MFA Policy Outlook 2025 - Agenda
October 7, 2025
Conference
New York,
New York, NY
Register
8:00 am - 8:45 am
Breakfast and registration
8:45 am - 9:00 am
Opening remarks
Speaker
Bryan Corbett
,
President and Chief Executive Officer
,
MFA
Bryan Corbett is MFA’s President and CEO. He is a veteran of Washington and Wall Street. For the past 12 years, he was a senior executive at The Carlyle Group, most recently as Managing Director in the Corporate Private Equity segment and Head of the firm’s OneCarlyle Global Investment Resources Group. In this role, Mr. Corbett and his team provided strategic and operational support to investment teams and portfolio companies across segments.
For the first half of his Carlyle tenure, Mr. Corbett managed U.S. government and regulatory issues affecting Carlyle, its investments and the industry. In this role, he developed legislative and regulatory strategies relating to all of Carlyle’s business segments, including private equity, credit and real estate. In addition to serving on the boards of several Carlyle portfolio companies, Mr. Corbett started the firm’s global corporate citizenship program focused on responsible investing, published Carlyle’s inaugural corporate citizenship report, and started the firm’s initiative to recruit and place diverse individuals on portfolio company boards in the U.S.
Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Corbett served in the George W. Bush Administration as a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and as the Senior Advisor to Deputy Secretary Robert Kimmitt at the Treasury Department. He also served as Majority Counsel on the Senate Banking Committee.
Mr. Corbett earned his JD from George Washington University Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the George Washington Law Review, and earned his BA from University of Notre Dame.
9:00 am - 9:45 am
Fireside chat with SEC Chairman Paul Atkins
Speaker
Paul Atkins
,
Chairman
,
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2025, after being nominated by President Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2025, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 9, 2025.
Prior to returning to the SEC, Chairman Atkins was most recently chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, a company he founded in 2009. Chairman Atkins helped lead efforts to develop best practices for the digital asset sector. He served as an independent director and non-executive chairman of the board of BATS Global Markets, Inc. from 2012 to 2015.
Chairman Atkins was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a Commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008. During his tenure, he advocated for transparency, consistency, and the use of cost-benefit analysis at the agency. Chairman Atkins also represented the SEC at meetings of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council. From 2009 to 2010, he was appointed a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Before serving as an SEC Commissioner, Chairman Atkins was a consultant on securities and investment management industry matters, especially regarding issues of strategy, regulatory compliance, risk management, new product development, and organizational control.
From 1990 to 1994, Chairman Atkins served on the staff of two chairmen of the SEC, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt, ultimately as chief of staff and counselor, respectively. He received the SEC’s 1992 Law and Policy Award for work regarding corporate governance matters.
Chairman Atkins began his career as a lawyer in New York, focusing on a wide range of corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He was resident for 2½ years in his firm’s Paris office and admitted as conseil juridique in France.
A member of the New York and Florida bars, Chairman Atkins received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1983 and was Senior Student Writing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Wofford College in 1980.
Originally from Lillington, North Carolina, Chairman Atkins grew up in Tampa, Florida. He and his wife Sarah have three sons.
Moderated by
Bryan Corbett
,
President and Chief Executive Officer
,
MFA
Bryan Corbett is MFA’s President and CEO. He is a veteran of Washington and Wall Street. For the past 12 years, he was a senior executive at The Carlyle Group, most recently as Managing Director in the Corporate Private Equity segment and Head of the firm’s OneCarlyle Global Investment Resources Group. In this role, Mr. Corbett and his team provided strategic and operational support to investment teams and portfolio companies across segments.
For the first half of his Carlyle tenure, Mr. Corbett managed U.S. government and regulatory issues affecting Carlyle, its investments and the industry. In this role, he developed legislative and regulatory strategies relating to all of Carlyle’s business segments, including private equity, credit and real estate. In addition to serving on the boards of several Carlyle portfolio companies, Mr. Corbett started the firm’s global corporate citizenship program focused on responsible investing, published Carlyle’s inaugural corporate citizenship report, and started the firm’s initiative to recruit and place diverse individuals on portfolio company boards in the U.S.
Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Corbett served in the George W. Bush Administration as a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and as the Senior Advisor to Deputy Secretary Robert Kimmitt at the Treasury Department. He also served as Majority Counsel on the Senate Banking Committee.
