Texas Alternatives Conference 2026 - Agenda
March 9, 2026 - March 10, 2026
Conference
Four Seasons Hotel
Austin, TX
Register
Day 1: Monday, March 9
2:00pm – 4:00pm
Eighth Annual Women in Finance Leadership Tea
Co-hosted with SBAI
5:30pm – 8:00pm
All conference welcome dinner
Day 2: Tuesday, March 10
8:00am
Registration and networking breakfast
8:45am – 9:00am
Welcome remarks
Speakers
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.
Ben Webb
,
Director, Lighthouse Partners and Chair
,
TAIA
9:00am – 9:45am
Keynote fireside discussion
Speaker
Bill Ackman
,
CEO
,
Pershing Square
Bill Ackman is CEO of Pershing Square, a leading investment firm with $30 billion of assets under management. Mr. Ackman founded Pershing Square in 2004.
Pershing Square principally makes investments in a concentrated portfolio of high-quality, simple, predictable, cash-generative durable growth businesses. Pershing Square often works with its portfolio companies as an engaged and active investor to help create substantial long-term value.
Prior to founding Pershing Square, Mr. Ackman co-founded Gotham Partners in 1992, a research-driven, value-oriented investment firm that managed public and private equity investments. Before Gotham, Mr. Ackman began his career in real estate investment banking at Ackman Brothers and Singer, Inc.
Mr. Ackman is co-trustee of The Pershing Square Foundation, a family foundation established in 2006 to support exceptional leaders and innovative organizations that tackle important issues and deliver scalable and sustainable global impact. Pershing Square Philanthropies, which includes The Pershing Square Foundation, has committed more than $930 million in grants and investments in target areas including health and medicine, education, economic development and innovation.
Mr. Ackman currently serves as Executive Chairman of the board of Howard Hughes Holdings Inc. and as CEO and Chairman of Pershing Square SPARC Holdings, Ltd. He has previously served on the boards of numerous private and public companies. In addition, he served as a member of the Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Board of Dean’s Advisors of Harvard Business School.
Mr. Ackman holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, from Harvard College.
9:45am - 10:00am
Transition break
10:00am - 12:00pm
Institutional Investor Symposium
Invitation only
10:00am – 10:30am
Macro masterclass: Winning in an era of policy whiplash and market volatility
General Session
Speakers
Speakers To Be Announced
10:30am – 11:00am
Capital in crossfire: Geopolitics, trade dynamics and emerging investment frontiers
General Session
Speakers
Speakers To Be Announced
11:00am – 11:30am
Capital raising and institutional investing trends
General Session
Speakers
Kate Baumann
,
Partner and Head of Investor Relations
,
Empyrean Capital Partners LP
Kate Baumann has 18 years of experience in the financial services industry. Ms. Baumann joined Empyrean in 2017 as Director of Business Development. She was named Head of Investor Relations in 2020 and Partner in 2022. Prior to joining Empyrean, from 2010 to 2017, Ms. Baumann was a member of the Investor Relations Team at Eton Park Capital Management in New York. Ms. Baumann began her career at J.P. Morgan Private Bank in 2007, where she worked as a Banking Analyst until 2009, and as a Global Investment Analyst from 2009 to 2010. She earned a BS in Business Administration-Finance, with a Minor in Spanish, from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business in 2007. Ms. Baumann is a co-founder of Women of Georgetown, an alumni networking initiative focused on cultivating the next generation of leaders, and remains actively involved as a member of their Board.
Mariko Boswell
,
Executive Vice President
,
PIMCO
Ms. Boswell is an executive vice president and co-head of PIMCO’s Austin office, and she oversees the U.S. Non Profit practice, responsible for the coverage of endowments, foundations, and healthcare institutions. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2009, she worked as an equity research associate on the energy team at Credit Suisse and as a senior associate covering utilities in the corporate finance group at Moody’s Investors Service. She is a member of the board of directors of the YMCA of Austin and the Texas Alternatives Investments Association. She also serves on the University of Texas McCombs Master of Science in Finance Advisory Council. She has 19 years of investment experience and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business as well as an undergraduate degree from Yale University.
