CFA Institute Research Foundation Board of Trustees

CFA Institute Research Foundation Board of Trustees (BOT) establishes the Foundation's strategic mission and oversees related business operations. The BOT is also responsible for hiring individuals and organizations to carry out its operations. Trustees have diverse expertise in equity, fixed income, alternative investments, and roles in investment management, asset ownership, or advisory capacities.

The BOT consists of 9 to 11 members, including two ex-officio positions, and up to three non-voting emeritus trustees.
Trustees serve three-year terms and may be reappointed for a second consecutive term.
The BOT has five standing committees: Executive, Research, Finance, Planning and Marketing, and Governance and Nominations.
Committees meet two to four times annually, and trustees are expected to actively participate and be willing to serve as committee chairs if requested.
The BOT meets at least twice a year — once virtually and once in person. Special meetings may be called to address issues needing immediate attention.
Additional trustee skills considered include involvement in research and leadership experience. Geographic diversity is also a consideration. Holding a CFA charter and familiarity with CFA societies are desirable characteristics but not required.
Nominations for trustee positions come from BOT members, CFA Institute, CFA societies, and other Foundation stakeholders. These nominations are reviewed annually by the Governance and Nominating Committee, which recommends candidates to the BOT.

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Meet our FY 2027 Board of Trustees

Chair

CEO, CFA Society Germany

CFA Society Germany

Susan Spinner, CFA, is CEO of CFA Society Germany, the largest association for investment professionals in Germany. She has more than 25 years of professional experience in the investment industry, holding senior roles in both the United States and Germany, with a focus on capital markets, interest rate derivatives and structured securities analysis.

Susan was a founding board member of CFA Society Germany in late 2000 and has been an active volunteer at CFA Institute, including serving as Chair of the EMEA Society Advocacy Advisory Council and as a member of the Annual Conference Advisory Board.

In addition, Susan regularly lectures and gives trainings on topics including capital market ethics at several universities in Germany. For eight years, through 2025, she served as adjunct faculty at Goethe Business School, University of Frankfurt, teaching the Master-in-Finance course "Ethics in Finance, for which she won a series of teaching awards. She continues to serve on the jury for Goethe Business School's Diversity+ academic scholarship and is also a member of the jury of the DVFA Financial Journalism Prize.

Vice Chair

Jeffery V. Bailey, CFA, is a senior finance lecturer at the University of Minnesota. Previously, he was senior director, benefits, at Target Corporation, where he supervised the company’s employee benefit plans and directed the investment of the defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) plans. Prior to that, Bailey was a managing partner of Richards & Tierney, a Chicago-based pension consulting firm specializing in quantitative risk control techniques. He also served as assistant executive director of the Minnesota State Board of Investment, which manages the pension assets of Minnesota public employees. Bailey has published numerous articles about pension management. He co-authored the textbooks Investments and Fundamentals of Investments with William F. Sharpe and Gordon J. Alexander and co-authored the CFA Institute Research Foundation publications A Primer for Investment Trustees and Controlling Misfit Risk in Multiple-Manager Investment Programs. He is a director of the University of Minnesota Foundation Investment Advisors. Bailey received a BA in economics from Oakland University and an MA in economics and an MBA in finance from the University of Minnesota.

Co-Directors of Research

Florida Atlantic University and EIA Economic Index Associates

Dr. Luis García-Feijóo, CFA, CIPM, is Professor of Finance at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), where he teaches investments and international finance. He is also a co-founder of Economic Index Associates (EIA), LLC. Professor García has served as associate editor of the Financial Analysts Journal since 2012, and he is also a research director for CFA Institute Research Foundation. Prior to joining FAU, he worked as director, exam development at CFA Institute and was an associate professor at Creighton University. Professor García’s research interests include factor investing, monetary policy and asset returns, and behavioral finance, among others. His research has been published in leading academic and practitioner journals. He is co-author of the book Invest with the Fed: How to Maximize Portfolio Performance Following Federal Reserve Policy. Professor García holds a PhD in finance from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He actively served on the Board of Directors of the CFA Society of South Florida from 2009 to 2014 and has been an active volunteer for CFA Institute since 2009.

Professor of Finance at EDHEC Business School

Lionel Martellini is Professor of Finance at EDHEC Business School and the former Director of EDHEC-Risk Institute. Before joining EDHEC, Professor Martellini was a member of the finance faculty at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. He has also been a visiting Professor at Princeton University and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

He holds Master’s degrees in management, economics, mathematics and statistics, as well as a PhD in finance from the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. Outside his work in finance, he earned a PhD in Relativistic Astrophysics and published research on gravitational waves and the foundations of quantum mechanics.

Professor Martellini is a member of the editorial board of The Journal of Portfolio Management. His work related to investment solutions for individual and institutional investors has been published in leading academic and practitioner journals and has been featured in major European and global dailies such as The Economist, The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal. He has also launched two digital specialization programs, one on Data Science for Investment Management and one on Climate Finance and Sustainable Investing.

In parallel to his academic activities, Professor Martellini has been a consultant to large institutions and a co-founder of business ventures related to quantitative investment strategies in the equity space.