Mr. Corbett earned his JD from George Washington University Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the George Washington Law Review, and earned his BA from University of Notre Dame.
9:45 am - 10:30 am
Washington insights: The state of play in U.S. politics
Speakers
David Axelrod
,
Chief Political Analyst, CNN, and former Host, 'The Axe Files'; Co-Host, 'Hacks on Tap' Podcast; Professor of Practice, Arizona State University; Distinguished Fellow, University of Chicago; Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama (2009-2011)
David Axelrod is a preeminent American political strategist and commentator, and the former chief strategist and senior advisor to President Barack Obama. Axelrod was the founding director of the University of Chicago’s non-partisan Institute of Politics. He currently serves as a Distinguished Fellow at the University of Chicago, as Chief Political Analyst for CNN, and as a Professor of Practice at Arizona State University.
For ten years, he was the host of “The Axe Files,” an award-winning podcast featuring in-depth conversations with public figures across the political spectrum. A former political writer for the Chicago Tribune, Axelrod produced media strategy and advertising for 150 campaigns across the U.S., culminating in President Obama’s historic elections. Axelrod is also the author of the New York Times best-selling memoir, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics.
Mike Murphy
,
Famed Conservative Political Media Consultant; Senior Analyst, NBC News & MSNBC; Co-Host, 'Hacks on Tap' Podcast; Top Campaign Advisor to John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger
Famed conservative political media consultant Mike Murphy is a widely quoted pundit, longtime analyst and frequent guest on NBC News, CNN and MSNBC, and co-host of the popular Hacks on Tap podcast. One of the Republican party’s most successful consultants, he has served as a top campaign advisor to John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with dozens of other GOP Senators, Governors, and Members of Congress. Murphy has spoken for groups including the Council of State Restaurant Associations, Simpson College, Friess Associates of Delaware, the California Chamber of Commerce, America’s Health Insurance Plans Association, Goldman Sachs, NY Life, and John Hancock, among many others.
Murphy advises several Fortune 500 corporations, as well as Hedge Funds and Trade Associations. He has written columns and op-ed pieces for TIME, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Bulwark, and the LA Times. He is currently co-director the University of Southern California’s Center for the Political Future and served as a longtime senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, focusing on the intersection of domestic politics and national security decision making.
Moderated by
John D. Van Etten
,
Managing Director, Head of U.S. Government Affairs
,
MFA
John Van Etten is Managing Director, Head of U.S. Government Affairs at MFA. He leads the U.S. Government Affairs team in representing the alternative asset management industry on political and regulatory issues that impact capital formation, investment strategies, and beneficiaries. He engages directly with Congress, the Administration, and other key policymakers and stakeholders.
Before joining MFA, John spent more than seven years at JPMorgan Chase & Co., advising and representing the firm before Congress, multiple U.S. Administrations, and global regulatory bodies. He previously held government affairs roles at HSBC and The Clearing House (now the Bank Policy Institute), practiced financial services law at a major law firm, and served as a financial policy advisor in the U.S. House of Representatives.
John earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, San Diego, and a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center.
10:30 am -10:45 am
Break
10:45 am - 11:30 am
Fireside chat with Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran
Speaker
Stephen Miran
,
Member, Board of Governors
,
Federal Reserve System
Stephen Miran is Member, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Before the Federal Reserve, he served as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in President Donald Trump’s second Administration.
Previously, Steve was senior strategist at Hudson Bay Capital Management and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. He was also formerly senior advisor for economic policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury 2020-2021, where he assisted with fiscal support to the economy during the pandemic recession including the Paycheck Protection Program and other economic support programs. For his contributions he received the Treasury award for exceptional service. Prior to Treasury, he worked for a decade in financial markets. Miran’s work on economic policy has been published in both academic journals and news media, and his research on subjects like trade, tariffs, and Treasury issuance have created widespread and lively discussion in both financial markets and the press. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, and a B.A. from Boston University, where he studied economics, philosophy, and mathematics.
Moderated by
Noah Theran
,
Executive Vice President and Managing Director, Head of Global External Affairs
,
MFA
Noah Theran is MFA’s Executive Vice President and Managing Director, Head of Global External Affairs.
