Tia Adams, Global Head of Securities Lending Operations – Global Markets Division, Goldman Sachs

Tia Adams is global head of Securities Lending Operations in the Global Markets Division at Goldman Sachs. Tia joined Goldman Sachs in 2005 as an associate in Client Assets Operations and was named managing director in 2021.
Prior to joining the firm, Tia worked in a bankruptcy consulting practice. She also spent several years at the University of Miami in Financial Reporting where she began her career.
Tia serves as co-sponsor of the Operations Black Network within Goldman Sachs. She serves on the Board of Trustees of Stevens Cooperative, a co-educational independent day school for prekindergarten through eighth grade students as well as the Board of Directors for Usher’s New Look, a nonprofit organization transforming the lives of youth through mentorship programming.
Tia earned a BS in Accounting from the University of Florida in 1999 and an MBA from the University of Miami in 2001.

Elisa Nuottajarvi, Vice President, SIFMA Asset Management Group

Elisa Nuottajarvi is a Vice President with the Asset Management Group (AMG) at SIFMA. Elisa works as the primary staff advisor for the AMG Operations area. Elisa manages asset management operations related initiatives and the relevant AMG Operations committees, forums and task forces. Elisa’s focus is on improving asset managers’ operational excellence and efficiency, future of operations, utilization of emerging technologies, derivatives operations, collateral management, operational risk, counterparty risk, custodian operations, alternative investment operations and operational implementation of new regulations. Elisa is also responsible for producing AMG events.

Noel Reyes, Americas Head of Equities Electronic Trading Products, Goldman Sachs

Noel I. Reyes is the Americas Head of Equities Electronic Trading Products at Goldman Sachs. He previously held positions at J.P. Morgan, Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers. Mr. Reyes holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.

Michael O’Hara, Head of Sales and Marketing in the Americas, ITRS Group

Michael is Head of Sales and Marketing in the Americas for ITRS, the leading provider of application and infrastructure tooling in Financial Services.  ITRS has served the industry for 25 years, offering  unparalled visibility and response time in the most demanding markets.  ITRS has tailored solutions for FIX connectivity, Market Data feeds, as well as trading and risk platforms.

Michael has spent his 25 year career with some of the most recognizable names in the industry – creating value and increasing efficiency for clients.  He has been involved with, and participated in the growth of FIX since his early days, and is looking forward to bringing a new operational perspective to the FIX Trading Community.

Brad Johmann, Global Head of Venues, Virtu Execution Services, Virtu Financial

Based in New York, Brad Johmann is the Global Head of Venues for Virtu Execution Services. Brad oversees the firm’s ATSs and global block indications network, POSIT Alert.

Joining the firm in January 2019, Brad’s prior experience included roles at Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and Deutsche Bank.

Brad holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Columbia University.

Brian Gay, Global Product Manager, Integration Services and E/OMS Vendor Partnership Manager, Liquidnet

Brian defines and drives the integration components between customer trading systems and Liquidnet products globally across business units and asset classes.  This includes creating and maintaining strategic partnerships with third party software and service vendors to promote solutions that offer seamless access to unique and diverse pools of liquidity and industry leading value-added services consistent with workflows that improve efficiency and effectiveness.  He has spent over 20 years in the capital markets industry with software vendors, broker/dealers and trading venues serving in business development and product management roles related to electronic trading and client connectivity.

Ila Eckhoff, CPA, MBA – Board Chair, Cerebral Palsy Foundation

Ila Eckhoff, CPA, Managing Director,  member of BlackRock’s Global Investment Operations. She was responsible for leading BlackRock’s Industry and Counterparty Management strategy. Ms. Eckhoff served on a number of committees, including the Business Operations and Technology Leadership Committees, Government Relations Steering Committee and Technology and Operations DEI Committee. She is also a founder and MD sponsor of Blackrock’s ABN- Ability at Blackrock Network.

Ms. Eckhoff has had several roles at Blackrock, most recently managing the Market Initiatives team coordinating operational initiatives associated with meeting Dodd Frank and EMIR commitments for Over the Counter (OTC) derivatives working alongside the market structure, portfolio management, technology, and legal teams. Prior to that, Ms. Eckhoff managed BlackRock’s US Derivative Operations and Trading Operations Groups where she was responsible for collateral management and trade confirmation across fixed income and equity, swap payments and OTC legal confirmations. In addition, she has worked to enhance the firm’s system capabilities and develop the operations infrastructure for derivatives. Ms. Eckhoff has also developed and implemented collateral and swap payment processes and procedures for alternative products at the firm. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2000, Ms. Eckhoff managed the New York Collateral teams at both Barclays Capital and Credit Lyonnais, handling all interest rate, FX and equity derivatives. In this role, she was responsible for coordinating global collateral management for all US clients working with legal, tax and regulatory reporting. At Credit Lyonnais, she also managed the Accounting Policy Group where she developed and implemented the Bank’s procedures on collateralized derivative trading.

Ms. Eckhoff was co-chair of SIFMA/AMF Derivative Operations Committee, a member of the ISDA Collateral and Credit Steering Committees and a member of the SIFMA AMG Committee. She is also a member of RespectAbility Board of Directors. Ms. Eckhoff earned a BA degree in economics from Brandeis University and an MBA degree in Accounting from Baruch College. She is also a CPA.

Denis Ignatovich, Co-Founder, Co-CEO, Imandra

Denis Ignatovich has over a decade of experience in trading, risk management, quantitative modeling, and complex trading system design. Prior to joining AI, he was head of the central risk trading desk at Deutsche Bank London. He holds an MSc in Finance from the London School of Economics and degrees in CS and Finance from UT Austin.

Ram Pantangi, Engineering Manager, Coinbase

Based in New Jersey, Ram manages the Trading Systems group that is responsible for Matching Engines, Order Management and Clearing for the US Crypto Spot Exchange. Prior to joining Coinbase in 2021, Ram spent more than 15 years in the financial services industry leading various engineering teams in the Equities Algo Execution Technology, Rates Algo Trading and Markets Intelligence areas. He is passionate about leveraging his background to take the Crypto ecosystem forward.

Harsh Devpura, Principal, Product Owner, Securities Finance, OCC

Harsh Devpura is Principal, Product Owner, Securities Finance at OCC, the world’s largest equity derivatives clearing organization.

In his current role, he is Co-Chair of OCC’s Securities Lending Working Group, a team responsible for developing a set of recommended practices to support automated processing of securities lending. These efforts support collateralized securities loans and global central counterparties that clear securities lending transactions. As a product owner in securities finance who is passionate about bringing the power of transparency and data standardization to the industry, he is working on replacing OCCs current securities lending clearing system and helping with OCC’s initiative for introducing an enhanced product roadmap for its Securities Lending Programs.

Mr. Devpura joined OCC in 2016 as an analyst in business and product development where he worked directly with U.S. regulators to implement requirements for various derivative products and market segments.

Prior to joining OCC, Mr. Devpura worked in the health care sector, helping certain associations in developing and implementing enterprise risk management solutions. He also worked as an investment research manager for Tulane University while earning his master’s degree.

Mr. Devpura earned a bachelor’s degree in information science and engineering from VTU, India and an MBA in finance and international business from Tulane University A.B. Freeman School of Business.