BI Emerging Market Fixed Income Forum

Yacov Arnopolin

Managing Director

PIMCO

Mr. Arnopolin is a managing director and portfolio manager in the New York office. He is co-chair of the emerging markets portfolio committee (EMPC). Prior to joining PIMCO in 2016, Mr. Arnopolin served as a managing director overseeing emerging market fixed income portfolios at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Previously, he worked as a portfolio manager at Fortress Investment Group. Mr. Arnopolin started his career in the fixed income departments at Citigroup and Deutsche Bank, trading mortgages and emerging markets products. He has 22 years of investment experience and holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Carnegie Mellon University. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Cancer Research Institute.

Alessio de Longis, CFA

Senior Portfolio Manager and Head of Global Tactical Asset Allocation

Invesco

Alessio de Longis is a Senior Portfolio Manager and Head of Global Tactical Asset Allocation for the Invesco Investment Solutions team. In this role, he heads the group's global tactical asset allocation and multi-asset factor rotation efforts, focusing on the development, implementation, and management of macro regime-based investment strategies across asset classes, risk premia, and factors. Additionally, he develops and manages active currency overlay strategies and solutions for multi-asset portfolios.

Mr. de Longis joined Invesco in 2019 when the firm combined with OppenheimerFunds, where he was team leader and senior portfolio manager of the Global Multi-Asset team. Between 2004 and 2013, he was a member of the OppenheimerFunds Global Debt team, where he served as currency portfolio manager and global macro strategist. He is a published author in the field of macro-based systematic factor investing and currency overlay strategies, and he is regularly featured across financial media outlets.

Mr. de Longis earned an MSc in financial economics and econometrics from the University of Essex, as well as an MA and a BA degree in economics from the University of Rome Tor Vergata. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst® (CFA) charterholder.

Scott Grimberg

Head of Emerging Market Debt

Itau Asset Management US

Scott Grimberg is the Head of Emerging Market Debt at Itau Asset Management US with over 25 years of experience managing and analyzing Emerging Market assets across asset types and investment vehicles. Prior to joining Itau Asset Management US in March 2022, Mr. Grimberg spent over 8 years as a Portfolio Manager at the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS), where he led the team that managed the Emerging Market Fixed Income Portfolio (USD and Local Currency), as well as advising the Fund on its Emerging Market and Chinese investments across the asset class groups (public and private equities, real estate/infrastructure and private debt). Prior to CalPERS, Mr. Grimberg led and managed teams investing in emerging market fixed income (public and private) including long-only public funds, SMA’s, hedge fund accounts as well as private debt vehicles at Minlam Asset Management (specialty EM private lender), Bank of New York Mellon Asset Management, Nuveen and BofA Asset Management.

Claudio Irigoyen

Head of Latin America Economics, Equities and Fixed Income & FX Strategy

Bank of America Global Research

Claudio Irigoyen is a managing director and Head of Latin America Economics, Equities and Fixed Income & FX Strategy, including external and local debt at BofA Global Research.

Prior to joining BofA Securities in 2011, he served for four years as head of Global Macro Trading at Deutsche Bank Proprietary Trading. Prior to that, he was chief economist and director of monetary policy at the Central Bank of Argentina for five years.

Irigoyen has a bachelor’s degree in accountancy from the Universidad Nacional de Rosario in Argentina, a master’s degree in economics from Centro de Estudios Macroeconómicos de Argentina and both a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. He is based in New York.

Arif Joshi

Managing Director, Co-Head Emerging Market Debt

Lazard Asset Management

Arif Joshi, CFA is co-head of Lazard's Emerging Markets Debt team, where he overseas >$12bn of assets invested across the capital structure of EM. He began working in the investment field in 1998. Prior to joining Lazard in 2010, Arif was with HSBC Asset Management (formerly Halbis) where he served as Senior Vice President and Portfolio Manager. At HSBC, Arif was responsible for global emerging markets, focusing on corporate and sovereign credit analysis, risk management and quantitative modeling. He began this role at The Atlantic Advisors LLC (acquired by HSBC in 2005). Prior to HSBC, he was an associate at Strategic Management Group where he advised Fortune 500 companies on finance and corporate strategy. Arif has an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School and a BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a CFA charterholder.

