Analytics at Allianz Global Investors where he led digital transformation initiatives for the US Distribution groups. At WisdomTree Investments, he pioneered a predictive analytics platform featuring IBM Watson AI.Over the course of his career, Mr. Bicks has successfully developed and led large data integration projects, creating executional upside for sales and marketing teams.

Mr. Bicks holds a Bachelor of Science in MSIS and International Business from Pennsylvania State University and an MBA from the Robert Emmett McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.

Sean Keller is a senior vice president and head of digital solutions for Voya Investment Management, responsible for overseeing the firm’s marketing technologies, digital execution and business intelligence capabilities. Prior to joining Voya, he was a vice president with OppenheimerFunds.  Sean began his career with Yankelovich Partners, where he was responsible for designing and executing the firm’s strategic market research.

Sean earned a BA from the University of Richmond. He holds the FINRA Series 7 license.

Scott joined Olmstead in May 2021 and focuses on engaging Olmstead clients about their business operations, sales enablement tools, information management, and improving user adoption. Scott has 29 years of experience in the mutual fund distribution industry. He held roles at American Century that focused on sales and product management. While with Ivy Investments, Scott supported sales operations through efficient management of several sales enablement systems and business information management.

Scott is a Kansas City native and graduate of Truman State University and Rockhurst University. In his free time, Scott is an active leader for the Boy Scouts of America and a professional musician. Scott and his wife have raised three children who are also musically inclined.

Anthony leads Olmstead’s efforts to empower data-driven asset managers. He is an accomplished technologist with 20 years of driving technology and data initiatives for large and small asset managers.

He was Head of IT Common Services at Western Asset, where among other responsibilities, he enhanced the firm’s data architecture and developed its cloud strategy, leveraging data virtualization, Snowflake cloud data warehouse, a data science platform, and data lakes.  Anthony was CTO at Fischer Francis Trees & Watts (now BNP Paribas Asset Management), where he built a sophisticated global investment management platform that elicited digital transformation across the firm.

At his core, Anthony is a software and data architect/engineer driven to enable asset manager innovation and agility. He is a problem solver who delivers and moves the needle.