Meet the Candidates

Sanjay Arora, CFA, ACA, ICAI, has over twenty-five years? global investment experience and is presently working in New York as Managing Director at Raymond James Financial Inc ( Listed ?RJF?) . Sanjay started his professional career with PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) at their Bahrain office with his first assignment at Kuwait Oil Company in Kuwait post the gulf war. Sanjay travelled around the Gulf; gaining valuable experience with PwC auditing banks, trading and insurance companies. After PwC, Sanjay joined a retail institution that was looking to expand their business in Gulf and successfully set-up their finance and operations in Saudi Arabia. Sanjay moved back to Bahrain in 1995 and worked six years at one of the largest private investment company as CFO managing finance and actively participating in the management of global multi-currency investment portfolio active in fixed Income, equities, hedge funds, commodities and foreign exchange. In 2001, Sanjay joined Morgan Keegan & Co, a fully owned subsidiary of Regions Bank (listed ?RF?) at Memphis; TN as institutional sales professional dealing with domestic and international financial institutions in Fixed Income and relocated to NY in 2012 after RJF bought Morgan Keegan. Sanjay is Chartered Accountant, Cost & Management Accountant and CFA charterholder.

David P. Bjorndal, CFA, CIMA, serves as Northeast Divisional Director, Client Portfolio Management for McDonnell Investment Management?s separately managed account business throughout the broker/dealer community extending from Maine to Virginia. He has seventeen years of investment industry experience. Mr. Bjorndal is responsible for facilitating and supporting the development of new business in the Northeast from financial advisors affiliated with both taxable and tax-exempt fixed income strategies. In this role, he provides a broad scope of service to advisors and their clients that encompasses prompt communication, systematic follow-up and a high level of interaction with key advisor offices and at sponsored industry conferences. Prior to joining the Company in 2005, Mr. Bjorndal served as a Regional Investment Consultant for Phoenix Investment Partners, where he had been responsible for the sales of fixed income, equity and alternative strategy managed accounts and mutual funds for five years. From 1998-2000, Mr. Bjorndal was employed by American Express Financial Advisors, where he helped affluent clients reach their financial goals through comprehensive financial plans and various investment strategies. Mr. Bjorndal received his B.S./B.A. degree in Finance and Marketing from the University of Delaware. He holds the Certified Investment Management Analyst designation and is a member of the Investment Management Consultants Association and CFA Society New York (CFANY). In addition, Mr. Bjorndal holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and is a member of the CFA Institute.

Rongbiao Fu, CFA, is a Senior Investment Analyst at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, a $9 billion health insurance company, where he oversees and manages the reserve, pension, and foundation investment portfolios of the company and its subsidiaries, which total over $4 billion in assets. Prior to that, he has worked as an Associate in portfolio management at Olympus Capital Asia, a $1 billion middle market private equity firm specializing investments in Asia. Rongbiao earned his BA in Finance and Investments from Baruch College.

Kunal Rambhia, CFA, is a Director on Lazard”s Emerging Markets Debt team. He began working in the investment field in 2002. Prior to joining Lazard in 2013, Kunal was with Mount Kellett Capital where he served as Director in Hong Kong. At Mount Kellett, Kunal was responsible for special situation investment opportunities in South East Asia. Before joining Mount Kellett, Kunal worked with WL Ross in Mumbai for two years, where he focused on distressed investment opportunities in India. Kunal started his career at Lehman Brothers in 2002, where he spent 6 years in the Special Situations Group, High Yield Research, Loan Portfolio Group and Risk Management in the US and Asia. Kunal has a BBA in Finance from Pace University and is a CFA charter holder.

