Joseph Cherian is Practice Professor of Finance and Deputy CEO of Asia School of Business and Cornell University (Visiting). He was the former Practice Professor of Finance at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Prior to NUS, Joe was Managing Director, Global Head and CIO of the Quantitative Strategies Group at Credit Suisse in New York where he had direct responsibility for over US$67 billion in client assets managed to a quantitative discipline. While at Credit Suisse, Joe served on the Global Executive Committee, as well as various senior management, investments, and risk committees of the Asset Management division. He joined the financial industry in New York after an academic career in the U.S., including as an Associate Professor of Finance at Boston University. He was formerly an Executive-in-Residence and a two-term member of the Johnson Graduate School of Management’s Dean’s Advisory Council at Cornell University and is now an Emeritus Member of the Dean’s Council. Joe currently serves as an Advisor to Xen Capital, a boutique global digital wealth and alternatives asset manager in Singapore, Singapore Exchange (SGX), Asia Asset Management in Hong Kong, as well as the Mercer-CFA Institute Global Pensions Index’s Advisory Board in Australia. He has had appointments at Singapore’s Central Provident Fund (CPF) Advisory Panel and the National Research Foundation’s Early-Stage Venture Fund Evaluation Panel. He was an Independent Non-Executive Director of Bursa Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, a Scientific Advisor to Nipun Capital, a boutique hedge fund based in San Francisco, a scientific consultant to Fullerton Fund Management, a Temasek subsidiary in Singapore, and on the Journal of Alternative Investments’ Editorial Board in the U.S. Joe holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from MIT, and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Finance from Cornell University

Datuk Zainal Izlan Zainal Abidin currently serves as Member of Panel, Investment Panel of Tabung Haji, Independent Non-Executive Director of Maybank Islamic Berhad and Advisor to the Sustainable Finance Institute Asia.

Datuk Izlan has over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry, mainly in capital markets and asset management. He began his career with Citibank before moving to MIDF Amanah Asset Management and thereafter was appointed CEO of i-VCAP Management.

He later joined the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) in 2011 as Executive Director, Islamic Capital Market and assumed various leadership positions prior to his retirement as Deputy Chief Executive of the SC in January 2023.

During his tenure with the SC, Datuk Izlan had also been appointed as, amongst others, Chairman of Capital Markets Malaysia, an entity established by the SC to promote the Malaysian capital market, and a Board member of the Securities Industry Development Corporation.