Additional Speakers To Be Announced
11:30am - 12:00pm
Beyond the traditional: Navigating alternatives in private wealth
Speakers
Speakers To Be Announced
Moderator
Thomas Trujillo
,
Audit Partner
,
KPMG
Thomas Trujillo is an Audit Partner at KPMG’s Dallas office, where he specializes in providing auditing and business advisory services to alternative investment firms, including hedge funds, funds of funds, and private equity firms. He has been with KPMG since July 2014. Thomas has a long and distinguished career in the financial services industry. Prior to his current role at KPMG, he was a Senior Manager at Rothstein Kass, where he was a key member of the firm’s Audit and Accounting Policy Group. He also served as the founding Chief Financial Officer for Hilliard Street Capital, LLC, where he established the firm’s back and middle office control environment. He began his career at Ernst & Young, LLP, where he spent ten years specializing in the audits of hedge funds and private equity clients.
Thomas holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics, with concentrations in Accounting and Marketing from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a Texas & New York Certified Public Accountant.
12:00pm - 12:45pm
All conference lunch and networking
12:45pm - 1:15pm
TAIA lifetime achievement presentation
Honoring a distinguished leader whose contributions have shaped alternatives investing
Award recipient
Salem Abraham
,
President
,
Abraham Trading
Salem Abraham is the President of Abraham Trading. Salem graduated cum laude from the University of Notre Dame in December 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in finance. He began his investing career as a futures trader while still in college, using quantitative models to trade global futures markets beginning in 1987. Throughout his career, Salem has managed investments in stocks, bonds, options, derivatives, and private equity. He has held full membership seats at both the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade. His first investment experiences were shared with his grandfather, who employed him to buy and sell distressed minerals and ranches in the Texas Panhandle in the late 80s. In total, Salem has bought and sold more than 200,000 acres of land and resources. He manages investments in oil and gas properties, wind rights and residential, commercial, and agricultural real estate properties.
Salem has served on nonprofit investment boards for over 25 years. From 1995 to 2014, he served on the Amarillo Area Foundation Investment Committee. From 2004 to 2021, he served on the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Investment Committee. He assists with both large and small nonprofit endowments, with portfolios ranging from $1 million to over $4 billion in assets. His experiences with large and small institutional investors have provided insights into the unique mandates and challenges of managing foundation and endowment portfolios of all sizes. Salem started the Pickens-Abraham Foundation with T. Boone Pickens in 2008. The foundation provided college scholarships to accomplished graduating seniors in the Texas Panhandle. The investment strategy that Salem used for his part of the foundation was the inspiration for the Abraham Fortress Fund strategy. After Pickens’ death, the Pickens-Abraham Foundation dissolved, and Salem’s portion of the money became the Salem and Ruth Ann Abraham Foundation. The foundation provides education scholarships and donates to universities, family services, children’s causes, and health services.
Salem has been featured in Michael Covel’s books The Complete TurtleTrader and Trend Following. He has also appeared in Bloomberg Markets, Absolute Return, Barron’s, Institutional Investor, and The New York Times.
Salem continues to lead the research efforts at Abraham Trading Company.
1:15pm - 1:45pm
Keynote fireside discussion
Speaker
Dave Snyderman
,
Senior Managing Partner and Global Head of Alternative Credit and Fixed Income
,
Magnetar
Dave Snyderman is the Senior Managing Partner of Magnetar and Global Head of the firm’s Alternative Credit and Fixed Income business. He also serves as Chairman of the firm’s Investment Committee and is a member of both the Executive Committee and the Management Committee. As the Global Head of Alternative Credit and Fixed Income, Dave oversees the sourcing and management of investment opportunities across a broad range of private and public credit markets – including specialty finance, significant risk transfer (SRT) and opportunistic primary and secondary market investments across a variety of asset classes.
With over 25 years of experience in fixed income markets, Dave joined Magnetar in 2005 shortly after the firm’s launch.
Prior to joining Magnetar, Dave was Head of Global Credit and a Senior Managing Director at Citadel Investment Group. Over his nearly seven-year tenure at Citadel, he worked on the convertible bond desk, helped establish the credit trading desk and ultimately presided over the merger of these two groups. He also served in a senior leadership role as a member of Citadel’s Management, Portfolio Management and Investment/Risk Committees.
Earlier in his career, Dave managed portfolios focused on convertible securities, merger arbitrage and special situations at Koch Industries, Inc., working in the firm’s Houston, Wichita and Switzerland offices over a five-year period. He began his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Washington University and completed the Certified Public Accountant exam.
