FX debate: Participants

Avinash Persaud (AP – chair) is chairman of Intelligence Capital Limited, a financial advisory partnership, specializing in liquidity, risk and asset management. He was previously investment director at GAM, head of global research at State Street and global head of currency and commodity research at JPMorgan. He was visiting scholar at the IMF and ECB, and is emeritus professor at Gresham College.

Andrew Bound (AB) is managing director and head of fundamental currency at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. He has been a member of GSAM’s fixed income and currency group since January 1999, before which he was a currency trader at Goldman Sachs.

Momtchil Pojarliev (MP) joined Hermes Investment Management as head of currencies in 2007. He brought to the firm his currency investment process and his outstanding track record. Before joining Hermes, he was a portfolio manager with Pictet in Geneva and with Invesco in Frankfurt and London. Momtchil received his PhD in financial econometrics from the University of Basle. He is a CFA charterholder.

Dale Thomas (DT) is head of currency management at Insight Investment Management, in charge of currency overlay and currency absolute return product. Insight’s investment style is a mixture of quantitative and discretionary; although it is at present weighted towards discretionary management. After studying mathematics at Cambridge University, he worked at the Bank of England for six years and then at the fixed income and currency group at Rothschild Asset Management.

Jonathon Griggs (JG), is managing director and head of qualitative strategy for JPMorgan Asset Management’s currency group. He was previously a strategist focusing on macroeconomics, currency and global fixed-income asset allocation in the international fixed income group. Before joining JPMorgan, he was head of currency overlay at Citibank Asset Management and head of FX and interest rate research at Barclays de Zoete Wedd.

Guy Kirby (GK) is senior managing director and global head of foreign exchange sales at State Street Global Markets, the research and trading arm of State Street Corporation. State Street Global Markets is focused on supporting the trading and investment objectives of investors across asset classes. Its unique research agenda provides insight into investor behaviour and its interaction with global financial markets.

Richard Conyers (RC) is investment partner at Harmonic. Before founding Harmonic, Richard worked for Aspect Capital as head of fixed income and currencies; and for Schroder Investment Management as a director of fixed income and head of the European fixed income team. He has also worked for Dresdner Kleinwort Benson Investment Management as an international fixed income fund manager responsible for multi-asset portfolios.