FTSE Russell Convenes

Geopolitical risk has shifted from episodic disruption to a structural driver of markets, reshaping the investment landscape.  In this season’s inaugural episode, Alex Kazan, Managing Director, Strategic Partnership at Eurasia Group outlines the scale of this transition, highlighting how major economies now act as sources of geopolitical risk and volatility, with implications for policy continuity...

In the first episode of our Scholar & Investor series, we bring together academic insight and investment expertise to examine one of the most important intersections shaping markets today.  Professor Constantine Yannelis, Professor Cambridge University and Thomas Moore, Senior Investment Director at Aberdeen Asset Management explore how artificial intelligence, energy innovation and structural...

Has geopolitical denialism run its course? Welcome back to the FTSE Russell Convenes ‘geopolitical’ series. Tina Fordham, Founder of Fordham Global Foresight, returns to explore how the current constellation of risks interact with markets. Tina reflects on 2025 and reveals the key signposts shaping the 2026 risk map—from U.S mid-terms to Hungary's upcoming elections. She also explains how geopolit...

“ Real estate touches all the big evolutions we see in society ”. Listen as David Sol, Global Head of Policy, FTSE Russell, and Dominique Moerenhout , CEO of the European Real Estate Association (EPRA) discuss how mega trends such as s peciali s ation, s cale, c onsolidation, s ustainability and i nnovation affect the real estate market.  

In this episode, Indrani De, FTSE Russell and Ed Tom, Cboe, present new research they have co-authored that explores how options on public equity can be used to manage private equity risk. Their findings reveal surprising similarities between private and public markets once smoothing techniques are applied—and how options strategies can be a good hedge of private equity risk exposures, using both...

Listen as Joe Thomson, Founder and CEO of Pacer ETFs, discusses Pacer’s origins in fund distribution.  Our discussion covers the launch of Pacer’s ETF business in 2015 and their focus on developing deep relationships with financial advisors. Guest:  Joe Thompson, Founder and CEO, Pacer Financial   Host:  Steve Kriechman,  Director, Index Investments Group, FTSE Russell   Chapters (00:00:00) - Pace...

Marina Mets (FTSE Russell) and BlackRock's Joyce Choi talk about the recent market volatility and how the recent market dynamics in the US along with the falling US dollar make international fixed income more attractive to invest in. Joyce discusses the best way to dip your toes into international bonds and which iShares ETF invests that way.   Guest: Joyce Choi, Head of Institutional Product Stra...

In this episode, Stephanie Maier,   FTSE   Russell   and Laura Starks, University of Texas, discuss investor democracy and the evolving landscape of proxy voting where shareholder voting becomes more open and inclusive, enabling broader participation and representation. Laura explains the impact of decentralised voting and investor choice programs, revealing key findings from her latest research o...

Meet StepStone Group, a private markets solutions provider with $723 billion in total capital responsibility (as of June 30, 2025) . In June 2025,   FTSE   Russell   announced a partnership with StepStone to leverage their extensive private markets database in the creation of new indices—designed to help investors better understand these strategies and potentially broaden access to the asset class...

Dana Moody ( FTSE   Russell ) and Vanguard's Carole Okigbo discuss recent Vanguard milestones and review some current ETF industry trends, including the resilience of the ETF structure in the face of more recent market volatility. Lastly, they look at portfolio construction considerations and some common ETF misconceptions.  

Portfolio construction is a key tool for investors. By applying a framework and a systematic approach, investors may understand their exposures better. Listen to learn more about both practical and theoretical ideas about building robust and resilience strategies.  Host: David Sol, Global Head of Policy and Governance FTSE Russell Guests: Dr. Joseph Simonian, Head of Equity Portfolio Design and An...

Anthony Rochte ( FTSE   Russell ) talks with GSAM's Brendan McCarthy and ProShares ' Mo Haghbin about the evolution of the ETF industry. They discuss how the types of ETFs are evolving and how the question in portfolio construction is no longer about active vs passive, it's how you combine the two optimally.