1:45pm - 2:30pm
Panel discussion
Speakers
Speakers To Be Announced
2:30pm - 3:00pm
Inside the nuclear opportunity: A keynote interview with Charles Oppenheimer
Speaker
Charles Oppenheimer
,
Founder and CEO
,
Oppenheimer Energy
Charles Oppenheimer is the founder of the nonprofit Oppenheimer Project, dedicated to J. Robert Oppenheimer’s vision of international cooperation toward a safe future – by promoting hope, action and unity to address the world’s most pressing challenges. Charles is also founder and CEO of the startup Oppenheimer Energy, focused on nuclear energy deployment. Before founding the Oppenheimer entities, he spent 20+ years in Silicon Valley in the software industry, in roles ranging from programmer to CEO.
Charles has been a speaker at global events and conferences on science and diplomacy, nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear energy, AI and more. He has appeared in interviews by major media networks and in documentaries on the subject of his grandfather J. Robert Oppenheimer. Charles has also been widely published, including in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, TIME, The New York Times, Fast Company, Newsweek and USA Today. He is an investor in startups and social enterprises from Silicon Valley to Sub-Saharan Africa.
Moderator
John Ritter
,
Managing Director, Head of Real Assets
,
Texas Municipal Retirement System
John Ritter serves as Managing Director and Head of Real Assets covering real estate, infrastructure, and natural resources. Prior to TMRS, he served as the Head of Real Assets at the University of California’s endowment and started the Infrastructure and Natural Resource portfolios at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas. John has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas where he taught investments at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Ritter received JD, MBA, and BBA in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).
3:00pm - 3:30pm
Networking break
3:30pm - 3:45pm
Charity award: Kerr County Relief
3:45pm – 4:15pm
Taking stock in Texas: TXSE’s emergence as a capital markets hub
Speakers
Nicole Chambers
,
Global Managing Director, Listings
,
Texas Stock Exchange
Nicole brings nearly 17 years of extensive experience collaborating with public and private companies across the United States. Previously, she served as senior managing director, listings at Nasdaq. In that capacity, Nicole played a pivotal role in driving the growth and development of Nasdaq’s listings and services, forging strategic partnerships throughout every stage of the capital markets lifecycle. Nicole is a graduate of Southern Methodist University.
Connor Hartley
,
Managing Director, Global Head of Corporate Development
,
BlackRock
Connor Hartley, Managing Director, is Global Head of Corporate Development for BlackRock. He oversees firm-wide M&A and strategic minority investment activity and serves as a member of the Finance Executive Committee and the Global Operating Committee.Prior to joining BlackRock, Mr. Hartley served as Head of M&A and Ventures at S&P Global, having joined the firm through its merger with IHS Markit where he previously was Managing Director and Head of Corporate Development. Prior to IHS Markit, he held several senior corporate strategy and development roles at Ipreo, a Blackstone and Goldman Sachs Merchant Bank portfolio company and leading provider of financial technology and market intelligence solutions to financial sponsors, institutional investors, investment banks and corporate issuers.
Mr. Hartley earned a BA from Georgetown University with a double major in International Business and Marketing, and an MBA degree from Fordham University.
Additional Speakers To Be Announced
4:15pm – 5:15pm
Pitch perfect 2026: Emerging manager pitch contest
Texas-based emerging managers pitch their best investment ideas to industry leaders in a live contest format
Judges
Jens Foehrenbach
,
CFA, President and Co-Chief Investment Officer
,
Graham Capital Management
Jens Foehrenbach, CFA, is the President and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Graham Capital Management, L.P. (“Graham”), an alternative investment manager with approximately $20B AUM as of November 1, 2025. Mr. Foehrenbach jointly oversees and supervises Graham’s discretionary and systematic portfolio manager teams, trading, and research, alongside Pablo Calderini, Vice Chairman and Co-Chief Investment Officer. Mr. Foehrenbach is also a member of the firm’s Executive, Investment, and Risk committees. Prior to joining Graham, he worked at Man Group from September 2008 to February 2025, most recently as Head of Public Markets within Discretionary Investments at Man Group. Mr. Foehrenbach has served in several capacities for the Man Group during his tenure at the firm, including Chief Investment Officer of Man Solutions and Chief Investment Officer of Man FRM. Prior to joining Man Group, Mr. Foehrenbach worked at Harcourt Investment Consulting AG as Senior Analyst and Head of Relative Value. Prior to Harcourt Investment Consulting AG, he was employed by UBS AG, where he worked on the bank’s fixed income derivatives trading desk in Switzerland and London. Jens Foehrenbach received a Master’s degree in Business Economics from the University of Basel, Switzerland in 2001.
