Professor Cook’s teaching interests are in the areas of marketing, management, sales management, marketing communications, services marketing, industry/vertical marketing, industrial/ organizational psychology and TeleBusiness He has taught at Boston University, Nazareth College, St. John Fisher College, Roberts Wesleyan College, SUNY Geneseo, Keuka College and Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), where he has served as the evening chairperson for the Marketing Program. He was a distinguished professor at RIT. He instructs both at the undergraduate and graduate level Cook was employed by the Ford Division of the Ford Motor Company for 10 years in various marketing and management assignments both in the operations side of the business and in the Headquarters Marketing Staff He recently retired from the Xerox Corporation after 30 years of service in numerous sales, marketing and customer service assignments including: district manager, division manager, industry marketing, general manager, customer services marketing, division manager of national account service and marketing manager, TeleBusiness He has served as a president of the Rochester, NY, chapter of the American Marketing Association and serves on the new business books review board of the Journal of Consumer Marketing. Cook has recently completed a marketing case study on “JOLT, America’s Original Energy Drink!” that should be published soon He has served as a member of the Business Advisory Council for the John Wiley School of Business at SUNY Geneseo. He was a member of the RIT President’s Speakers Bureau and speaks on the subjects of quality, customer satisfaction, customer services marketing, affinity marketing and telebusiness He recently coauthored an article in the Chief Marketing Officer Journal, Volume 2, with Paulo Albuquerque, assistant professor of marketing at the Simon School, entitled “The (un) Importance of Marketing and the CMO in the American Auto Industry.” Cook was formerly a board member of the Landmark Society of Western New York Inc and currently is a board member of Randy Henderson Ford/Lincoln in Webster, NY He was also a member of the Sounding Board of Contributors of the Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY) and has been asked to serve as the Simon School faculty advisor for Alpha Kappa Psi, the new business fraternity at the University of Rochester BS, Business Administration, Indiana University MBA, Marketing The Ohio State University
Dr Antonio Malfense Fierro completed his PhD at Edinburgh University Business School in 2012 and joined Hull University Business School in May 2013. In May 2010 he was selected as one of the 100 global ‘Young Leaders of Tomorrow’ for the St Gallen Symposium in St Gallen, Switzerland. During 2010-2011 he was the first ‘Chazen Visiting Scholar’ at the Lang Entrepreneurship Center at Columbia University Business School, in the city of New York. He has also more recently (2013) been a visiting researcher at Makerere University Business School in Uganda, investigating large scale successful portfolio entrepreneurs in addition to work with the STEP family business consortium. In 2014 he was invited to the London School of Economics (LSE) Africa summit as an academic advisory panel member. During his PhD Antonio worked for a year with Edinburgh Universities Student business Incubator. He has also conducted consultancy projects in Southern Africa and has worked at a prominent New York, Venture Capital Fund. Antonio was an accomplished amateur water polo player before injury put an end to his playing career in 2011/2012. He is a qualified water polo coach and represented the Scottish Universities Team (national selection) as a player for three seasons (2006, 2008, 2009), receiving a half blue and colours for this and other achievements, from the Edinburgh University Sports Union. He is a keen golfer, angler and a live sports enthusiast Dr Malfense Fierro is particularly interested in the role of large scale (or portfolio entrepreneurship) in economic development in Africa and elsewhere. This underlines a broad interest in African business and entrepreneurship which he teaches at undergraduate and postgraduate level. More specifically, he is fascinated by the relationship between risk and entrepreneurship and how risk is managed over time by entrepreneurs in different environments. Antonio is currently assessing existing measures of ‘entrepreneurial environments’ and their practical applicability and relevance to entrepreneurs and policy-makers. He is also investigating the role of portfolio entrepreneurship in African economic growth and development. Other interests, include the growth processes of entrepreneurial business groups in rapidly, developing and growing markets and other interests in family business and venture capital. His interests and capabilities also extend to undertaking business opportunity assessments and information gathering that is focused on different industries and markets within African countries, or in environments where the gathering or accessing such information is severely challenging.
