SWIB 2025 Investment Forum Day 1

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About This Event

Join us for the 2025 Investment Forum co-sponsored by SWIB and the CFA Society of Madison. This two-day virtual event will feature a lineup of leading industry experts who will provide valuable and insightful information on a wide range of topics.

1:30 PM (CT)
Knowledge Sharing and Collective Learning

Sébastien Page - T. Rowe Price
Moderated By: Sadi Olzelge (SWIB)
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2:30 PM (CT)
Mid-Year Check In: US Economic Trends and the Consumer Outlook

David Mericle - Goldman Sachs
Moderated By: Michael Mandarino (SWIB)
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3:30 PM (CT)
Opportunities and Challenges in Power Demand

Ravi Bellur - Ripple Effect Asset Management
Moderated By: Derek Bloom (SWIB)

Presenters

Sébastien Page

Head of Global Multi-Asset and CIO at T. Rowe Price

Sébastien Page is head of Global Multi-Asset at T. Rowe Price, overseeing an investment team dedicated to multi-asset portfolios. He is a member of the Asset Allocation Committee and the Management Committee of T. Rowe Price Group.

Prior to joining the firm in 2015, Mr. Page was an executive vice president at PIMCO, where he led a team focused on research and development of multi-asset solutions. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2010, he was a senior managing director at State Street Global Markets.

Mr. Page won research paper awards from the Journal of Portfolio Management and from the Financial Analyst Journal. He is the coauthor of the book "Factor Investing and Asset Allocation" and a member of the editorial board of the Financial Analysts Journal. Mr. Page, CFA, earned a Master of Science degree in finance and a bachelor's degree in business administration from Sherbrooke University in Quebec.

David Mericle

Chief U.S. Economist at Goldman Sachs

David is chief US economist in Global Investment Research. He joined Goldman Sachs in 2012 as an associate and was named managing director in 2017. David earned an AB in Economics and History and an AM in Statistics in 2005 from Harvard University. He earned a PhD and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Economics at Harvard University in 2012.

Ravi Bellur

Founder and CIO at Ripple Effect Asset Management

Ravi Bellur is the Founder and CIO of Ripple Effect Asset Management, LP. Prior to launching Ripple Effect in 2024, Ravi was the Founding Portfolio Manager and Head of Thematic Strategies at Tarsadia Capital, the investment manager for a multi-billion dollar single family office. Prior to joining Tarsadia Capital, Ravi was a Managing Director at PointState Capital and subsequently a Principal at Blockhouse Capital, a PointState spinout. Before PointState / BlockHouse, Ravi worked as a Vice President at BlackRock/R3 Capital in their distressed products and special situations group.

Ravi began his career at Goldman Sachs, working in the Principal Investment Area and Credit Division. Ravi has served as a director at several private companies including mature and start-up corporations in the metals and recycling sectors. Ravi is currently a Trustee and the Chair of the Finance and Faculties Committee at North Star Academy, a public charter school in Newark, NJ. Ravi graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business.

Willis Sparks

Director of Global Macro at Eurasia Group

Willis Sparks is a thought leader on risks, opportunities, and trends created by current geopolitical conflicts and political developments in major emerging market countries, as well as on US politics and foreign policy. He works directly with Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer on a variety of macro political risk projects. Willis has made speeches on market-moving trends in international politics for investor and corporate audiences on every continent except Antarctica.

Prior to joining Eurasia Group in 2005, Willis worked at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he wrote on transnational terrorism and US national security. Willis holds master's degrees in international affairs from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, where he specialized in international security policy and the former Soviet Union, and from Sciences Po in Paris. He holds two bachelor's degrees from Brown University and is a graduate of the Juilliard School. In addition, Willis once worked as a stuntman at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

Avi Goldfarb

Professor at University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management

Avi Goldfarb is the Rotman Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare and a professor of marketing at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Avi is also Chief Data Scientist at the Creative Destruction Lab, a faculty affiliate at the Vector Institute and the Schwartz-Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Avi’s research focuses on the opportunities and challenges of the digital economy.

Along with Ajay Agrawal and Joshua Gans, Avi is the author of the Globe & Mail bestselling book Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence.

He has published academic articles in marketing, statistics, law, management, medicine, political science, refugee studies, physics, computing, and economics. Avi is a former Senior Editor at Marketing Science. His work on online advertising won the INFORMS Society of Marketing Science Long Term Impact Award, and he testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on related work in competition and privacy in digital advertising. His work has been referenced in White House reports, European Commission documents, the New York Times, the Economist, and elsewhere.

Spencer Levy

Global Client Strategist and Senior Economic Advisor at CBRE

Spencer Levy is the Global Client Strategist and Senior Economic Advisor for CBRE, the largest commercial real estate firm in the world. Spencer is part of our Global Client Care team, a group of professionals around the world who are responsible for account management and client experience programs for the company’s largest clients.

In addition to his client-facing role, Spencer serves as a primary company spokesperson and is considered one of the most insightful commentators on issues of importance to commercial real estate. He is frequently quoted in major business publications and is the host of CBRE’s award-winning podcast The Weekly Take, the most heavily downloaded podcast in commercial real estate.