Presenters
Rakitha Amaranath
Head of ETP Services, MUFG Corporate Markets (Australia)
Rakitha Amaranath is the Head of ETP Services at MUFG Corporate Markets (Australia), where he leads the delivery of registry, investor services, and operational solutions for exchange-traded products (ETPs).
Based in Sydney, Rakitha is responsible for supporting ETF issuers across Australia’s rapidly evolving investment landscape.
He brings deep expertise in ETF market infrastructure, transfer agency operations, and investor servicing, with a strong focus on scaling registry platforms to meet the demands of modern capital markets. His experience spans client relationship management, operational strategy, and the implementation of technology and regulatory initiatives.
He previously held senior roles in client relationship management and business development at Link Market Services (now MUFG Corporate Markets), and is an active contributor to industry forums, sharing insights on ETF evolution, investor behaviour, and market infrastructure.
Alberto Rossi
Professor of Finance, Georgetown University
Alberto Rossi is the Hachigian Family Professor of Finance at the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University. He is also the Director of the AI, Analytics, and Future of Work Initiative at Georgetown, a Visiting Fellow at Brookings, and a member of the Economic Advisory Committee (EAC) at FINRA. His research interests include FinTech, Household Finance, Machine Learning, and Asset Pricing. His recent work studies how robo-advisors can help individuals make better financial decisions and how to predict stock market returns using machine learning algorithms. He has worked extensively in analyzing big data, has collaborated with major brokerage houses, FinTech firms, and asset managers around the world.
Professor Rossi’s work has been published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Finance, the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Financial Economics and Management Science.
Before McDonough, he was an Associate Professor with tenure at the R.H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. He also worked as an economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington DC. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego.
Alex Zhou
Professor of Finance, Southern Methodist University
Alex Zhou is the James M. Collins Chair in Finance and Professor of Finance at the SMU Cox School of Business. His research examines financial intermediation and market microstructure, with a focus on fixed income markets. His work has appeared in leading journals including the Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, and Management Science, and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, and CNN. He previously served as a principal economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and as a Research Fellow at the Office of Financial Research at the U.S. Treasury Department. He earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University.