The Fund Finance Association continues to be very active as we gallop towards the end of the year. A few highlights:
Last week our EMEA NextGen team hosted its second virtual event, titled "Switching Careers: Moving from Sell-Side to Buy-Side." The event featured a lot of interesting insights from our panelists – Charlotte Lewis-Williams, VP and Corporate Counsel, PGIM Private Capital (PPC); Bilal Tahir, Associate, ICG; and Marc Charles, Associate, Real Estate Venture Capital Management – on their experience moving to the buy-side and what it takes to transition. A special thank you to Billal Malik, Director, Citi Private Bank, for moderating the panel.
Virtual Week – hopefully, this does not need an introduction! We are excited to "see" all those attending our first FFA virtual symposium next week. Our lineup includes excellent keynote speakers and a wide range of panels for all to enjoy. We are particularly excited to host our first virtual Diversity and Inclusion Panel. If you haven’t had the chance to check out our promotional video, watch it now here. A special thank you to Leon Stephenson at Reed Smith for all of his help organizing this important panel for us.
Our Women in Fund Finance Panel will feature our experienced U.S., Europe and Asia Committee co-heads. You will get to hear their opinions on how women can continue to capture opportunities and achieve personal and professional goals. Watch our promotional video here.
Both of these panel sessions will be streamed live on our YouTube channel if you or any of your team members aren’t registered for the conference and would like to view them.
With our Rising Stars Awards, we worked closely with the NextGen committees to create this program to recognize upcoming Fund Finance industry stars. We have a selection committee formed, and recipients will be selected based on their outstanding overall contribution to the Fund Finance industry, their firms and their clients. The deadline to submit nominations is next Friday, November 20. For more information, you can visit our website.
We launched our U.S. pilot Mentor Program in October and currently have 15 mentor/mentee pairs. We will be launching our EMEA and Asia-Pacific Mentor Program in Q1 of 2021. If you are interested in participating as either a mentor or mentee, please visit our website.
Another exciting initiative for Q1 will be the launch of our European FFA University. We have been working closely with Aimee Sharman and Paul Tannenbaum at Mayer Brown, who have taken the lead on content, and we are really excited to branch out this training arm of FFA. Save the date, and additional details will be coming soon.
Finally, we recently revamped our mailing lists. If you want to be involved in any of our initiatives or want to be notified about any of our upcoming events, please join our mailing list by visiting our website.