Justin Sheehan is an Institutional Portfolio Consultant who focuses on developing customized research and portfolio analytics to institutional investors. Partnering with the relationship managers, Justin serves as a subject matter expert on the implementation of gold in portfolios. Prior to joining World Gold Council, Justin served as a Senior Client Relationship Manager at Aberdeen Standard Investments overseeing the firm’s large institutional relationships. He has also held roles in Institutional Client Coverage at MSCI and in research with Quan-Vest Consultants. Justin began his career at Citi and has a BA from the University of Colorado. He is a CFA charter holder.

Benjamin Morton, Executive Vice President, is Head of Global Infrastructure and a senior portfolio manager for Cohen & Steers' infrastructure portfolios, including those focused on master limited partnerships. He has 21 years of infrastructure-related investment experience. Prior to joining Cohen & Steers in 2003, Mr. Morton worked at Salomon Smith Barney as a research associate for three years, covering the utility and pipelines sectors. He also worked at New York Mercantile Exchange as a research analyst. Mr. Morton holds a BA from the University of Rochester and an MES from Yale University. He is based in New York.

Skye is head of portfolio management for Westchester Group. She works closely with the investment teams and senior leadership to guide strategic and tactical decisions on existing and new portfolios. Skye joined the firm from BlackRock where she was responsible for coverage of the agriculture sector within the natural resources equity team. In this role she managed/co-managed three strategies across eight portfolios totaling US$2.9 billion of assets under management, including US$900 million of direct agricultural exposure. Prior to BlackRock, Skye spent 15 years at Colonial First State Asset Management, working for the firm in Sydney and London to establish and manage its global agribusiness equity product. Skye graduated with a Bachelor’s of Agricultural Economics, specializing in Agribusiness from the University of New England, Armidale, NSW and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment from the Securities Institute Australia. She holds the CAIA designation.

Sam Lissner specializes in the areas of energy and infrastructure. Prior to joining Ridgewood in 2013, he was Chief Analyst and Project Director at Kohl Partners, where he focused on investments in distributed power. During his master’s studies, Sam worked in the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Office of Oil & Gas and on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Mobile Sources Team. He received his A.B. from Harvard University, where he concentrated in Middle East Studies. He earned a M.S. from New York University focused on energy policy and markets, and he received an MBA from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. Sam is a member of the Board of Advisors of NYU’s Center for Global Affairs.

Jared Gross, Managing Director, is the Head of Institutional Portfolio Strategy, responsible for providing insights and solutions to institutional clients, including corporate and public pensions, endowments, foundations, and healthcare institutions. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan in 2020, Mr. Gross spent more than a decade at Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO) where he was the Head of Institutional Business Development, and a member of PIMCO's investment solutions team. Prior to this, Mr. Gross held roles at Lehman Brothers as Co-Head of Pension Strategy and Vice President in the Pension Solutions Group at Goldman Sachs. He also previously held positions as Special Advisor on investment policy at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) and as Senior Advisor for financial markets and domestic finance at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Mr. Gross has 26 years of investment experience and holds an undergraduate degree from Williams College.

Lars Pace is a Principal on Hamilton Lane’s Real Assets Investment Team, where he is responsible for due diligence of fund, direct and secondary investment opportunities in infrastructure and real assets. Prior to joining Hamilton Lane in 2010, Mr. Pace was a portfolio manager at American Beacon Advisors, Inc., where he oversaw a $1 billion portfolio of private equity investments. Previously, Mr. Pace was a Financial Analyst with American Airlines Inc. and Ford Motor Company. Mr. Pace received an M.B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a B.A. from Duke University.

Adam Smith joined the Cleveland Clinic in May 2017 and has nearly two decades of investment experience, focused almost exclusively on managing investments for non-profit institutions. He is part of the team responsible for managing the Clinic’s investible financial assets, including the long-term investment portfolio, two defined-benefit pension funds, and an offshore captive insurance fund. Adam is involved with all aspects of managing the portfolios, including asset allocation, manager selection, and portfolio structure; however, his primary responsibility is conducting investment manager due diligence across all asset classes, with an emphasis on fixed income, real assets, and absolute return hedge funds. Prior to joining the Cleveland Clinic, Adam was the Director of Investments at Mercy Health (Cincinnati), where he was responsible for managing a long-term investment portfolio and a defined-benefit pension plan. Before that, Adam spent more than a decade in institutional investment consulting, focused on asset allocation and due diligence of investment managers across all asset classes. Adam holds an undergraduate degree from Brown University and has earned the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) designations.