Media reports, social media posts, press releases, CEO conference calls and many other channels deliver unstructured data to the market. MarketPsych uses AI and its large language models to analyse emotions and sentiment and turn these into signals and forecasts. Listen to learn more about this exciting and powerful growing field.     Chapters (00:00:00) - Introduction (00:00:50) - What is media a...

Welcome to the second episode of our new three-part FTSE Russell Convenes ‘geopolitical’ series with Tina Fordham, independent global political strategist and founder of Fordham Global Foresight.  In this episode Tina discusses this ‘very different victory’ for President Trump, and its potential impact on global markets. She shares her views and expectations on topics from the change in political...

Welcome to the second episode of our new three-part FTSE Russell Convenes ‘geopolitical’ series with Tina Fordham, independent global political strategist and founder of Fordham Global Foresight.  In this episode Tina discusses this ‘very different victory’ for President Trump, and its potential impact on global markets. She shares her views and expectations on topics from the change in political...

The spotlight is on the upcoming U.S. elections…   We are pleased to introduce the first episode of our new three-part FTSE Russell Convenes ‘geopolitical’ series, with Tina Fordham, Founder of Fordham Global Foresight. An accomplished independent global political strategist and advisor to senior leaders about the intersection between geopolitics, markets and the business environment, Tina shares...

Concluding this season of FTSE Russell Convenes, in the 40 th anniversary year of the FTSE Russell US Indexes, we shine the spotlight on the evolution of FTSE Russell’s indices and how client input is key to their success.   With fifty years of indexing experiencing between them, Bryce Clarke, regional director, Index Investments Group and Catherine Yoshimoto, director of equity product management...

Johannes Lee, Investor within the asset management team at Builders Vision—the family office and impact platform created by the grandson of Walmart founders—discusses the organisation’s mission, investment strategy and recent work in stewardship and engagement.     He provides detail on Builders Vision’s investment focus in key thematic areas including sustainable food and agriculture, healthy oce...

In episode 8 of FTSE Russell Convenes, Walter Kress, Chief Investment Officer of Ernst & Young, LLP discusses the ‘large playground’ of fixed income and how individual components of the fixed income market are significantly different to two years ago.   He explains how the inflation environment is playing through to pension plans, the additional fixed income opportunity set beyond a core vanil...

How is robo advisory and machine learning impacting the financial services market? In episode 7, Alberto Rossi, Professor of Finance, at Georgetown University McDonough School of Business explains how the right balance of human and algorithmic engagement empowers investors to become more effective. He shares the importance of being cautious when using AI, the need to really understand signals and...

Fiona Bassett, CEO of FTSE Russell shares her unique perspective on indexing. Fiona discusses why she feels we are early in the evolution of indexing, what she sees as key challenges within the index industry today and the opportunities that are on the horizon.

How far is crypto exposure evolving beyond Bitcoin? In this episode of FTSE Russell Convenes, Inkoo Kang, Vice President, ETFs at Grayscale joins Kristen Mierzwa, Head of Digital Assets at FTSE Russell to discuss how pension plans and institutions are more easily gaining access to crypto products, and what Inkoo’s product development role involves, from the early stages of the ideation process all...

In our fourth episode of FTSE Russell Convenes, Joyce Choi, Head of Institutional Product Strategy, Fixed Income ETFs at BlackRock, shares her knowledge on fixed income markets at what she sees to be a very interesting and pivotal time. From key market drivers through to market structure and products, Joyce explains the core components of fixed income markets that have enabled investors to build p...

Greg Brown, Professor of Finance, Kenan Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, joins us for our third episode of FTSE Russell Convenes to share his knowledge on private equity markets. A ‘Van and Kay Weatherspoon Distinguished Professor of Finance’, Greg has been an academic researcher, faculty member at UNC for more than 25 years and is also the founder and re...

In our second episode of FTSE Russell Convenes, we are joined by Daniel Reyes, Global Head of Product at Vanguard, whose career with the firm spans over 14 years. In his discussion with Dana Moody, Manager, Index Investments Group at FTSE Russell, Dan explains how Vanguard adapts to evolving ETF market dynamics, while staying true to its investment philosophy—to offer products and exposures it bel...