Susan Christoffersen, University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management

Susan Christoffersen is Vice-Dean, Undergraduate & Specialized Programs and a Professor of Finance at Rotmant School of Management, University of Toronto. Her research focuses on mutual funds and the role of financial institutions in capital markets. She has published in top finance journals, such as The Review of Financial Studies, The Journal of Financial Economics, and The Journal of Finance, and cited in The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Bloomberg News Service, and The Wall Street Journal. Susan has received grants from SSHRC, IFM2, and FQRSC and research awards from Q-Group, Bank of Canada, BSI Gamma Foundation, INQUIRE, and the Swiss Finance Institute. Susan was awarded the Limited Term Professorship by the Canadian Securities Institute Research Foundation in 2005. She holds a Ph.D. in Finance from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Elroy Dimson, University of Cambridge, Judge Business School

Elroy Dimson chairs the Centre for Endowment Asset Management at Cambridge Judge Business School, and is Emeritus Professor of Finance at London Business School. His research focuses on investing for the long term, and he and his co-authors have become well known for their studies of the investment performance since 1900 of financial assets in 23 countries and real assets such as wine, stamps, art and other collectibles. His publications, with several colleagues, on financial market history, endowment asset management, and responsible investing have been recognised by several awards. Books include Global Investment Returns Yearbook (2018 with Paul Marsh and Mike Staunton), Financial Market History (2017 with David Chambers), Endowment Asset Management (2007 with Shanta Acharya), and Triumph of the Optimists (2002 with Paul Marsh and Mike Staunton). Publications since 2015 on active ownership (Review of Financial Studies), real assets (Journal of Financial Economics), financial history (Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis), endowment strategy (Financial Analysts Journal), and factor investing (Journal of Portfolio Management), plus cases on manager selection, real estate, and stocks for the long run (Harvard Business School). Dr Dimson chairs the Advisory and Policy Boards of FTSE Russell, and serves on the Advisory Council of Financial Analysts Journal, the Supervisory Council of the Geneva Finance Research Institute, and the Steering Committee of the Financial Economists’ Roundtable. Until 2016 he chaired the Strategy Council of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global, and before going to Cambridge was a Professor and Governor at London Business School. He is a Fellow or Honorary Fellow of CFA UK, the Institute of Actuaries, the Royal Historical Society, the Risk Institute at Ohio State University, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. His PhD is from London Business School.

Russell Wermers, University of Maryland, Smith School of Business

Russ Wermers is Bank of America Professor of Finance and Director, Center for Financial Policy at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland at College Park, where he won a campus-wide teaching award during 2005 and a Krowe Teaching Award (within the Smith Business School) during 2013.  His main research interests include studies of the efficiency of securities markets, as well as the role of institutional investors in setting stock prices. In addition, he studies and teaches quantitative equity strategies, and is currently researching microfinance institutions in Thailand.  Most notably, his past research has developed new approaches to measuring and attributing the performance of mutual funds, pension funds, and hedge funds, as well as devising winning strategies for investing in these funds. Professor Wermers also studies the investment behavior of these asset managers, as well as the impact of their trades on stock markets.  His papers have been published in leading scholarly journals, such as The American Economic Review, The Review of Financial Studies, The Journal of Financial Economics, and The Journal of Finance.  His article on mutual fund “herding” and stock prices (Journal of Finance, 1999) won the NYSE Award for the Best Paper on Equity Trading in 1995. His coauthored article on mutual fund performance was a finalist for the Smith-Breeden Award for the Best Paper in the Journal of Finance during 2006/2007. Professor Wermers consults for the hedge fund, pension fund, and mutual fund industries. He is coauthor of a book on the latest scientific approaches to performance evaluation and attribution of professional fund managers, written for academics and practitioners (published in December 2012). He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, in December 1995.