Mr. Graves joined the WSIB in 2009, and was promoted to the newly-formed Tangible Assets team in 2012.In this capacity, he sources, diligences and recommends opportunities in private partnerships, and monitors existing investments for WSIB’s multi-billion dollar Tangible Assets portfolio. Prior to joining the WSIB, Mr. Graves co-founded Hawkstone Capital, an independent hedge fund backed by JP Morgan and Investcorp. Earlier in his career, Mr. Graves was a Senior Portfolio Manager for the Rockefeller Family Office in New York City. Mr. Graves graduated from Columbia College in NY in 1990, and has been a CFA Charterholder since 2003.

Niraj Agarwal is Head of Real Assets at the c. $90 billion New Jersey Division of Investment and joined in 2021. He has 13+ years of experience across public and private markets, and most recently was a Portfolio Manager at the c. $400 billion CalPERS pension fund. At CalPERS, Niraj had responsibility for investment activity, strategy and research in the c. $43 billion Real Assets asset class and focused on private equity across infrastructure, real estate and timber. Prior to CalPERS, he was an investment banker in NY with over $13 billion of completed transactions across multiple sectors. Niraj earned an MBA and a Bachelor’s degree from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, he is a CFA charterholder, and is an active member of organizations such as ILPA and CFA Society New York.

Mr. Craig is an Investment Officer at Tufts University Investment Office in Boston. His primary responsibility is the evaluation of real asset managers and investment strategies, with broader coverage of additional private market strategies. Prior to joining Tufts in 2012, Mr. Craig was an associate research consultant covering real asset strategies at Cambridge Associates. Mr. Craig received a B.S. from Northeastern University and M.B.A. from Babson College.

Kate is a senior portfolio manager, overseeing the University’s investments in real estate and natural resources. She has also served as a senior portfolio manager of the public markets and absolute return portfolio, responsible for the University’s investments in credit-oriented and relative value absolute return funds, private debt, fixed income securities, and credit funds. Before that, Kate was portfolio manager for public markets and absolute return. Prior to joining the University in 2010, Kate was a research analyst at Leavitt Capital Management, and she was a derivatives trader for Susquehanna International Group for more than 10 years.

Mr. Wilson is the Chief Investment Officer for The Doctors Company (TDC). He is the company's first CIO and he assumed the role in 2017 after spending 17 years as TDC's senior institutional investment consultant from The Optimal Service Group (OSG) of Wells Fargo Advisors. At OSG, he was responsible for the direction, development and oversight of all institutional consulting programs. Before joining Wells Fargo Advisors in 1996, he spent five years with a nationally recognized institutional consulting firm that focused primarily on employee benefits programs. Throughout his 17 year relationship with TDC, Mr. Wilson has been responsible for compiling and providing enterprise risk assessments, asset/liability studies, asset allocation recommendations, setting investment objectives, portfolio attribution, and manager research. He has been a speaker for various entities including Barrons, Financial Research Associates, the Physicians Insurance Association of America (PIAA), and The Southern Employees Benefits Conference. He has written articles on investments in Insurance Finance & Investment and the PIAA's Inside Medical Liability. Mr. Wilson is summa cum laude graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, where he earned Phi Beta Kappa honors and was named to the Academic All-American Team for his success in the classroom and the gridiron. He is Series 7, Series 63 and Series 65 registered and has earned his AIF designation.

Aaron Armstrong is a portfolio manager within New Mexico Educational Retirement Board’s (NMERB) private markets division, overseeing $2.5 billion of the pension’s $13 billion platform. Within NMERB’s private markets division, capital allocation and capital allocators serve as the foundation for risk-adjusted returns and the division implements a hands-on role in the identification of capital allocators and creation of structures to facilitate alpha-generation. Mr. Armstrong’s career spans private equity, real assets, and special situations, as well as various public equity strategies. He is a certified public accountant and a CFA charterholder.

Michael Leifeste is the Head or Real Assets at Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Company (TTSTC). Mr. Leifeste ahs been with TTSTC for over 23 years and during that time he has managed assets across fixed income, real estate, infrastructure, natural resources, private debt, and private equity. Mr. Leifeste is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.