Nathan Urquhart
,
Co-President and Head of Strategy
,
Coatue Management
Nathan Urquhart is the Co-President and Head of Strategy at Coatue Management, a leading global technology investment platform. He is responsible for firm-wide strategic initiatives and operational leadership.
Prior to joining Coatue, he was a Partner and Global Head of Investor Relations at Carlyle from 2019 to 2022, where he also served on the firm’s Leadership, Operating, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committees. Before Carlyle, Nathan spent 11 years at Och-Ziff Capital Management (now Sculptor Capital Management), where he was most recently Executive Managing Director and Co-Head of Global Investor Relations. Earlier in his career, he worked in UBS’s Private Fund Group for four years, raising capital for buyout, credit, and infrastructure funds. He began his career in corporate finance at J.P. Morgan.
Nathan currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Managed Funds Association (MFA) and on the Board of Trustees at Washington and Lee University, where he chairs the Audit Committee.
He graduated summa cum laude from Washington and Lee University.
Additional Speaker TBA
Pitchers
Mike Stewart
,
Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer
,
Waterloo Associates
Michael is responsible for overseeing and directing all investment strategies and operations across private funds, SMAs, structured finance and direct-deal transactions. Prior to Waterloo Associates, Michael worked for the Teacher Retirement System of Texas in the Private Markets group where he oversaw over $2 billion of investments across Real Asset, Private Equity and Energy Infrastructure verticals. He also spent time working at Castle Hill Partners where he analyzed, structured and executed on a variety of direct investment strategies and operations across a wide range of real estate, operating company and structured finance transactions. Michael graduated from Texas A&M with a B.A. in Business Administration and Economics and a M.S. in Finance with a focus in Real Estate.
Xiaoying Tian
,
Founder and Chief Investment Officer
,
Saturn V Capital Management
Xiaoying Tian is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Saturn V Capital Management. Prior to founding the firm in 2021, Ms. Tian spent four years at Farallon Capital Management investing in biotech companies with upcoming event catalysts. There she pioneered the statistical methods used to predict clinical trial outcomes for these catalysts. Using this data-driven approach, she applied fundamental and quantitative methods to underwrite clinical trials and position her portfolio based on the forecasted probabilities. The fund utilizes a combination of scientific analysis, financial modeling and proprietary statistical methodologies to predict the outcomes of clinical trials pivotal to FDA approval. The prediction and investment positioning are based on the outputs of these models in combination with our financial and scientific underwriting.
Xiaoying holds a PhD in Statistics from Stanford University where she collaborated extensively with Stanford Medical School while developing her statistically based, trial underwriting approach. Her work was published in top science and statistical journals, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Ms. Tian also earned a BS in Mathematics from Fudan University, graduating top of her class and ranking 4th in the Chinese Undergraduate Mathematical Competition.
Additional Speaker TBA
5:15pm – 5:45pm
The LP CIO perspective: Building durable portfolios amid economic shifts
Speakers
Anne-Marie Fink
,
Chief Investment Officer, Private Markets and Funds Alpha
,
State of Wisconsin Investment Board
Anne-Marie Fink serves as the State of Wisconsin Investment Board’s Chief Investment Officer for Private Markets and Funds Alpha. With SWIB since 2020, she is responsible for overseeing more than $75 billion across private equity, real estate, hedge funds, externally managed accounts, private debt, and venture capital portfolios, and a team of 40 professionals.
Anne-Marie has more than two decades of investment management experience. She served as the chief investment officer for the Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island and for a large family office. Anne-Marie started her investment career at JP Morgan, where she spent more than 16 years as an equity and hedge fund analyst. Before SWIB, she was at State Street Global Advisors as the portfolio strategist for alternative investments.
Anne-Marie earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. She is also the author of The Money Makers: How Extraordinary Managers Win in a World Turned Upside Down, which draws on investors’ experience to identify best practices in business management across companies and industries.
Jason Safran
,
CFA, Chief Investment Officer
,
Texas Christian University
Jason R. Safran joined Texas Christian University (TCU) in 2012 as part of the Endowment team and was appointed the second Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of TCU in December 2021, following five months of service as Interim CIO. As CIO, he oversees the daily operations of a team of seven professionals responsible for managing the University’s Endowment assets and short-term investment portfolios. Safran’s investment approach is grounded in mission-aligned stewardship of permanent capital, seeking to compound at a high rate across market cycles through an objectives-based framework, disciplined risk oversight, and active management with a select group of exceptional partners. Before becoming CIO, Safran was a Senior Asset Manager for TCU’s Endowment, where he focused on researching and evaluating investment opportunities across various asset classes.
