23/01/2020
Two of Katalysen's partners have spent the last week advising world decision makers at Davos 2020. One of these, our strategic adviser and partner Dr. Alexander Lipton, spoke to Davos attendees on the topic of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), representing, amongst others, the MIT. Heiner, who considers Alexander the "Rockstar of Fin and Tech", asked him about his impression on the ground at Davos: "Davos 2020 is an important event which allows people from the four corners of the world to meet and share their thoughts about tackling some of the most challenging problems humankind is facing at the moment. The topics which resonated with me most are the climate change and its consequences, the future of work in the age of AI, and the coming of age of the distributed ledger technology and its applications in finance," explained Alexander. "The climate change is for everyone to see - there is practically no snow in Davos and it is quite warm."
Alexander Lipton is Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer of Sila, Partner at Numeraire Financial, and Connection Science Fellow at MIT. He sits on Boards of Directors at several industry leaders, including Sila, Xtreme Blockchain Labs, and Zilliqa. In 2016 he left Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he served for ten years as Head of the Global Quantitative Group. Earlier, he held the position Head of Quant at Citadel Investment Group, as well as other senior managerial positions at Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and Bankers Trust. In parallel, Alex held several prestigious academic appointments at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, NYU, Oxford University, Imperial College, the University of Illinois, and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Before switching to finance, Alex was a Full Professor of Mathematics at the University of Illinois and a Consultant at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
In 2000 Alex was awarded the first ever Quant of the Year Award by Risk Magazine. Alex published eight books and more than a hundred scientific papers. His most recent book “Financial Engineering - Selected Works of Alexander Lipton” was published in May of 2018.