Thomas N. Rollinger is Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer for Red Rock Capital and as an 18-year industry veteran, he honed his skills under quantitative hedge fund legend, Edward O. Thorp (Market Wizards author Jack Schwager recently called Dr. Thorp the greatest of all time). The strategy Rollinger co-developed & co-managed with Edward Thorp was successful enough to gain mention in two best-selling books (The Quants and Hedge Fund Market Wizards). Considered a thought leader in the futures industry, Mr. Rollinger published the highly acclaimed 37-page white paper Revisiting Kat’s Managed Futures & Hedge Funds in 2012 and co-authored both Sortino Ratio: A Better Measure of Risk and A Comparison of CTA Indexes in 2013. Previously he was a consultant to two top CTAs and he inspired the creation of an industry-leading trading system design software package. Earlier in his career, Mr. Rollinger founded and operated a systematic futures investment fund and worked for original “Turtle” Tom Shanks of Hawksbill Capital Management. After graduating college in Michigan, Mr. Rollinger became a U.S. Marine Corps Officer. He served as a 1st Lieutenant in command of a 42-man infantry platoon and was selected to be promoted to the rank of Captain before resigning his commission. He holds a finance degree with a minor in economics and is a Certified Hedge Fund Professional (CHP) Level 1 Charter Holder.
Jagdeesh Prakasam is Co -Chief Investment Officer for Rotella Capital Management and oversees the investment process for the firm’s publicly offered programs. He also focuses on the exploration of future research initiatives directly benefitting the firm’s core programs. Mr. Prakasam has been managing various proprietary portfolios as Portfolio Manager since early 2007. The holding period of the trades in these portfolios range from intraday to intermediate term across both futures and equities spaces. Mr. Prakasam joined Rotella Capital Management, Inc. (RCM) in 2003 as a Researcher primarily focused on supporting the research efforts in portfolio construction, risk management, and overlay strategies for RCM’s core trading strategies. He graduated from Dharmsinh Desai Institute of Technology, Gujarat, India with a Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering in 2001 and received a Master of Science degree in Finance from the Stuart School of Business, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago in 2003. He is also a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designee since November 2007.
Jon is CEO of Kettera Strategies LLC (formerly named Typhon Access). Kettera Strategies is the operator of Hydra — a platform registered with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission — that allows qualified investors access to easily invest in a carefully curated array of CTA, FX, and Macro strategies. Jon has over 25 years of financial industry experience with a focus on portfolio management and managed futures, FX, and commodities’ strategies. Most recently, he was Managing Director at Parker Global Strategies in charge of the construction and development of their FX and CTA products and portfolios. Prior to that, Jon was the CIO and a founding partner of AlphaMetrix Group, leaving at the end of 2007 to join Parker Global. Before that he was the Chief Investment Officer of Efficient Capital Management, a fund-of-funds and manager-of-managers, and Chairman of the firm’s Investment Committee. Prior to his career in finance, Jon worked as a lawyer focusing on hedge fund formation and as the Senior Editor with Futures Magazine from 1987. Jon is the author of Trading Currency Cross Rates, published by John Wiley & Sons in 1993.
Peter Thomas is a Senior Vice President at the Zaner Precious Metal Division and he is considered one of the leading gold authorizes in the world today. As a licensed floor broker, he was a filling broker in the silver pit when silver ran to $55 an ounce. He currently manages a global cash desk which handles Refiners, Recyclers, Mining Operations and Coin & Bullion companies. He is constantly in demand for his insightful opinions drawn from his 35 years of metals trade to such news companies and magazines publishers as EconoTimes, Bloomberg News, WSJ, The Guardian,US News and World Review, Hard Assets, Kitco, and Modern Trader magazine. Contact him at @Goldbug111, (312) 277-0140 or pthomas@zaner.com.
