SALT Talks

Seke Ballard is the Founder & CEO of Good Tree Capital, a financial technology firm that grants loans to vetted, licensed cannabis companies.  After graduating from the University of North Carolina, Seke spent two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer working with small businesses in the Republic of Georgia. After leaving the Peace Corps, Seke earned his MBA from Harvard University and subsequently...

Jason Cummins is the Head of Research and Chief US Economist. In his role, he develops the firm's outlook for the economy, politics and markets, advises the traders on portfolio management, and manages the global research team.  Jason serves as a trustee on the boards of The Brookings Institution (executive committee) and The Peterson Institute for International Economics (executive committee)...

Ryan Williams is the founder of the technology-enabled investment platform Cadre. Cadre is an online marketplace that provides institutions and individuals access to previously inaccessible quality real estate and alternative investment opportunities. As Chief Executive Officer of Cadre, Ryan has raised more than $130mm of corporate capital backed by investors such as Goldman Sachs, Andreessen Hor...

Russell Read is a Group Managing Partner for the C Change Group of investment funds, companies, and advisors, dedicated to materially transforming the production, distribution, and consumption of natural resources around the globe. In addition, Dr. Read serves as Senior Advisor to MSCI with respect to crafting solutions for the global asset owner community. Prior to C Change, he was Chief Investme...

Jeb Bush is the 43rd governor of the State of Florida, serving from 1999 through 2007. He was the third Republican elected to the state’s highest office and the first Republican in the state’s history to be reelected. He was most recently a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Governor Bush offers his views on the current discord in American society and where he sees paths...

Stuart Leckie  is the Founding Chairman of the Hong Kong Retirement Schemes Association and was Chairman of the CFA Institute Advisory Council on Standards and Financial Market Integrity. He is the author of books titled "Investment Funds in China" and "Pension Funds in China". Hong Kong adopted the Mandatory Provident Fund in the 1990s that required residents to put money away mon...

Stuart Stevens is the author of seven previous books, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Esquire, and Outside, among other publications. He has written extensively for television shows, including Northern Exposure, Commander in Chief, and K Street. For twenty-five years, he was the lead strategist and media consultant for some of the nation's toughest politic...

Lawrence Rocks received his Master of Science in Chemistry from Purdue University, and his Doctor of Science from Technische Hochschule Vienna, where he wrote his doctoral thesis in German in the field of analytical chemistry. He authored two books, The Energy Crisis (1972) and Developing Your Chemistry Fundamentals and Fuels for Tomorrow, with the former proving influential in creating the United...

Morgan Housel is a partner at The Collaborative Fund, a venture capital firm focused on providing seed and early-stage funding to technology companies, and a former columnist at The Motley Fool and The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of the new book, The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness.  Investors should be writing out their ideas more frequently. When y...

Dr. Vivek Murthy served as the 19th Surgeon General of the United States from December 2014 to April 2017.  As America’s Doctor, he called the nation’s attention to critical public health issues including the opioid epidemic, e-cigaretes and emotional health and wellbeing. Prior to serving in government, he conducted research on vaccine development and clinical trial participation and founded seve...

His Excellency Dr. Tariq Bin Hendi is the Director General of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO), the central government hub supporting investment in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Prior to joining ADIO, His Excellency held leadership roles at Emirates NBD, Mubadala and Citibank. AgTech has long been a focus of the Abu Dhabi government. With the pandemic requiring countries to refocus on basics lik...

William Cohan is a former senior Wall Street M&A investment banker at Lazard Frères & Co., Merrill Lynch and JPMorganChase, is the New York Times bestselling author of three non-fiction narratives about Wall Street. He is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair and is hard at work on his new book about the rise and fall of GE. Bill led an unforgettable interview at SALT Las Vegas with Magic...

Episode 2 includes an overview on the MORE Act, social justice reform and the possible results of the 2020 Presidential Election. David Culver, Vice President of US Government and Stakeholder Relations for Canopy Growth Corporation. Patrick Martin, Principal & Director of Midwest Public Strategies for Cozen O’Connor. Erik Huey, President of Platinum Advisors. ————————————————————————— To learn...

