Speaker Series

The Award for Outstanding Contribution to Finance was established in 2015 to mark the fund’s 5th anniversary. The award seeks to acknowledge the achievements of a business leader or academic who has inspired and contributed to the education of our fund’s membership. As a recipient of this award, we acknowledge the phenomenal work they have done in their specialist area, and their decision to make this work public, for the enjoyment and learning of students across the globe. The Trinity Student Managed Fund has been an example for student investment funds across the UK and Ireland. In accepting this award, they acknowledge the importance of students in the future of the world economy.

On November 23rd, Trinity SMF had the honour of welcoming Annie Duke. Annie is an author, corporate speaker, and consultant in the decision-making space. She has leveraged her expertise in the science of smart decision making to excel at pursuits as varied as championship poker to public speaking. Annie’s first book for general audiences, Thinking in Bets became a national bestseller and her latest book How to Decide was released in September.

On 7th December, Trinity SMF had the honour of welcoming Anne Richards as part of our 2020 Speaker Series.

On December 10th, Trinity SMF had the honour of welcoming Rupal Bhansali. Rupal is a first-generation immigrant and woman of colour who came to America with no network or net-worth, but through personal grit and professional acumen broke through the glass ceiling on Wall Street to become the Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager of Ariel Investments’ multi-billion dollar international and global equity strategies in New York.

She is among the rare 1.3%* of women to solely manage a mutual fund in the US. In 2020, she was featured as one of the “Top 100 Influential Women in US Finance” by Barron’s.

On October 8th, Trinity SMF had the honour of welcoming John O’Farrell. John is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a leading venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley. The firm is best known for investing in companies such as Twitter, Skype, Facebook, Airbnb, Pinterest and Slack. John joined the firm in 2010 as the first non-founding General Partner and currently serves on the boards of Slack, IFTTT and GoodData. He’s also a member of the board of UNICEF USA and the Silicon Valley executive committee of Human RightsWatch.

Howard Marks is Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, a leading global alternative investment firm with more than $120 billion in assets under management. Prior to founding Oaktree, Howard spent 10 years at the TCW Group where he was responsible for investments in distressed debt, high-yield bonds and convertible securities. Before this, Howard worked in Citi Corp for 16 years where he served as Vice President and Senior Portfolio Manager in charge of convertible and high yield securities.

Alan Dargan is a Founder and Partner of Lonsdale Capital Partners, a leading private equity firm in London. He is also Founder and Chairman of Lansdowne Capital Limited, a corporate finance advisory firm.

With over 40 years of experience in investing and investment banking on Wall Street and the City of London, he also holds several chairmanships and board positions around Europe and in addition is Chairman of the Trinity Student Managed Fund Advisory Board. He is also a trustee and ex-President of Trinity Rugby. He graduated with a BBS degree from Trinity College Dublin and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland.

Dr. Martin Naughton is Founder of the Glen Dimplex Group and Chairman of the Glen Dimplex Supervisory Board. He studied Mechanical & Production Engineering in Southampton, England and worked as an Industrial Engineer and Plant Manager for 12 years. In 1973, he founded the private, family-owned Glen Dimplex. Glen Dimplex now has 23 manufacturing plants worldwide.

Martin is also a philanthropist with his wife Carmel and the Naughton family. In 1994, Martin and Carmel founded the private family foundation, “The Naughton Foundation.”