When the Fund Finance Association hosts our Global Fund Finance Symposium in Miami on February 12-14, 2020, it will be the 10th consecutive year for the event. To celebrate this milestone anniversary as well as our industry’s collective growth and successes, the FFA Board wanted to “go big” in Miami. With that in mind, we are so excited to have announced this week that our keynote speakers will include both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Earvin “Magic” Johnson! To have Secretary Clinton speaking in February during the massive run-up to the Democratic party primary elections throughout the spring is just going to be sensational. And Magic will be joining us the week of the NBA All-Star game in Chicago. It is so exciting for our industry and a great reflection on how far we have come to be able to attract speakers of this magnitude.
With these headline speakers, our expectation is that attendance at the Symposium will increase materially this year. In fact, we hope our keynote speakers can help attract leaders at the banks, law firms and funds, so that our collective leadership can see how dynamic of an industry we have all built. With that in mind, we have secured more space at the Fontainebleau Hotel, extended the time frame for the outdoor welcome reception and added additional breakout panels. To help cover the increased expenses, we have increased the cost of individual tickets and created a variety of additional sponsorship opportunities. But, we are very conscious that our event sponsors are incredibly generous supporting us, and we have tried to hold our actual sponsorship levels as close as possible to last year's. Please secure your sponsorships as early as possible – while we have secured substantial additional space, tickets are likely to again sell out. Sponsorship information is available on the FFA’s website here.
In addition to prolific opening and closing speakers, the FFA is working hard to evolve the Symposium’s content in other ways to keep the programming fresh and interesting. We are including other panels this year that are a little outside of the four corners of fund finance, with academic authorities covering areas like Modern Monetary Theory and private equity’s influence on the IPO market. At the same time, we are greatly appreciative of the support of our sponsors and intend to ensure that there are plenty of traditional panels where our sponsors will be well represented.
We hope you share our enthusiasm about the changes for our 10th anniversary Symposium.
As always, we welcome feedback on how we can make FFA events more productive for your business.