Issue Brief / Index Forum & Networking Reception

Steven Bloom

Assistant Professor of Economics, USMA - West Point

Steven M. Bloom joined the U.S.M.A. faculty at West Point in July 2010 to direct the financial economics curriculum. He taught Principles of Economics (SS201) in Fall 2010 and Spring 2011, Financial Statement Analysis (SS394) in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, and Fall 2012, and Principles of Finance (SS494) in Spring 2013. In May 2011, Dr. Bloom was honored with the Department of Social Sciences’ William F. Murdy Award for Teaching Excellence.

Besides serving on the faculty at U.S.M.A.-West Point, Dr. Bloom is also Principal of Capital Markets International Consulting (Capmark®), a firm specializing in the development, institutional marketing, and research of financial products for the global capital markets. Previously, Dr. Bloom served as Senior Vice President for The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. in charge of its Financial Products business unit. He also served at National Economic Research Associates as Senior Consultant in Securities and Finance, and at the American Stock Exchange as Chief Economist, Senior Vice President for Equity Research, and Vice President for New Products Development. His consulting clients have included the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, JPMorgan Chase, the Bank of New York, the NASDAQ Stock Market, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, the Sydney Futures Exchange, Yorkville ETF Advisors, and Fortune magazine, among others.

Over the past twenty five years, Dr. Bloom has helped develop and market stock indexes, derivative securities, and other financial instruments. While at the American Stock Exchange, he contributed significantly to the creation, development, and launch of SPDRs® (Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts®), the first and today still the largest and most actively traded Exchange Traded Fund in the world. Since then, he has helped popularize ETFs in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia/Pacific region as a new class of financial securities which has now grown to over two trillion dollars in worldwide assets under management. He also contributed to the creation and launch of QQQ® for the NASDAQ Stock Market, an ETF which is among the largest and most actively traded equity securities in the world. To help commemorate the 20th anniversary of the launch of SPDRs, on 29 January 2013 Dr. Bloom was honored to ring the opening bell on the trading floor of the N.Y.S.E.


In 2004, Dr. Bloom was the first recipient of the Skip Viragh Award for innovation and integrity in the financial services industry. He holds an A.M. and Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University and a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. He has served as arbitrator for FINRA (previously NYSE and NASD) since 1996, and has held Series 7 and Series 63 registrations. Dr. Bloom was featured in the cover story “Wall Street Rocket Scientists” in the premier issue of Worth magazine in 1992.

Colin Clark

Senior Vice President Strategic Analysis and Market Data, NYSE Euronext

Colin Clark is Senior Vice President of the Strategic Analysis & Market Data group in the U.S. Cash Markets division at NYSE Euronext. He joined the company in March 2005. Mr. Clark leads the team responsible for formulating market strategy, setting pricing and monitoring market structure developments, regulatory changes, competitor trends, client order flow behavior and market quality performance. In July 2010, Mr. Clark took on the broader role of managing the Consolidated Tape Administration (CTA) market data business. In August 2011, Mr. Clark was elected a member of the Board of Directors of NYSE Amex Options.

Prior to joining the Exchange, Mr. Clark was an equity research analyst covering brokerage firms and exchanges for five years at Merrill Lynch and Citigroup/Salomon Smith Barney. In 2004, Mr. Clark was ranked by The Wall Street Journal the #2 stock picker based on performance scores in the Investment Services sector. Additionally, Mr. Clark was recognized by Institutional Investor (II) magazine as a member of the #1 equity research team in the Broker-Dealer & Asset Manager sector in 2003 and 2004.

Mr. Clark has a BA in Economics at Bard College and an MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University. Mr. Clark is a registered Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).

Srikant Dash

Head of Index Business, Bloomberg

John Farris

Executive Vice President, RIMES Technologies

John Farris is an Executive Vice President, Head of Sales for North America. John joined RIMES in September of 2009. Prior to joining RIMES, John was a Senior Vice President with Brandywine Global Investment in Philadelphia, PA, where he was head of Business Development for the Quantitative Equity Group. Prior to Brandywine, John spent 13 years with Standard & Poor’s in a variety of leadership roles, most recently as Vice President of Business and Market Development with the Index and Portfolio services division. During John’s tenure at Standard & Poor’s, he worked closely with RIMES while he was leading S&P’s Third Party partnership group. John holds an MBA in Finance and a BS in Computer Science from La Salle University.

Fred Graboyes

Head of Algorithm Trading and Global Product Manager, Liquidnet

Fred has over 19 years of experience in financial markets and electronic trading focusing on developing ultra-low latency infrastructure designs for trading firms, hedge funds and investment advisors, investment banks and leading financial industry technology providers. Prior to joining Liquidnet, Fred was a Senior Design Engineer for Savvis, an IT solutions provider to the financial services industry. Prior to that he founded TradeTrek Securities, LLC, a privately held agency broker dealer, which grew to become a leading provider of algorithmic trading for institutional investors. He has also held roles at the Bank of New York where he was a Managing Director with responsibility for the bank’s program trading group and a portfolio manager and head trader for INTECH, a registered investment advisory division of Prudential Financial. Before joining the financial services industry, he spent three years working in the defense industry.

Fred served six years as an Infantry officer in the US Army both overseas and as a Company Commander with the elite 82nd Airborne Division. While serving in Berlin, he guarded Rudolf Hess at Spandau Prison. Mr. Graboyes earned a Bachelors degree in Engineering from the United States Military Academy, a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst

Michael Neff

Market Data Services, Deutsche Bank AG

Michael Neff joined Deutsche Bank’s Market Data Contracts Team back in 2007. He took on the role of heading up the newly created Global Index Team, tasked with putting in place the structure to source, license and manage all of DB’s Index Market Data and Derivative product licensing. Mike has over 25 years of experience in financial services, including having held senior positions at a Technical Analysis Software provider (Aspen Research Group) and heading up the Market Data Services for a Commodities Exchange (New York Board of Trade).

Mike has a degree in Electronic Engineering (and a Master at Fatherhood, having raised 6 kids!).

Linda Rolufs

Vice President, SDM Office of Data Management, BNY Mellon

John Simons

Director, Market Data Management, John Hancock

Glenn Wasserman

SVP, Global Head of Product Management, Interactive Data

Glenn Wasserman is SVP, Global Head of Product Management, Trading Solutions at Interactive Data and has worked in the financial services industry for over 30 years in technology, product management, and business management roles. Glenn joined Interactive Data from NYSE Technologies where, as SVP/Global Head of Market Data Solutions, he was responsible for their SuperFeed and related data vendor businesses. Prior to NYSE Tech, he worked at Reuters and Thomson Reuters in many business and technology roles culminating as CTO of their Enterprise Division. His experience covers both real-time and end-of-day market data, and includes in-depth knowledge of real-time consolidated feeds, ultra-low latency direct feeds, news, tick history, contributed data, market data platforms such as RMDS and Wombat, on-demand and end-of day-pricing and reference data products, proximity co-location hosting services, and market data compliance.