Lin William Cong, Cornell University

Lin William Cong is the Rudd Family Professor of Management and Associate Professor of Finance at the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, where he is the founding faculty director for the FinTech Initiative. He is also a Kauffman Foundation Junior Faculty Fellow, Poets & Quants World Best Business School Professor, and editorial board member for top business and finance journals such as the Management Science. Prior to joining Cornell, he was an assistant professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business where he created courses on “Quantimental Investment,” faculty member at the Center for East Asian Studies, doctoral fellow at the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies, and George Shultz Scholar at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He advised companies such as String Lab/Dfinity, DataYes, and is currently advising ChainLink, Blackrock, among other industry leaders in FinTech and asset management.

Professor Cong’s research spans financial economics, information economics, FinTech and AI, and Entrepreneurship (theory and intersection with digitization and development). Widely recognized as a founding scholar for FinTech research, Professor Cong has received numerous accolades such as the AAM-CAMRI-CFA Institute Prize in Asset Management, the CME Best paper Award, Finance Theory Group Best Paper Award, and has also been invited to speak or teach at hundreds of world-renowned universities, venture funds, investment and trading shops, and government agencies such as IMF, Asset Management Association of China, Alibaba, SEC, and federal reserve banks. He received his Ph.D. in Finance and MS in Statistics from Stanford University, and A.M. in Physics jointly with A.B. in Math and Physics from Harvard University.

Professor Cong’s personal website can be accessed here.

Amit Goyal, University of Lausanne and Swiss Finance Institute

Amit Goyal is the Swiss Finance Institute Professor of finance at the University of Lausanne. Formerly on the faculty of the Goizueta Business School at Emory University (USA), he holds a Ph.D. in Finance from UCLA (USA). His main research interests are in investments and portfolio strategies (across stocks, bonds, and options); and pension funds’ investments. He is a regular speaker at leading finance conferences worldwide, and his research papers have been published in the top academic journals in finance including the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Financial Studies. He was previously on the editorial board of the Review of Finance and the Journal of Financial Markets. He has been a visiting scholar at many universities such as the UCLA Anderson School of Management, INSEAD, the Indian School of Business Hyderabad, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Bernhard Langer, Invesco Quantitative Strategies

Bernhard Langer started his investment career in 1989 with Bayerische Vereinsbank, moving to their Asset Management function where he led the strategy team from 1992 on. He joined Invesco in 1994 as portfolio manager for equities and became head of equities in 1996 and Chief Investment Officer in 2000 for Germany. In 2002 he took over the responsibility for the Quantitative Strategies Group (International). In January 2009 Bernhard became CIO, Global Quantitative Equity and is responsible for the quantitative equity investment approach, related products and clients with team members in New York, Boston, Frankfurt, Melbourne and Tokyo. Bernhard holds a M.A. in Business Administration, Economics and Banking from University of Munich and is a CFA charterholder.

Markus Leippold, University of Zurich and Swiss Finance Institute

Markus Leippold is a professor at the University of Zurich, where he holds the Chair in Financial Engineering. Before joining the University of Zurich in 2009, Markus was an associate professor in quantitative finance at Imperial College Business School, London. In 2005, he was a visiting professor at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. Markus obtained his Ph.D. in economics from the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland, in 1999, and after some years in the financial industry, he started as an assistant professor at the University of Zurich in 2002. Markus published in top academic journals like the Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Management Science, and Annals of Statistics. His work was awarded best paper prizes from the European Management Association, Inquire Europe, RISK Magazine, and the German Finance Association. Most recently, in 2019, Markus spent a research semester at Google, digging deeper into research on natural language processing and its application to finance.

Weili Zhou, Robeco

Weili joined Robeco’s Quant team in 2006. Currently she heads the Quant Equity Research Department developing innovative investment strategies based on next-generation technology and advanced sustainability integration. Also, she serves as a member of the management team.

Weili’s areas of expertise include stock selection, portfolio optimization, and trading costs research. She has published in various academic and industry journals, including the Journal of Banking and Finance, Financial Analysts Journal, Journal of Portfolio Management, Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, and VBA Journaal. In addition, she is a guest lecturer at several universities.Prior to joining Robeco, Weili started her career as a finance correspondent at China Central Television in 2002. She holds a Master’s degree in Quantitative Finance from Erasmus University Rotterdam and a Bachelor’s degree in Statistics from Fudan University. She is a CFA charter holder.