Noah joined MFA after six years at Internet Association, a national trade association representing more than 40 of the world’s top internet companies, where he oversaw global communications, creative, marketing, events, and grassroots. In this role, he helped grow Internet Association from a startup into a respected voice on tech policy issues.Prior to Internet Association, Noah was Director of Communications at the American Investment Council, the trade association representing the interests of the world’s largest private equity firms. There, his team earned a PRSA Silver Anvil Award of Excellence, Reputation/Brand Management for their campaign to help the private equity industry manage the spotlight of the 2012 presidential election.
Noah also worked at Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications in Washington, where he developed and executed communications strategies for a diverse set of clients with broad reputation, image, and crisis management challenges.
Noah earned his B.S. from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.
11:30 am - 12:15 pm
Fireside chat with General David H. Petraeus
Speakers
General David H. Petraeus
,
(US Army, Ret.) Partner, Chairman of the Global Institute and Chairman of KKR Middle East
,
KKR
General David H. Petraeus (US Army, Ret.) (New York) joined KKR in 2013. He is a Partner at KKR, Chairman of the KKR Global Institute, and Chairman of KKR Middle East. He is also a member of the boards of directors of Optiv and OneStream, a Strategic Advisor for Sempra and Advanced Navigation, a personal venture investor, an academic, and the co-author (with British historian Andrew Roberts) of the New York Times best selling book “Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Gaza”.
Prior to joining KKR, General Petraeus served over 37 years in the U.S. military, culminating his career with six consecutive commands as a general officer, five of which were in combat, including command of the Surge in Iraq, command of U.S. Central Command, and command of coalition forces in Afghanistan. Following retirement from the military and after Senate confirmation by a vote of 94-0, he served as Director of the CIA during a period of significant achievements in the global war on terror. General Petraeus graduated with distinction from the U.S. Military Academy and is the only person in Army history to be the top graduate of both the demanding U.S. Army Ranger School and the U.S. Army’s year-long Command and General Staff College. He also earned a Ph.D. in international relations and economics from Princeton University. General Petraeus taught both subjects at the U.S. Military Academy in the mid-1980s, he was a Visiting Professor of Public Policy at the Honors College of the City University of New York from 2013 through 2016, he was for 6 years a Judge Widney Professor at the University of Southern California and a Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center, and he was the Co-Chairman of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Global Advisory Council for over 9 years.
He is currently the Kissinger Fellow at Yale University’s Jackson School, Senior Vice President of the Royal United Services Institute, and a Member of the Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, and Aspen Strategy Group, as well as a member of the boards of the Atlantic Council, the Institute for the Study of War, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, and numerous other veterans service organizations. He is also a LinkedIn Top Voice. Over the past 20 years, General Petraeus was named one of America’s 25 Best Leaders by U.S. News and World Report, a runner-up for Time magazine’s Person of the Year, the Daily Telegraph Man of the Year, twice a Time 100 selectee, Princeton University’s Madison Medalist, and one of Foreign Policy magazine’s top 100 public intellectuals in three different years. General Petraeus has earned numerous awards and decorations, including four Defense Distinguished Service Medals, the Bronze Star Medal for Valor, two NATO Meritorious Service Medals, the Master Combat Action Badge, the Ranger Tab, and Master Parachutist and Air Assault Badges. He has also been decorated by 14 foreign countries and he is believed to be the only person who, while in uniform, threw out the first pitch of a World Series game and did the coin toss for a Super Bowl.
Moderated by
Peter Donovan
,
Executive Vice President and Managing Director, Chief Operating Officer
,
MFA
Peter Donovan is MFA’s Executive Vice President & Managing Director, Chief Operating Officer. He is responsible for MFA operations and finance, including accounting, budgeting, human resources and technology. He also leads and directs all efforts related to membership retention, development and growth. Mr. Donovan divides his time between MFA’s Washington D.C. and New York offices.
Mr. Donovan is a respected industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience. He joins MFA from Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he has served since 2004 in a variety of leadership roles in Fixed Income Prime Brokerage, sales and relationship management. He was previously co-head of U.S. prime brokerage sales at Morgan Stanley. Mr. Donovan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from Lehigh University and a MBA from Fordham University.
