Background

Bernard Donefer is principal of Conatum Consulting LLC. Having enjoyed a 35-year career in the international financial services industry, working with banks, exchanges and securities firms in the US, Europe and Asia, he began his teaching career in 2003 with appointments to the adjunct faculties of NYU Stern, Baruch CUNY and Fordham graduate business schools. He is Associate Director of the Subotnick Financial Services Center at the Zicklin School at Baruch College, where he is also a Distinguished Lecturer.

From 1996 through 2002, Prof. Donefer was SVP and Head of Capital Markets Systems at Fidelity Investments in Boston, implementing one of the industry's first straight through processing (STP) equity trading environments. He was also responsible for their algorithmic trading, fixed-income, foreign exchange, market making and mid-office systems, client and marketplace connectivity and their proprietary real time VaR based credit and market risk management system. Prior positions included EVP/CIO of a major international bank and president of two international software and services businesses.

Consulting clients have included US and foreign stock exchanges, asset managers, international banks and major global securities firms.

Risk Management for Non-Quants^SM and Capital Markets BootCamp^SM public programs have been oversubscribed and are currently presented in New York, London, Boston and Chicago. Custom versions of both seminars have been given to corporate clients in the U.S. and Canada.   

A frequent industry speaker and commentator, Prof. Donefer chaired and panels at the Algo Trading Conference, chaired the Hedge Fund Trading Conference and spoke on Hedge Fund Risk and chaired and spoke at the best Execution Conference. He also spoke on Challenges and Opportunities of Electronic Trading in Global Markets at the Global Securities Trading Forum and chaired and spoke at the Changes in Market Structure Focus Summit at Trade Tech. He has been quoted in Securities Industry News, Wall Street and Technology and interviewed by Nikkei CNBC, among others.