Acclinate was established by Martin Coughlan, CFA, CAIA in 2019. After working at asset management firms for over twenty years, including a decade of leading global distribution efforts, Martin launched Acclinate to provide services and solutions to asset management firms that help safeguard their futures during a time of exponential change. His knowledge of investment and global distribution trends, as well as marketing, and product development, gives him differentiated perspectives on what makes investment firms successful.

Prior to founding Essentia, Clare spent 10 years as a fund manager, both active equity (running over $1bn of pension funds for Deutsche Asset Management) and hedge (as founder and CIO of Avocet Capital Management, a specialist tech fund manager). She ultimately 'went native' into the software space as President of Beauchamp Financial Technology, a market-leading provider of portfolio management systems to hedge funds, which was acquired by Linedata Services S.A. Clare's vision for Essentia is based on years of being the customer, followed by years of listening to the customer.

David J. Csiki is currently Managing Director of INDATA, a leading industry provider of SaaS (Software as a Service) for buy-side firms including trade order management (OMS), compliance, portfolio accounting and front-to-back office technology solutions. INDATA provides software and services to a variety of buy-side clients including asset managers, registered investment advisors, banks and wealth management firms, pension funds and hedge funds. INDATA’s clients have assets under management that range from $25 million to more than $80 billion across a variety of asset classes (i.e. equity, fixed income, etc.) and include both domestic and international.

In the role of managing director, Csiki maintains a constant “pulse” on the changing technology and operational needs of investment management firms to support the entire investment management process. Moreover, he has a comprehensive understanding of current industry dynamics such as changing regulatory and compliance issues, outsourcing, OMS/EMS practices, portfolio management, performance reporting and analytics and industry best-practices that drive technology decisions on Wall Street for the buy-side.

Prior to joining INDATA, Csiki was Manager of Marketing and Investor Relations at Trinitech Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: NYFX) and was instrumental in developing the product concept and planning the successful launch of the company’s flagship product, NYFIX, an electronic communications network (ECN) utilizing the FIX protocol.

Mr. Csiki has participated in the ICAA’s workshop on “What Investment Advisers Should Know About T+1” and Institutional Investor’s “Financial Technology Forum,” as well as CFA Institute events.

In addition, he is regularly quoted in industry publications such as; Wall Street & Technology, Waters magazine, Buy-Side Technology, Institutional Investor magazine, The Trade, Securities Industry News, Traders Magazine, STP Magazine, A-Team Insights, Global Investment Technology and Operations Management. In addition, his commentary has been included in leading industry research notes from highly-respected analysts at Aite Group, The Tower Group, Financial Insights, The Tabb Group and Cutter Associates.

Mr. Csiki was awarded a Master’s degree in Public and International Affairs from the University of Connecticut.

William Brodsky served as executive chairman of the board of CBOE Holdings from May 2013 to February 2017, after serving as chairman and CEO of CBOE from 1997 to 2013.

Prior to joining CBOE, Brodsky served for 15 years at Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), where he oversaw the launch of the CME Globex trading system and played a pivotal role in the development and globalization of stock index futures.

Steven M. Sears is a Senior Editor and Columnist with Barron's and Barrons.com. He writes The Striking Price and Striking Price Daily columns. Mr. Sears is the author of The Indomitable Investor: Why a Few Succeed in the Stock Market When Everyone Else Fails. He previously reported for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. He has reported upon most major modern financial events, including the Asian Contagion, the bursting of the Internet Bubble, the Credit Crisis, and Europe's sovereign debt crisis. He also was part of exchange executive teams that modernized the U.S. options market, and introduced electronic trading. He is a member of the Economic Club of New York.

Som Dasgupta began his career as a Portfolio Manager at JP Morgan in 1993; he stayed with the company for seven years until 2000. In 2007 he began working at Linden Advisors as  Portfolio Manager, where he continues to work.

Penelope Biggs is chief strategy officer for Corporate & Institutional Services (C&IS), the business unit dedicated to managing, administering and servicing investment portfolios for sophisticated global asset owners and asset managers. Corporate & Institutional Services has 9,000 staff in 26 worldwide locations, supporting 2,300 clients in 56 countries, with US$9 trillion of assets under administration and US$1.2 trillion of assets under management.

Penelope is responsible for strategic planning, communication and implementation of the global strategy for Northern Trust’s institutional asset servicing business, as well as the ongoing execution and refinement of strategic imperatives to capitalize on industry trends, regulation, technology, opportunity and innovation. Penelope’s remit includes market entry, strategic acquisitions, client engagement and global marketing. She also provides executive oversight and accountability for Northern Trust’s clients and business activities in the Middle East.

