4th ACM International Conference on AI in Finance (ICAIF-23)

Keynote Speakers

We are pleased to welcome two keynote speakers for ICAIF-23. See their biographies and information below.

Dr. Usama Fayyad, Ph.D

Executive Director for the Institute of Experiential Artificial IntelligencE

Northeastern University

Dr. Fayyad joined Northeastern University Khoury College of Computer Science as Professor of the Practice, and the Office of the Provost as the Inaugural Executive Director of the Institute for Experiential AI. He continues as Chairman of Open Insights, a company he founded as a technology and consulting firm in 2008 after leaving Yahoo! to enable enterprises to get value out of their data assets and optimize or create new business models based on the new evolving economy of interactions. Leveraging open source, bigData technology, and strategic consulting, Open Insights deploys data-driven solutions to grow revenue from Data assets through BigData strategy, new business models on data assets, and deploying data science, AI/ML solutions. Usama served (2017-2019) as Co-Founder & CTO at OODA Health, Inc a VC-funded company aiming to liberate the healthcare system from administrative waste by leveraging AI/automation to create real-time/retail-like experience in payments in healthcare.

From 2013-2016 Usama served as Global Chief Data Officer & Group Managing Director at Barclays Bank in London, after launching the largest tech startup accelerator in MENA following his appointment as Executive Chairman of Oasis500 in Jordan by King Abdullah II in 2010. His background includes Chairman & CEO roles at several startups, including Blue Kangaroo Corp, DMX Group and digiMine Inc.

He was the first person to hold the Chief Data Officer title when Yahoo! acquired his second startup in 2004. At Yahoo! he built the Strategic Data Solutions group and founded Yahoo! Research Labs where much of the early work on BigData made it to open source and led to Hadoop and other open source contributions. He has held leadership roles at Microsoft (1996-2000) and founded the Machine Learning Systems group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (1989-2005), where his work on machine learning resulted in the top Excellence in Research award from Caltech, and a U.S. Government medal from NASA.

Usama has published over 100 technical articles on data mining, data science, AI/ML, and databases. He holds over 20 patents and is a Fellow of both the AAAI and the ACM. Usama earned his Ph.D. in Engineering in AI/Machine Learning from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has edited two influential books on data mining/data science and served as Founding Editor-in-Chief on two key journals. He also served on the boards/advisory boards of private and public companies including: Criteo, Invensense, Exelate, RapidMiner, Stella.AI, Virsec, Silniva, Abe.AI, NetSeer, Choicestream, Medio, Leapyear Technology, Drover, and others. He served on the advisory boards of the Data Science Institute at Imperial College, AAI at UTS, and The University of Michigan College of Engineering National Advisory Board. He serves on the Board Advisory Committee to Nationwide Building Society in the UK and on the Advisory board of the WEF Global Center for Cybersecurity. He is an active angel investor/advisor in many early-stage tech startups across the U.S., Europe and the Middle East.

Dr. Andrew Ang, Ph.D

Managing Director, Head of Factors, Sustainable and Solutions in Blackrock Systematic

Blackrock

Andrew Ang, PhD, Managing Director, is Head of Factors, Sustainable and Solutions in BlackRock Systematic, which manages $220 billion with quantitative investment techniques. He also serves as Senior Advisor to BlackRock Retirement Solutions.

Dr. Ang is a well-known financial economist specializing in quantitative investing. Author of over 100 publications, Dr. Ang has published on sustainable investing, equities, fixed income, optimal asset allocation, and alternative assets. His seminal papers include research in the minimum volatility factor, incorporating macro factors into bond pricing models, and factor allocation. His book, Asset Management: A Systematic Approach to Factor Investing, has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. He teaches a class at Columbia University on Climate Change and ESG Investing.

Before joining BlackRock, Dr. Ang was the Ann F. Kaplan Professor of Business at Columbia Business School and Chair of the Finance and Economics Division. Dr. Ang has been granted patents and won several prizes including the Harry Markowitz award, the Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy award, and grants from the Q Group, INQUIRE, Netspar, and the National Science Foundation. According to RePEc/IDEAS, the largest bibliographic database in the field of economics, Dr. Ang is rated in the top 0.1% of world-wide economists by citations, downloads, and views.

Dr. Michael Wellman, Ph.D

Professor and Division Chair of Computer Science & EngineerinG, University of Michigan

Michael P. Wellman is Professor and Division Chair of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Michigan. He received a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988 for his work in qualitative probabilistic reasoning and decision-theoretic planning. From 1988 to 1992, Wellman conducted research in these areas at the USAF’s Wright Laboratory. For the past 30 years, his research has focused on computational market mechanisms and game-theoretic reasoning methods, with applications in electronic commerce, finance, and cyber-security.

As Chief Market Technologist for Trading Dynamics, Inc., he designed configurable auction technology for dynamic business-to-business commerce. Wellman previously served as Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Electronic Commerce (SIGecom), and as Executive Editor of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research.

He is a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and the Association for Computing Machinery.

David Gleason

co-founder and senior advisor, all in on data
senior advisor, spark92

David Gleason is a seasoned Chief Data and Analytics Officer with over 25 years’ experience in Data Management, Data Architecture, and Data Strategy. He has held multiple Chief Data Officer roles, demonstrating his ability to solve real-world problems and showcasing his leadership and board-level communication and influencing capabilities. David has worked at global Financial institutions, professional services firms, software companies, and early-stage
firms, across a variety of industries.

Most recently, David served as the Chief Data and Analytics Officer and Head of Architecture for Virgin Money. Prior to Virgin Money, David held data leadership roles at Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase. At Deutsche Bank, he managed the group-wide migration of data assets onto cloud technology and led the transformation of Deutsche Bank’s Corporate
Bank into an analytics-driven business. At JPMorgan Chase, he managed operations and strategy for the firm’s Analytics, Big Data, and Machine Learning function and help create JPMorgan’s bank-wide Data Management function. Before JPMorgan Chase, David held data significant roles at BNY Mellon, AIG, and Credit Suisse.

In addition to his full-time roles, David has provided advisory services to several software companies and has mentored early-stage technology companies. He has also presented at workshops hosted by the Harvard Data Science Institute and the Harvard Digital Data and Design Institute. He is also a founding member of the Data Explorers Club, a global group of Chief Data & Analytics Officers sponsored by Microsoft.