DACFP - Key Persons
Anders Brownworth, the Principal Architect in applied research in the field of central bank digital currency projects and former blockchain lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Brownworth holds several telecom patents and helped create Republic Wireless, a WIFI/cellular hybrid smartphone service. His module covers digital assets and digital currency.
Job Titles:
- CEO and Founder of MarketCounsel
Brian Hamburger, CEO and Founder of MarketCounsel and the Hamburger Law Firm, is a prominent advocate for advisors. Mr. Hamburger is Founder, President and CEO of MarketCounsel Consulting, the leading business and regulatory compliance consultancy to RIAs. Mr. Hamburger co-presents the module on compliance and risk issues for RIAs regarding digital assets.
Job Titles:
- Chief Regulatory Counsel at MarketCounsel
Dan Bernstein is Chief Regulatory Counsel at MarketCounsel and responsible for thought leadership, content development, and management of the firm's regulatory professionals. He has extensive experience in providing legal services to RIAs, institutions in the securities industry and fintech companies. Mr. Bernstein co-presents the module on compliance and risk issues for RIAs regarding digital assets.
Del Wright, Jr., author of A Short & Happy Guide to Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Crypto. His module is devoted to regulatory and tax issues related to digital assets. Mr. Wright is Professor of Finance, Business and Tax at the University of Missouri - Kansas City Law School, where his research focuses on the intersection of cryptocurrency, financial regulation and tax.
During Don's 20-year career, he has created and produced many of the financial industry's biggest and most prestigious events. He was Co-Founder & President of Inside ETFs and COO of ETF.com and partnered with Ric several years ago.
Don has a 20-year career of creating and producing "first-of-its-kind" buyside conferences, webinars and roadshows for financial professionals.
He was Co-Founder & President of Inside ETFs, the industry's largest and most successful conference, and Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President and Board Member of ETF.com. Don also created Inside ETFs Europe (that continent's largest ETF event), Inside Commodities (the largest institutional-focused US-based commodities event) and Inside Fixed Income (the world's largest independently run fixed-income event).
After leaving ETF.com, he founded JV Events Group where he created "institutional investor only" events including the Liquid Alternative Strategy Summit, MLP Strategy Summit, Smart Beta Strategy Summit, ETF Strategy Summit and the Digital Asset Strategy Summit. He sold JVEG to DACFP in 2020 and became its president.
Prior to ETF.com, Don was a Managing Director of Strategic Research Institute, where he created and produced the world's largest hedge fund conference (Blue Ribbon Hedge Fund), Europe's largest secondaries conference (Saving Private Equity), and the world's second largest indexing conference (The Art of Indexing). He also ran SRI's Alternative Investments Group, which generated 40% of the firm's revenues.
Don is a lifelong "Wildcat" with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree from the University of Arizona. He's also an avid runner, with three marathons to his credit. He, his wife and two daughters live near Atlanta.
Jack Tatar will lead the module on asset class correlation and diversification, risk management, investment pricing and return potential for digital assets. Mr. Tatar is an expert in this field and co-author of Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor's Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond. As Managing Partner at Doyle Capital Mgmt., he is an early-stage investor in companies within the transformative technology sectors of digital assets, blockchain, distributed computing, AI and more.
Job Titles:
- Founder of Smart Kx and Attorney at Vela Wood
Lacey Shrum, Founder of Smart Kx and attorney at Vela Wood, will teach advisors about the operational considerations of advising on digital assets. In her module, she'll review such issues as firm policies, client communication, documentation and billing. Ms. Shrum is a compliance consultant who speaks frequently to professional organizations, private businesses and the financial services community on blockchain technology and digital assets. Her company, Smart Kx, helps RIAs automate the client contract and fee calculation process, ensure fee accuracy and maintain compliance for advisors recommending traditional and digital assets.
Laura Shin is a crypto journalist, host of the Unchained podcast, and author of "The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze" (PublicAffairs, 2022). During the course of writing her book, she and her sources uncovered who they believe was behind the biggest whodunnit in crypto - the 2016 DAO attack on Ethereum.
Formerly a senior editor at Forbes, she was the first mainstream journalist to cover crypto full-time, and her podcasts and videos have had 25 million downloads and views. Shin has spoken about cryptocurrency at places such as TEDx San Francisco, the International Monetary Fund, Singularity University and the Oslo Freedom Forum.
She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors from Stanford University and has a master of arts from Columbia University's School of Journalism. She lives in New York City.
Lex Sokolin is one of the premier minds in decentralized finance and the next generation of financial services. His module will explore the broad blockchain ecosystem with a focus on second layer protocols, tokens and DeFi. Mr. Sokolin is Co-Head of Global Fintech at ConsenSys, and is a futurist and entrepreneur working on the next generation of financial services for blockchain technology which is building the infrastructure, applications and practices that enable a decentralized world. His work emphasizes emerging digital assets, public and private enterprise blockchain solutions, and decentralized finance and autonomous organizations.
Job Titles:
- President and Founder of ClientWise LLC
Ray Sclafani is President and Founder of ClientWise LLC, the premier coaching and training company exclusively serving the financial services industry. Mr. Sclafani's module explores the digital asset investments available to financial advisors and their clients, and explains how to buy, where to custody and much more. Mr. Sclafani founded ClientWise after 20 years at AllianceBernstein. ClientWise's unique coaching programs and credentialed coaches help advisors and their firms reach the next level of professional excellence and financial success with greater focus and ease.
René Chaze is a special advisor to DACFP on impactful issues related to digital assets. René was a Partner with Ernst & Young, advising technology clients for 20 years on various tax policy, strategy and structuring matters. He then was with Edelman Financial for 6 years, serving as CFO, COO, Head of M&A and in other executive leadership roles. Currently as a Partner with Tiny Orange Capital, he works with emerging and leading companies and funds in the digital assets, blockchain and technology fields.
All three leading trade publications - Investment Advisor, RIABiz and InvestmentNews - have named Ric Edelman one of the most influential people in the financial planning and investment management profession.
Dr. W. Scott Stornetta, widely considered the co-inventor of blockchain technology. His module focuses on blockchain/distributed ledger technology, the underlying technology for bitcoin and all digital assets. Dr. Stornetta and his research were prominently cited in three of the eight citations in Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin Whitepaper. He is currently Chief Scientist and Partner at Yugen Partners.