 
Prior to Penelope’s role as CSO, she was responsible for Northern Trust’s asset owner business in the EMEA region, providing asset servicing/asset management solutions for institutional investors. In this capacity her teams were responsible for business development, relationship management, marketing, product delivery and strategy. Penelope was also responsible for managing Northern Trust’s offices across the region, including the Netherlands, Sweden, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia.

Before taking up this role, Penelope was head of global business development and prior to that she was responsible for Northern Trust’s business in the UK, Luxembourg and Dublin. Before joining Northern Trust in 1996, Penelope held a variety of sales and relationship management positions at Barclays Global Securities Services, Midland Securities Services and Chase Manhattan Bank.

Penelope is on the board of Northern Trust Global Services and is a longtime member of the C&IS Global Executive Committee. She is involved in various charity committees and is on the Advisory Board of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. She has a long-standing nomination from the Financial News Top 100 Women in Finance and is an active participant in several leading organizations championing women in business. She is also head of Northern Trust’s EMEA LGBT diversity group.

Dan Houlihan is an Executive Vice President and Head of Northern Trust Asset Servicing, Americas, a leading provider of custody, banking, fund administration, investor servicing and outsourced solutions across the front, middle and back office to both institutional asset owners and fund managers throughout the region. The broad client range includes fund management firms, large corporations, insurance companies, public funds and not-for-profit entities, including endowments, foundations and healthcare companies.

 
Dan joined Northern Trust in 2008 as the Global Head of Product and Strategy for the Investment Operations Outsourcing business. He then spent eight years as Head of Global Fund Services in North America, responsible for servicing the region’s fund manager clients.

Dan spent 19 years in numerous leadership positions for investment management, technology and services companies, prior to joining Northern Trust, including a tenure as President of Citisoft, Inc. where he was responsible for executing their North American strategy.

 
Dan currently serves as chairman of the Board for the National Investment Company Service Association (NICSA) and as a director on the Advisors Investment Trust.

Gary is the global head of Integrated Trading Solutions for Northern Trust Securities, Northern Trust’s institutional brokerage business. Gary joined Northern Trust in May 2016 with the acquisition of Aviate Global, where he was a co-founder and responsible for its product offering.

 
Gary is a registered representative with the FCA and FINRA and holds his Series 17 and 63 licenses.

John Turney is a senior vice president and global head of Northern Trust's Global Foreign Exchange (GFX) business. As global head, John leads client service and dealing teams in Chicago, London, Seoul, Singapore and Sydney. He works closely with partners in GFX and across Northern Trust's Corporate & Institutional Services unit to coordinate the development, delivery and sale of FX services to institutional clients, and the management of the related risk. Prior to his current role, John held a number of positions within the GFX and Global Fund Services (GFS) businesses. Most recently, John was global head of Outsourced FX, managing the CompleteFX™ and Passive Currency Overlay (PasCO) businesses, Northern Trust's outsourced FX transaction processing and execution service and passive currency hedging service, respectively. Previously, John worked in Northern Trust's GFS group where he led the development and launch of CompleteFX™.  He has also worked in GFX Sales, with a focus on business and product development, as well as managing  institutional client relationships.

 
John previously served as a vice president of Luminous Capital, now a division of First Republic Investment Management. While at Luminous, John worked closely with one of the firm's founding partners managing a portion of the firm's then US$6 billion in assets across various liquid and illiquid strategies.

 
Prior to his employment with Luminous Capital, John held various positions at Northern Trust in GFS Sales and Operations & Technology.

 
John received a bachelor’s degree in international political economy from Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service

Jon currently serves as Global Head of Options and is responsible for sales, business development, trading, and oversight of Northern Trust’s Options business.

The Global Options business is an institutional brokerage service under Northern Trust Capital Markets. Jon, and his core team, are headquartered in Chicago and are leading providers of trading and service to institutional clients, which include, Public Funds, Foundations & Endowments, Hedge Funds, and Investment Managers & Family Offices.

An industry veteran, Jon brings over 20 years' experience in the options market managing extremely large and complex client relationships.

Jon joined Northern Trust in November, 2015. Prior to joining Northern Trust, Jon ran his own trading group in Chicago, developing option strategies and trading for Banks, Hedge Funds, and Asset managers.