ChainDD, a global information and technology company, will hold its inaugural CHAINSIGHTS Blockchain Leadership Summit 2018 in Lotte New York Place on October 22 to bring together thought leaders, influencers and innovators to address key issues, opportunities and challenges facing the blockchain industry.

Experts from the regulatory, academic, financial, technology, and media fields will share their in-depth insights into the future trends of blockchain. A dynamic roster of guest speakers include Gary Gensler, former Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Peter Marber, portfolio manager at  Aperture Investors LLC and Robin J. Lewis, former Associate Dean of SIPA at Columbia University and Steve Oh, head of ETF Listing and Business Development at NASDAQ.

The Summit will also feature presentations on blockchain projects. An investor panel, consisting of executives from at least 25 top Chinese and U.S. VC funds, will assess the projects for the purpose of investments. 

The summit will be interactive, offering opportunities for networking, idea sharing and potential partnerships with some of the most influential players in the blockchain industry.

The past decade has witnessed the creation of the Bitcoin network and the blockchain technology that runs the Bitcoin, as well as their adoption with the potential to impact every industry from the banking sector to manufacturing to education. Ten years after the 2008 financial crisis and at the dawn of the next decade, where will the groundbreaking technology go next? What logic underpins the boom of the crypto-currency markets? How will technical solutions better integrate into real assets? A wide array of possibilities and scenarios has caught the world’s attention.

New York, as the world’s financial center, showcases the profound impact of fintech on business and also serves as a weather vane for the blockchain technology. Therefore, ChainDD chose the vibrant city to host its first summit and also set up its North American head office in Manhattan. The Beijing-based company aims to explore ways to develop “robust, healthy and legitimate” blockchain markets in the world’s two largest economies.

ChainDD is a global blockchain financial insights and data provider, spun off of TMTPost Group, which is the first and most professional digital media for global technology industry news and data in China and has gained more than 150 million readers and 1.5 billion total page views in 2017. ChainDD is already the indisputable industry leader in many aspects seven months after its coming online: No. 1 in terms of downloads for chainblock news apps in China’s app stores in five consecutive months; over 2 million active users and over 60 million page views in total for its Chinese language website alone. It published 5,274 articles as of October 14.

ChainDD boasts the industry’s best team, consisting of core members from China’s top finance media and technology media, Internet giant Tencent and former Wall Street executives.       

It has offices in China, the U.S. and Japan and offers real time information and data on North America, Europe, Israel, Japan, South Korea and Southeastern Asia.

ChainDD established ChainDD U.S. in September, with Catherine Li, former Managing Director of BOA Merrill Lynch, as its founding partner & COO. The strategies of ChainDD U.S. and its English product will also be unveiled at the summit.

Speakers

Gary Gensler: The 11th Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Former  Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance

Gary Gensler served as the 11th Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) under President Barack Obama from May 2009, to January 2014. During his CFTC tenure, Gensler led the transformation of the $400 trillion over-the-counter derivatives, or swaps, market which had failed, while reorganizing the watchdog efforts of the 700-person agency. Gensler led the effort to pass and implement comprehensive oversight of the swaps market, which was at the center of the 2008 financial crisis.

Peter Marber: Portfolio Manager at  Aperture Investors LLC

Peter Marber has professionally invested billions of dollars for many of the world's largest corporations and financial groups. Dr. Marber is currently portfolio manager and founding member of Aperture Investors LLC based in New York. He has previously headed emerging market businesses for Loomis, Sayles & Co. and HSBC Global Asset Management, and was a partner and president of the emerging market subsidiaries at Wasserstein,Perella & Co. 

Robin J. Lewis: President of the International Development and Public Policy Alliance (IDPPA), Former Associate Dean of SIPA at Columbia University

Robin J. Lewis was Associate Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) of Columbia University from 1985-2007, and served as the first Executive Director of the Global Public Policy Network (GPPN). He is a Senior Advisor to Chain DD US and is also Co-Founder of Worldview Global Knowledge Services (WGKS), a New York-based firm focusing on impact investment and public policy.

Steve Oh: Head of ETF Listing and Business Development at NASDAQ

Steve Oh is currently the head of ETF Listing and Business Development at Nasdaq. Prior to Nasdaq Steve was the head of ETF Capital Markets at VanEck supporting product development, launch and trading in US and European markets. He held a Master of International Affairs and a Bachelor degree in both Economic and French from Columbia University.

Katina Stefanova: CEO & CIO at Marto Capital

Katina Stefanova is the CEO and CIO of Marto Capital, a global, systematic absolute return strategy that trades in many diversified markets including FX, rates, equities and commodities. Katina frequently speaks at many conferences and events across the globe on topics including investing, technology, and entrepreneurship and is a thought leader on disruption in the asset management industry. 

Donna Dillenberger：IBM Fellow at IBM’s Watson Research Center and Lead Engineer of Blockchain 

Donna Dillenberger holds the esteemed titles of Distinguished Engineer and IBM Fellow at IBM's Watson Research Center. She has redesigned many enterprise applications for greater scalability and availability. She has worked on analytic models for the financial, insurance, retail and healthcare industries. In 2005, she became IBM's Chief Technology Officer of IT Optimization and in 2006, she became an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Engineering. She is a Master Inventor and is currently working on cognitive analytics and blockchain.

David Mathison: CEO of the CDO Summit & CDO Club

David Mathison is the curator of the Chief Digital Officer Summit and founder of the CDO Club. He is the world’s leading authority on Chief Digital and Data officers, and has been quoted by the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Computerworld, McKinsey & Company, MIT Sloan Management Review, CMS Wire, ZDNet, Fierce CIO, and I-CIO, among others. He was previously the founder and Managing Director of the Digital Media practice at Chadick Ellig, a premiere executive search consultancy named by Business Week as “one of the world’s most influential headhunters.

Gur Huberman: Professor of Behavioral Finance at Columbia Business School

Gur Huberman is the Robert G. Kirby Professor of Behavioral Finance at Columbia Business School where he has taught since 1989. Professor Huberman was a founding managing editor of the International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance. His co-authored paper won the 2006 Journal of Finance Distinguished Paper award of the Smith-Breeden Prize. His research includes but not limit to the theory of contracts, individual’s portfolio selection and Behavior Finance. More recently he has turned his attention to FinTech and cryptocurrencies. 

Tim Race: SVP of FleishmanHillard, Former Senior Business Editor of The New York Times

Tim Race was a longtime editor, newsroom manager and writer at The New York Times with extensive experience overseeing award-winning news and enterprise coverage, and packaging them for digital and print publication. The work he supervised at The New York Times won prizes, including two Gerald Loeb Awards for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, as well as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Jefferey Wernick: Crypto Investor and Advisor

Mr. Wernick is an entrepreneur and private investor. He invested in Bitcoin since 2009. After working at Salomon Brothers and later the National Bank of Detroit in senior positions for quantitative research, capital trading, risk management and loan pricing, he ran his own company AVI Portfolio Services Company, Inc. specialized in risk management in tailored and exotic derivative products, which was sold in 1984 to the largest insurance company in diversified financial interests.

（For more information, please visit 2018 CHAINSIGHTS website.）