The JEC Winter Economic Forum featured distinguished speakers in the fields of finance, academia, and entrepreneurship. It also offered the opportunity for JEC Chicago members to connect in the breakout rooms for an entrepreneurship competition with prizes!

Speakers included Bryan Cameron, Director of Research and Senior Vice President at Dodge & Cox, a fund management company that invests approximately $300 billion in publicly traded equities and fixed income securities on behalf of clients; Michael Chen, an investment analyst at Magnetar Capital, a leading multi-strategy alternative asset manager where he structures and analyzes complex investments in esoteric asset classes like aviation, film and intellectual property; and Ruby Zhang, a Pre-doctoral Fellow at Opportunity Insights based at Harvard University where researchers and policy analysts work together to analyze new data and create a platform for local stakeholders to make more informed decisions. 

The entrepreneurship competition was led by Alden Richards, a lecturer at Yale and a special advisor to the entrepreneurship programs within Brown's School of Engineering. Mr. Richards has a vast degree of experience in risk management, insurance, and strategic investment. In 1991 he founded a startup risk management and strategic consulting company to the space industry called Space Machine Advisors. Starting with an initial $100,000, he led the company to annual revenue of $150 million five years later, closing a remarkable $4 billion deal with PanAmSat in 1998.