Boaz Weinstein is the Founder & Chief Investment Officer of Saba Capital Management, a $3.2 billion credit hedge fund based in New York City. Saba was founded in 2009 as a liftout of the Deutsche Bank proprietary credit trading group he started in 1998. Boaz leads a team of 33 professionals, with the senior members having worked together for 15 years. As a credit investor whose formative years...

Badr Al Olama is the Executive Director of Aerospace for Mubadala Investment Company, a global investment company with a mandate to create sustainable financial returns for Abu Dhabi. He oversees key portfolio assets including Strata Manufacturing, where he served as Chief Executive Officer at the age of 32, and Nibras Al Ain Aerospace Park, a development supporting the establishment of a sustaina...

Nabyl Al Maskari is the Executive Chairman of Al Maskari Holding (AMH), a privately-owned holding company of the Al Maskari portfolio and controls the family's operating subsidiaries, joint venture companies, strategic partnerships, and private equity. AMH traces its foundation to 1968 with the establishment of the Al Maskaria Group in Abu Dhabi to engage in petroleum trading and oil field ser...

Michael Weisz is the Founder & President of Yieldstreet, an alternative investment platform focused on generating passive income streams for investors. Gil Mandelzis is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Capitolis, the leading SaaS platform driving financial resource optimization for capital markets. Post-financial crisis, we are seeing fewer, larger banks with more constraints on th...

Brian Stelter is the anchor of “Reliable Sources,” which examines the week’s top media stories every Sunday at 11:00am ET on CNN. He’s also the network’s Chief Media Correspondent. His new book, Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, tells the twisted story of the relationship between Donald Trump and Fox News. The internet changed how we interacted with the news. “It...

Ed Roman is the Managing Director of Hack VC, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, with the mission of democratizing access to top start-ups for investors. He is also the Founder of hack.summit(), the world’s largest blockchain event, which aims to support technology non-profits. Hiring and investing during the COVID-19 pandemic may seem counter-intuitive, but tech unicorns like Slack, Square an...

Mark Stoleson is the Chief Executive Officer & Partner of Legatum, a global investment firm based in Dubai with the mission to generate and allocate the capital and ideas that help people prosper. Prior to Legatum, Mark was a corporate finance and M&A attorney with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Mark focuses on simple, big ideas: Where is the growth? What simple idea can they express...

Joshua Friedman, the Co-Founder, Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Canyon Partners, LLC, a leading global alternative asset management firm. He received the Institutional Investor’s “Lifetime Achievement” Award.  Growing up in a working-class household with parents who emphasized education and entrepreneurialism set Friedman on a path of academic achievement and professional success. F...

Jason Wilson is the Cannabis Banking & Research Expert for ETFMG | MJ, a firm developing innovative thematic ETFs that provide investors unique exposure to new markets. Axel Bernabe is Assistant Counsel for Health to Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, and Kelly D. Fair, Director of Legal, USA for Canopy Growth Corporation. Episode 1 includes an overview on the federal government’s approach to cannabis...

Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding is a Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington DC, an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. In January 2020, he was recognized in the media as one of the first to alert the public on the pandemic risk of COVID-19. ————————————————————————— T...

Robert Draper is a Writer-at-Large at The New York Times Magazine, as well as a contributing writer to National Geographic.  He is the author of several books, including the recently published "To Start a War: How The Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq." Robert first became acquainted with the then-Governor of Texas, George W. Bush, when he was writing for the Texas Monthly. He the...

Rachel Bitecofer is the Senior Fellow for Elections at The Niskanen Center, a nonpartisan think tank that works to promote an open society. Her innovative election forecasting model predicted the 2018 midterms five months before Election Day, far ahead of other forecasting methods.  “If Donald Trump had handled the pandemic well, it probably would have benefited him in the 2020 election.” However,...