This year's Forecasting event will feature Jason DeSana Trennert, Managing Partner & Chief Investment Strategist, Strategas Research Partners, LLC and James B. Kauffmann, Head of Fixed Income, ING Investment Management.  

Mr. Trennert is the Managing Partner and Chief Investment Strategist of the Firm. He has been ranked by Institutional Investor magazine as one of the top Strategists on Wall Street and has been named to SmartMoney magazine's Power 30 list of the most influential people in the world of investing. He has earned a reputation as a keen market observer and for his regular, and often humorous, essays on investing. Widely quoted in the domestic and foreign press, he is a regular guest host on CNBC’s Squawk Box. He is the author of the popular investment book, New Markets, New Strategies, published in 2005 by McGraw Hill. Prior to founding Strategas, Mr. Trennert was the Chief Investment Strategist and a Senior Managing Director at International Strategy & Investment (ISI) Group where he built and oversaw two of that Firm’s most popular research efforts, the Company Surveys and more recently, its Investment Strategy Group. He has an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and BS in International Economics from Georgetown University.

Mr. Kauffmann is the Head of Fixed Income for ING Investment Management.  Under his leadership assets managed by his group have grown to over $40 billion in over two dozen strategies that include hedge funds, currency overlay, and global bond funds.  He is the portfolio manager for several of ING’s flagship funds.  In 1996 he developed ING’s proprietary valuation algorithms, the investment methodology used to identify value in fixed income markets.  Prior to joining ING in 1996, he was a Vice President and senior portfolio manager at Alfa Investments Inc.  He began his career in 1986 in the capital markets securities group of Drexel Burnham Lambert where he was responsible for developing fixed income strategies for clients.  Jim has over 21 years of investment experience and received his B.S. in industrial management from Purdue University and an M.B.A. from Harvard University.  He is a frequent commentator for several news organizations, including “The Wall Street Journal,” “The Financial Times,” “Barron’s,” “Credit Magazine,” “Financial Advisor,” and is also a featured speaker at various industry conferences.