Safran began his career as a research associate at John McStay Investment Counsel, a boutique equity investment firm. After earning his MBA, he joined Cimarron Asset Management, an institutional advisory firm specializing in relative-value portfolios. Following a merger, he worked as a portfolio manager at Smith Asset Management, L.P., overseeing relative-value equity strategies. Before joining TCU, he was a senior investment analyst at Texas Capital Bank.
Safran earned his MBA from the University of Texas at Austin in 2006 and his BBA in finance with a minor in economics from TCU in 2001. He is a CFA® charterholder and serves on the strategic advisory board for the CFA Society of Dallas/Fort Worth and on the investment committee at Texas Health Resources.
As a member of the Chancellor’s Cabinet, Safran serves as the liaison to the Investment Committee of TCU’s Board of Trustees. He is also part of the Executive Committee for TCU’s Private Partnership Development, which focuses on campus development planning and oversight.
Safran is dedicated to mentoring the next generation of investment professionals through classroom lectures, one-on-one mentoring, and active involvement in a student internship program.
John D. Skjervem
,
Chief Investment Officer
,
Utah Retirement Systems
John D. Skjervem is Chief Investment Officer for Utah Retirement Systems (URS) which manages a financial and real asset portfolio totaling $65.4 billion as of December 31, 2025, and comprises defined benefit and defined contribution retirement programs as well as insurance-related assets. Prior to URS, John was Chief Executive Officer of Alan Biller and Associates, responsible for its $131 billion institutional investment advisory practice.
John also previously served as Chief Investment Officer for Oregon State Treasury where his team managed a $111 billion, globally-diversified investment program. Before his tenure in Oregon, John held a variety of portfolio management and leadership positions at Northern Trust including Chief Investment Officer for that firm’s $180 billion wealth management division.
John is a member of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation’s Investment Advisory Group, an advisor to the Retirement Board of the Public Employee Retirement System of Idaho and a member of the IEEE Foundation’s investment committee. He is also a member of the Milken Institute’s Global Capital Markets Advisory Committee, serves on the Investor Advisory Group of the International Sustainability Standards Board and is an Investor Board Member for the National Institute of Public Finance. John holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, received his BA in Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and earned an MBA with concentrations in Finance and Statistics from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.
Moderated by
Jens Foehrenbach
,
CFA, President and Co-Chief Investment Officer
,
Graham Capital Management
Jens Foehrenbach, CFA, is the President and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Graham Capital Management, L.P. (“Graham”), an alternative investment manager with approximately $20B AUM as of November 1, 2025. Mr. Foehrenbach jointly oversees and supervises Graham’s discretionary and systematic portfolio manager teams, trading, and research, alongside Pablo Calderini, Vice Chairman and Co-Chief Investment Officer. Mr. Foehrenbach is also a member of the firm’s Executive, Investment, and Risk committees. Prior to joining Graham, he worked at Man Group from September 2008 to February 2025, most recently as Head of Public Markets within Discretionary Investments at Man Group. Mr. Foehrenbach has served in several capacities for the Man Group during his tenure at the firm, including Chief Investment Officer of Man Solutions and Chief Investment Officer of Man FRM. Prior to joining Man Group, Mr. Foehrenbach worked at Harcourt Investment Consulting AG as Senior Analyst and Head of Relative Value. Prior to Harcourt Investment Consulting AG, he was employed by UBS AG, where he worked on the bank’s fixed income derivatives trading desk in Switzerland and London. Jens Foehrenbach received a Master’s degree in Business Economics from the University of Basel, Switzerland in 2001.
5:45pm - 6:00pm
Closing remarks
Speakers
Steven Wilson
,
Head of Portable Alpha
,
Teacher Retirement System of Texas
Steven Wilson is Director in the Public Markets group at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, a $200 billion pension system serving 1.8 million active and retired educators and their families. Mr. Wilson is responsible for the $10B Stable Value Hedge Fund Portfolio, which includes allocations to Equity Market Neutral, Macro, Managed Futures, Platform, Volatility, and Reinsurance Hedge Funds. He is also responsible for the $7B World Equity Portfolio, which includes Beta Sensitive strategies benchmarked to global equity indices.
Prior to joining TRS, Mr. Wilson was an Investment Director at Ameriprise Private Wealth Advisors, where he oversaw fund selection for $250 million of client assets.
Mr. Wilson received an MBA from the Rice University Jones School of Business in 2012, is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business, and holds the CAIA designation.