Caesar Maasry

Head of EM Cross-Asset Strategy Research

Goldman Sachs

Caesar leads the Emerging Markets (EM) cross-asset strategy team based in New York. Previously, he led the EM equity strategy team in London. Before that, Caesar was based in Hong Kong as an Asia Pacific portfolio strategist, with a specific focus on India. Caesar began his career at Goldman Sachs in New York working as a US portfolio strategist, building index, sector and thematic research products primarily for domestic institutional investors. He joined Goldman Sachs in 2005 as an analyst and was named managing director in 2017.

Caesar earned a BA and BS in International Studies and Economics with a concentration in Finance, respectively, from The University of Pennsylvania and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Rob Milam

Head of Emerging Market Credit and Managing Director

Cerberus Capital Management

Mr. Milam is Head of Emerging Market Credit for Cerberus. He is responsible for leading and managing Cerberus’ credit investments in emerging markets, with a focus on high-returning, stressed, and distressed credit as well as special situations. Since joining Cerberus in 2017, he has been instrumental in establishing the Firm’s dedicated emerging markets strategy and building out teams in New York and São Paulo.

Prior to Cerberus, Mr. Milam was at J.P. Morgan Securities for nearly two decades, where he was most recently a Managing Director and Global Head of Emerging Market Credit Trading. In his role, he managed several teams of risk-takers and large portfolios of proprietary positions and trading inventory across four different global offices and regions. During his tenure at J.P. Morgan Securities, Mr. Milam was also Co-Head of North America Credit Trading and separately, Head of North America Investment Grade Trading. He started his career at J.P. Morgan Securities as a trader in the firm’s Loan Trading and Distressed Debt business.

Mr. Milam graduated from Princeton University and is a member of the CFA Institute. He serves on the Board of Directors of Asphalt Green, a New York based non-profit committed to providing access to sports and fitness opportunities for all New Yorkers, including those in underserved areas, and is a member of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the National Rowing Foundation. Mr. Milam was also the Chair of the United States Rowing Association High Performance Committee for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics quadrennium.

Luis Oganes

Head of Global Macro Research

J.P. Morgan

Luis Oganes is a Managing Director and Head of Global Macro Research. He manages the strategy teams that cover Rates, Currencies, Commodities and Emerging Markets Research. Luis joined J.P. Morgan in 1997 in New York and currently works in London. On several occasions, he has participated in advisory projects with governments and quasi-sovereign entities in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. Luis obtained his PhD in Economics from New York University in 1998 and his BA in Economics from Universidad de Lima in 1990.

Win Thin

Global Head of Currency Strategy

Brown Brothers Harriman

Dr. Win Thin is Global Head of Currency Strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman and provides fundamentally-driven macro research for our clients. He received his Ph.D. in economics in 1995 from Columbia University, specializing in International and Development Economics. This came after receiving an M.A. from Georgetown University in 1985 and a B.A. from Brandeis University in 1983.

He has over 30 years of investment experience. Prior to joining Brown Brothers Harriman, he founded Mandalay Advisors, Inc., an independent research firm that provided sovereign Emerging Markets analysis to institutional investors. Prior to that, he was Vice President and International Economist for Emerging Markets at Alliance Capital Management Limited, where he was responsible for sovereign analysis of the major emerging markets in Asia and Latin America. Before that, Dr. Thin was Vice President and International Economist for Emerging Markets at HSBC. Other relevant experience includes work at the U.S. Treasury Department as well as teaching at Columbia University. Dr. Thin has been featured extensively on CNBC and other news channels worldwide, and has been quoted regularly by numerous international news agencies.