Board Members

Interim President and CEO

CFA Society Chicago

Ms. Rothschild is an advisor to The TIFIN Group and a board member of the Financial Fitness Group. In her former role as president of Apex Fintech Solutions, she was responsible for the strategic planning, development, and overall growth of the company. She also directly oversaw internal and client-facing functions including sales, marketing, and product management.

Before joining Apex, Ms. Rothschild was Chief Product Officer and Co-Head of Global Markets at Morningstar, where she led a multi-million-dollar global portfolio of businesses including software, data, research and index solutions that served asset managers, wealth managers, and individual investors. In her 26-year career at the firm, she developed a focused advisor and wealth management segment strategy, launched the firm’s equity research business, drove content strategy for the firm’s individual investor website, and served as a securities analyst and editor.

Ms. Rothschild graduated with a bachelor of science degree from Northwestern University and holds a master’s degree in Russian and East European economics from Indiana University. She also sits on a small portfolio of private-company boards in the fintech and wealth-tech space.

Manager, Treasury & Deputy City Treasurer, City of Calgary

CFA Society Calgary

Aaron joined The City of Calgary in 2016 and took the role of Deputy City Treasurer in March 2018. As the head of Treasury, he has oversight of the $6 billion investment portfolio, all cash management, banking, and cashiering operations, and debt issuance and capital project advisory functions. Mr. Brown holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Alberta in 1997 and became a CFA charterholder in 2003. He currently holds numerous board appointments including Calgary Housing Corporation and Silvera for Seniors. In August 2022, completed four years as global Chair of the CFA Institute’s Presidents Council. In this global senior society leadership role he represented the 161 CFA societies around the world and their over 160,000 charterholders. Aaron is member of both CFA Society Calgary and CFA Society Edmonton.

Board Member, Member of CFA Society Switzerland

CFA Society Switzerland

Dr. Giuseppe Ballocchi, PhD, CFA, is passionate about bridging the gap between the theory and the practice of finance with a pragmatic, multi-disciplinary approach. He is a partner with Alpha Governance Partners and specializes in derivative strategies. Dr. Ballocchi serves on a number of company and investment fund boards and is a member of the Future of Finance Content Council of CFA Institute. He is an adjunct professor and member of the steering committee for the master in finance at the University of Lausanne and a visiting professor at the University of Malta. He served on the Board of Governors of CFA Institute, where he chaired the audit and risk committee. He also served as president of CFA Switzerland. Dr. Ballocchi was head of financial engineering and risk analytics at Pictet & Cie; chief investment officer at Olsen Ltd.; a fixed-income manager at the Asian Development Bank in Manila; and a high-energy physicist at CERN. He holds a laurea (MS) in physics from the University of Bologna in Italy, an MBA from the Open University of the United Kingdom, and a PhD in high-energy physics from the University of Rochester in the United States. He is the author of more than 50 academic publications in physics and finance, including a reading for the CFA curriculum. He is currently writing a book on pitfalls in wealth management.

Strategic Advisor at Newcortex

Peg DiOrio, CFA, is a Strategic Advisor at Newcortex, an AI-driven analytics platform serving data scientists, institutional investors, and executives.

Previously, DiOrio spent eleven years at Voya Investment Management. As Head of Quantitative Equity, she oversaw a team of portfolio managers with AUM of $26billion across global active-quant, thematic, rules-based, and index strategies. DiOrio led the firm's quantitative research and product development efforts, including the launch of Voya's first equity ETFs. Earlier in her career, she spent nineteen years at AllianceBernstein/Sanford C. Bernstein as a quantitative analyst, developing signals and models for long-only and long/short equity portfolios and advising institutional and private clients on asset allocation and investment planning.

DiOrio is an active board member and Past President of the Society of Quantitative Analysts (SQA), served on the Program Committee of the Q Group, and is a member of CFA Society New York and CFA Society Tampa Bay. She also serves on the boards of Florida CraftArt and the Girl Scouts of West Central Florida Finance Committee.

DiOrio holds an MS in Applied Math, Statistics, and Operations Research from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU and a BS in Applied Mathematics from SUNY Stony Brook.

Partner & Portfolio Manager at IDG Capital

CFA Society Beijing

Mei Gao joined IDG Capital, a preeminent China-focused alternative asset management firm with over USD 30 billion of assets under management (AUM), as a Partner in 2016 to focus on cross-border investments. From 2003-2016, Mei held various leadership roles, including President and Head of Portfolio Management, at Fore Research & Management, a New York City-based hedge fund with over USD 3 billion of peak AUM, and gained extensive investment experience. In 2013, she was listed as one of “the 25 Most Powerful Women on Wall Street” by bussinessinsider.com. Mei started her career in finance at TD Securities where she spent five years managing the bank’s convertible arbitrage portfolio.

Mei currently serves on the board and investment committee of Cavamont Investment Advisors. She is a director of Generation Asia Acquisition Limited. She was also a board member of TCFA (The Chinese Finance Association) from 2004-2006.

Mei is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University (MBA) and Shantou University (BA). She is also a CFA charterholder.