Leo Schmidt, CFA, has been an institutional investor for over 20 years. Most recently, he was a Senior Equity Analyst for the Chubb Corporation for 10 years where he was responsible for all analysis on a $2 billion 90 stock portfolio. The Chubb equity portfolio had an outstanding record with over 200 basis points of outperformance versus the S&P 500 on a 10, 5, 3 and 1 year(s) basis. Prior to the Chubb Corporation, he worked at Advent Capital Management where he was a Consumer Analyst for Convertibles Strategies, including Balanced and Arbitrage as well as long-short high yield. He also worked as a Consumer analyst at a $20 billion Nuveen managed accounts fund. He began his investing career at Reich & Tang Capital Management, focused mainly on pension plans and endowments, where he was a generalist. He graduated from Columbia University, Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with a double major in Economics and History. He earned an MBA from NYU with a double major in Accounting and Finance. He is married with one child and resides in Manhattan, NY.

Mark Sullivan, CFA, possesses a career that includes 6 years in private wealth management, 11 years in asset management and 3 years in alternative asset capital raising. This mix, Mark believes, provides me with a breadth of experience that will enable me to relate closely to a wide set of constituents within the society?s membership base.

Mark also has very relevant professional experience in unifying stakeholders with the aim of driving forward complicated initiatives. Mark acted as CFO/COO and served on the management committee of Ore Hill Partners, a credit focused hedge fund manager where he developed and managed all non-investment functions as AUM grew from $70 million & 7 employees to over $3 billion & 45 employees.  Mark then transitioned to product management, first at Man Investments and now at Stonehaven, where his responsibilities include coordinating product operations and development, and managing related workflows across stakeholders including investment management, marketing, third party investors, service providers, legal, compliance, operations, reporting and management.

Evelyn Yeow, CFA, is a lead investment analyst at John Hsu Capital Group, an institutional asset management firm where she works directly with the Chief Investment Officer on Asian equity investing for the firm?s Global, International, and Dedicated China strategies. Prior to her current position, she was a junior analyst with the firm where she was responsible for research, fund accounting, and portfolio analytics. She serves as the vice chair of the Career Development Committee as well as an active volunteer for the Global Investing Committee at CFANY. She earned a BA in Mathematics from Baruch College, CUNY. She is a CFA Charterholder and a member of the CFA Society New York.

Jae Yoon, CFA, is the Chief lnvestment Officer of New York Life Investment Management, joined NYLIM as a managing director in 2005. He most recently served as the CIO of the Strategic Asset Allocation and Solutions group. Previously, he was responsible for risk management efforts at boutique affiliate MacKay Shields.

Prior to joining NYLIM, Mr. Yoon was head of Quantitative Research, Analytics, and Risk Management at Western Asset Management. Previous roles include serving as head of Risk and Performance for the EMEA-Pacific regions of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers and regional head of Risk Management Control for Fixed Income and Equity Derivative Trading at J.P. Morgan Securities in Asia.

From 2013-2015, Jae served on the Board of the CFA Society New York (CFANY). For his contributions, he was recognized with the “Irving Kahn Lifetime Achievement Award 2016”. Mr. Yoon earned his master”s degree in Operations Research and bachelor”s degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University. Mr. Yoon is a CFA charterholder and holds FINRA Series 3 and 7 registrations.

Albert Yuen, CFA, serves as a Managing Partner of Kariba Capital, a boutique investment bank based in New York City. Before joining Kariba, Mr. Yuen served as a Portfolio Manager and member of the Investment Committee at LR Global where he was instrumental in launching, managing, and structuring the firm”s Frontier Market Equity investment vehicle.

Prior to LR Global, Albert was a Portfolio Manager and Senior Equity Analyst with Rockefeller & Co.”s Global Equity Team where he held responsibility, at various times, for the firm”s holdings in Financial Services and Healthcare. Mr. Yuen has also held positions with Liberty Square Asset Management and Smith Barney.

Albert has a broad range of experience with companies involved in the Resources, Energy, Agriculture, Healthcare, and Financial Services Sectors. He is also extremely passionate about emerging and developing markets, entrepreneurship and social and environmental impact investing.

Albert graduated from Northeastern University in Boston, cum laude, with a degree in Finance and Accounting. He is a CFA Charterholder and an active member of the CFA Society New York, previously serving on the Chapter”s Board Nominating Committee and currently serving as Vice-Chair of the Society”s Institutional Asset Management Committee.