Lale Topcuoglu

Managing Director & Head of Credit

Swiss Re

Lale is a Managing Director and Head of Credit at Swiss Re. In her role, she is responsible for steering the firm’s investments in global credit markets. She is also DEI ambassador for Swiss Re Asset Management. She comes to Swiss Re after spending three years as Senior Fund Manager and Head of Credit at J O Hambro Capital Management. Previously, she spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs in various leadership roles, where she invested across credit and equity markets. She started her career as a sell-side research analyst in 1999 at Goldman Sachs was named Managing Director in 2010. Lale earned a BA in Economics and Politics, cum laude, from Mount Holyoke College. She lives in Montclair, NJ with her wife and two children.

Kamakshya Trivedi

Co-Head of Global Foreign Exchange, Interest Rates and Emerging Markets Strategy

Goldman Sachs International

Kamakshya is co-head of Global Foreign Exchange, Interest Rates and Emerging Markets Strategy Research. His research focus spans macroeconomics, corporate finance and economics of emerging markets and he has published articles in a number of leading academic journals, including The Economic Journal, Bulletin of Economic Research and the Journal of Development Studies.

Previously, he was chief Emerging Markets macro strategist and senior economist in the Global Markets Research Group. Before that, Kamakshya worked in Global Macro and Macro Equity Research for six years. He joined Goldman Sachs in 2007 and was named managing director in 2013.

Prior to joining the firm, Kamakshya was an economist at the Bank of England from 2003 to 2007 and was a lecturer in economics at the University of Oxford from 1998 to 2002.

Kamakshya earned a first-class honours degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Merton College, Oxford University, in 1998, and a PhD in Economics from Nuffield College, Oxford University, in 2003. His doctoral thesis analyzed the disparate growth experience across regions in India between 1960 and 1995.

Dirk Willer

Managing Director and Global Head of Macro, Asset Allocation and Emerging Market Strategy

Citi Research

Dirk Willer is a Managing Director and Global Head of Macro, Asset Allocation and Emerging Market Strategy at Citi Research in NY. In this role, Dirk develops broad macro themes and related asset allocation views. Dirk was the Global Head of Emerging Market Fixed Income and FX Strategy until assuming his current role in 2021 and continues to be responsible for the Emerging Markets Strategy effort at Citi. Previously, Dirk worked at Omega Advisors and RHG Capital as a Global Macro Strategist and Portfolio Manager, and at Swiss Bank as their Russia strategist. Before his work on the buy and sell side Dirk advised the Russian government during the stabilization period in the early 90ies.

Dirk and his team have been ranked as the first team in the Institutional Investor survey for Latam local strategy and the first or second team for Latam sovereign credit strategy since 2017, as well as first in CEEMEA and Asia local strategy in 2019.

Dirk is the lead author of “Trading Fixed Income and FX in Emerging Markets”, published by Wiley in 2020. Dirk and his team are frequently quoted in the financial press and interviewed on TV. Dirk holds a PhD and MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics. He did his undergraduate work at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. He is a member of Atlantik-Bruecke and the Economics Club of NY.

Nikhil Bhat

Fixed Income Index Product Manager

Bloomberg

Nikhil is a Fixed Income Index Product Manager at Bloomberg Indices in London, with a focus on benchmarking solutions and strategies in the global emerging markets debt space. Before Bloomberg, Nikhil was at J.P. Morgan leading their emerging market debt index franchise in EMEA since 2017. Prior to that, Nikhil was as a part of J.P. Morgan's European Equity Research team in London. His team was ranked #1 by Institutional Investor Survey in 2017 and ranked top 3 for three consecutive years. Nikhil is a CFA Charterholder.

Catherine Smith

Emerging Market Fixed Income Portfolio Manager

State Street Global Advisors

Catherine Smith is a portfolio manager in the EMEA Fixed Income Indexing Team at State Street Global Advisors. She is part of the Emerging Markets Debt team and her primary focus is on managing Local Currency Index funds. Catherine joined SSGA in 2013, working in the Portfolio Services and Fixed Income Operations teams. She began her career working in different capacities at Aviva Investors and JP Morgan. Catherine holds a BA in Economics with French from the University of Nottingham.