Will Goodhart is Executive Director at the Future of Sustainable Data Alliance, working to strengthen the voice of the sustainable data and analytics ecosystem. He joined FoSDA in April 2025. He is also a Board member at the UK's Impact Investing Institute where he led the Institute's work on its Learning Hub.

Will was formerly chief executive of the CFA Society of the UK (CFA UK) – a member society of CFA Institute and the leading professional body for the investment sector in the UK. In recent years, CFA UK launched the Certificate in ESG Investing, the Certificate in Climate & Investing and the Certificate in Impact Investing.

Before joining CFA UK in 2006, Will worked for Euromoney Institutional Investor in a variety of editorial and management roles.

He holds an MSc in Corporate Governance and Business Ethics from Birkbeck College and is an affiliate member of CFA Institute and CFA UK.

Investment banker, Corporate Director, and Educator

Attila Köksal, CFA, is an investment banker, corporate director, and educator with more than four decades of experience in capital markets and financial services. Throughout his career, he has held senior executive and board positions at leading investment firms in Türkiye, served on the boards of Borsa İstanbul and the Turkish Derivatives Exchange, and chaired the Turkish Capital Markets Association.

He served for six years on the Board of Governors of the CFA Institute, where he chaired the External Relations and Volunteer Involvement Committee. He previously served as President of CFA Istanbul and as the CFA Institute Presidents Council Representative for the EMEA region.

His principal academic and professional interest is Behavioral Finance, which he taught in the MBA program at Sabancı University. He has also been actively involved in advancing financial literacy and investor education in Türkiye, serving for several years as Chairperson of the Turkish Financial Literacy Association.

He is the author of four books on behavioral finance, investing, and digital financial literacy.

Sung started his investment career at GIC in 1993 and retired as Chief Risk Officer in 2011. Subsequently, he served in executive, advisory and board positions with finance ministries, central banks, endowments, asset managers, insurance companies and research institutes in US, Norway, Singapore and Thailand. In recent years, Sung has also been advising investment managers in venture capital, infrastructure and healthcare finance. Sung studied mathematics first at the University of Waterloo and later at the University of Minnesota.

Co-founder and CEO of Navega Strategies, LLC

Kurt D. Winkelmann has over 30 years of experience in investments and

pension-related issues. He is a co-founder and the CEO of Navega Strategies, LLC, a quantitative investment research firm providing investment solutions. He has been a senior fellow at the Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute (University of Minnesota), where he spearheaded the organization’s pension policy initiative. Before founding Navega, Winkelmann was managing director and global head of research at MSCI. Prior to that, he was a managing director at Goldman Sachs, where he led the Global Investment Strategies group in the Investment Management Division. Winkelmann has written extensively on asset allocation and risk management themes. He has been an adviser to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, a board member of the Alberta Investment Management Company, an adviser to the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme, and a director of the University of Minnesota Foundation Investment Advisors. Winkelmann is chair of the Advisory Board for the Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute. He received his PhD and MA in economics from the University of Minnesota and his BA in economics and mathematics from Macalester College.

Emeritus Board Members

Aaron Low, CFA, is a principal at Lumen Advisors, LLC, where he manages emerging markets macro long-short funds and oversees Lumen's operations in Asia. He also serves as a board trustee of the Singapore government's pension fund. Previously, Dr. Low served as a senior portfolio manager and head of Asia ex-Japan at PIMCO and as a senior portfolio manager and head of Asia at RCM Global Investors. He serves on the Board of Governors of CFA Institute and the board of directors of the Wealth Management Institute. Dr. Low holds an undergraduate degree in engineering from the National University of Singapore and a PhD in international financial economics from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Head of Investment Research & Strategy and Co-Founder of Wealth Horizons

Lotta Moberg leads Wealth Horizons' valuation-driven model development and research across asset classes, and anchors the investment process to global macroeconomic and market developments. Previously, as a global macro analyst at William Blair in Chicago, she advanced the economic foundation underlying valuation work across global asset classes. Her analytical framework is deeply informed by Austrian economics, in which she holds a PhD from George Mason University. She is a member of the CFA Institute, a board member of the CFA Institute Research Foundation, and has served as a podcast interviewer and influential voice in advancing investment research. Her international experience includes roles with the Swedish foreign ministry in Russia, the defense forces in Kosovo, and World Bank consultancy.

Emeritus Research Director

Laurence B. Siegel is the Gary P. Brinson Director of Research Emeritus at CFA Institute Research Foundation and an independent consultant. He has authored, edited, or co-edited six CFA Institute Research Foundation monographs and is the author of Fewer, Richer, Greener, published by Wiley in 2019. Mr. Siegel serves on the editorial boards of several prominent journals and on the board of directors of the Q Group and the American Business History Center. He has assisted a variety of nonprofit organizations in the role of investment committee chair or member. Previously, Mr. Siegel was director of research in the Investment Division of the Ford Foundation. Before that, he served as a managing director at Ibbotson Associates (now Morningstar). His website is www.larrysiegel.org. Mr. Siegel received a BA in urban geography and an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago.

Staff

Treasurer | CFA Institute

Secretary | Research Foundation

Strategic Operations Manager | Research Foundation