Barbara Connolly Keady
Director New Business Development, Ceres Partners
Barbara Connolly Keady is the Director of Marketing for Ceres Partners. Ceres Partners is a specialist investment manager focused exclusively on food and agriculture. Ceres Partners manages two investment vehicles with distinct strategies and objectives: Ceres Farms LLC which invests in US Farmland and Ceres Food and Agriculture Opportunity Fund which invests growth equity in emerging operating businesses in food and agriculture.
Most recently, Barbara was a research analyst at Southport Management, a convertible bond hedge fund based in Ct. Prior to that, she worked as an associate in the Private Wealth Management group at Morgan Stanley in NY, selling the firm’s asset management services to High Net Worth individuals, endowments and foundations.
Barbara started her career at Bankers Trust Company in their fixed income sales department, covering pensions, corporations and money funds in the Mid- Atlantic region.
Barbara received a B.S. from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia and an MBA in Finance from Columbia University. She serves as a Director on the Sprott Focus Trust (FUND) Board. Barbara holds the 7, 63 and 24 securities licenses.
Thomas J. Digenan, CFA, CPA
Head of US Intrinsic Value Equity Team, UBS Asset Management
Tom Digenan is the head of the US Intrinsic Value Equity team. In this role, he is responsible for US equities portfolio construction and research. Prior to this role, Tom had been a Strategist with the team since 2001, whereby he participated in the analysis and development of US equities portfolios ensuring client investment objectives were met. Prior to his role with the US Intrinsic Value Equity team, Tom was president of the firm’s mutual funds and relationship funds organization. Prior to joining the UBS predecessor organization Brinson Partners in 1993, Tom was a senior manager at KPMG Peat Marwick, where he worked exclusively in the investment services industry. Tom is a member of the CFA Institute and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and he is on the board of CFA Society Chicago. He is currently Chairman of the CFA Society Chicago. He is also currently on the Advisory Board for the Driehaus Center for Behavioral Finance at DePaul University. Tom was an adjunct professor in the Marquette University Graduate School of Business from 2012-2016. In addition, Tom has been a guest lecturer at Northwestern University, University of Notre Dame and Creighton University. Tom received a B.S. from Marquette University and an M.S.T. from DePaul University.
Lisa Hall
Investment Committee, Nathan Cummings Foundation
Lisa Hall is a Senior Fellow at the Case Foundation and at Georgetown University at the Beeck Center, which engages global leaders to drive social change at scale. Lisa leads the Case Foundation’s impact investing work, focused on programs to drive more investors and capital into impact investing and efforts to break down barriers to entry for new impact investors. Her area of focus at the Beeck Center is the inclusive economy, examining how access to opportunity and social innovation can drive prosperity for all communities. Lisa has dedicated her 25-year career to economic justice, social impact and community development. Using the tools of impact investing and philanthropy, she has served in executive roles across multiple sectors in the United States and abroad.
Lisa previously served as Managing Director at Anthos Asset Management, headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands where she was based for three years. She also served as CEO and President of Calvert Foundation from 2010 to 2013, following her tenure as head of the investment portfolio from 2005 to 2010. Lisa served in the Clinton Administration in 1999 as a policy advisory at the National Economic Council where she worked on the creation of the New Markets Investment Tax Credit.
Lisa currently serves on several boards including City First Bank, in Washington, DC and Habitat for Humanity International. She is a graduate of Leadership Greater Washington class of 2008 and participated in the Marshall Memorial Fellowship in 2003. Lisa earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in Economics from the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania.
Laura Kane CFA , CPA
Head Thematic Research Americas, UBS Global Wealth Management
Laura joined CIO in 2015 and is responsible for coordinating and developing content for the team’s thematic and sustainable investment offerings. She is a key contributor of thematic content for the flagship UBS House View suite and for sustainable investing publications. She is a voting member of the US Thematic Investment Committee.
Previously, Laura was a multi-asset class Senior Investment Strategist at Barclays Wealth Management, where she was a member of the Americas Investment Committee. Prior to that, she was an Equity Research analyst at JP Morgan Asset Management, covering Industrials and Transports. In this role, Laura conducted thematic sector level research, as well as fundamental stock analysis, to derive investment recommendations for JP Morgan’s large cap core portfolios.
Laura is a Chartered Financial Analyst® charter holder and Certified Public Accountant. She is a member of the CFA Institute and New York Society of Security Analysts. She holds NASD series 7, 63, and 86 licenses. Laura holds a B.S. in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.