CFALA 21st Annual Economic and Investments Forecast Dinner

PANELISTS

Gargi Pal Chaudhuri | Gargi Chaudhuri is the Managing Director, Chief Investment and Portfolio Strategist, Americas at BlackRock. Based in New York, she heads the Investment and Portfolio Solutions (IPS) team for Americas focusing on investment research, portfolio construction and market insights. The IPS team's mission is to tie investment insights and portfolio analysis to commercial solutions across iShares (active and index) ETFs, active and alts platform for both institutional and wealth clients. With over two decades of experience in the financial services industry, Gargi has built her career around portfolio management in the fixed income markets, trading and investment strategy. She regularly contributes her macro and financial market views across global media outlets for clients in US, Canada and Latin America. Prior to her current role, Gargi was head of iShares Investment Strategy for the Americas. She joined BlackRock in 2010 and has spent the last 14 years in several roles across global trading, portfolio management in active fixed income and multi asset investment strategy. Prior to joining BlackRock, she was at Jefferies & Co. and Merrill Lynch, running a government bond trading desk focusing on making markets for Treasuries and TIPS. She graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Psychology from Ohio Wesleyan University where she currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees. She is an avid runner, hiker and a triathlete and has completed multiple marathons, ultra-marathons, half Ironmans and the New York Ironman. Back To Top ^^

Jason Trennert | Mr. Trennert is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Strategas and its related companies. In addition, as Chief Investment Strategist, Mr. Trennert is known as one of Wall Street’s top thought leaders on the subject of markets and economic policy. His research pieces are read by leading institutional investors and corporate executives across the globe. In 2006, Mr. Trennert co-founded Strategas, which originally began with just five employees. Today, the firm employs over fifty research analysts, institutional salesmen, and sales traders at its offices in New York and Washington D.C. Prior to founding Strategas, Mr. Trennert was the Chief Investment Strategist and a Senior Managing Director at International Strategy & Investment (ISI) Group where he built and oversaw two of that Firm’s most popular research efforts, its Company Surveys, and Investment Strategy groups. Widely quoted in the domestic and foreign press, Jason is a regular guest on business news programs broadcast by CNBC, CNBC Italia, Fox Business News, and Bloomberg TV, among others. He is the author of three books about investing and the investment business. My Side of the Street was published by St. Martin’s Press in May 2015. He has authored several op-eds for The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and Investor’s Business Daily. Mr. Trennert’s two most notable calls involved coining the phrase “TINA” as it relates to equities in a world of perpetually low interest rates and his early recognition of the potential allure of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate. His op-ed “The Stock Market and “The ‘TINA’ Factor” was published in The Wall Street Journal in April 2013. “What the Donald Got Right” was published in Investor’s Business Daily in May 2011. His piece “Donald Trump is Underowned” appeared on the website Real Clear Markets in August 2015. Mr. Trennert credits his often out-of-consensus calls to his frequent travels to visit clients in 45 states and 25 foreign countries. He is committed to a number of Italian, Italian-American, and Catholic causes in New York and abroad. For his efforts he was honored at the 66th Annual Columbus Day parade in New York and was awarded the honorific of Cavaliere by the Republic of Italy on June 2, 2017. Mr. Trennert is a member of the investment committee of the National World War II Museum and a member of the advisory board of Hollow Brook Wealth Management. He has an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and BS in International Economics from Georgetown University.  Back To Top ^^

Ellen Zentner | Ellen Zentner is chief economic strategist and global head of Thematic and Macro Investing for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, and a member of the Firm’s Global Investment Committee. She and her team are responsible for generating event-driven and forward-looking secular thematic insights, identifying how they can contribute to Morgan Stanley’s individual- and institutional-investor portfolios, and guiding stakeholders and internal teams to support the firm's investment strategies. Concentration areas include fiscal and monetary policy, the diffusion of generative AI and technology, real estate, infrastructure, healthcare, household behavior, and demographics. Prior to her current role, Ellen spent nine years as chief US economist for Morgan Stanley & Co., where she and her team received the Lawrence R. Klein Award for the most accurate economic forecasts spanning 2014 to 2020. She joined the Firm as senior US economist in 2013 from Nomura Securities International. From 2003 to 2011, Ms. Zentner worked for Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) as senior US economist. Before joining BTMU, she worked for five years in the Revenue Estimating Division at the Texas State Comptroller on a range of economic development and impact studies, including monitoring the fairness of the tax system in the state. Ellen serves on the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee—where she advises the Treasury Department on the economy and technical debt management issues—as well as the Geoeconomic Council of Advisers for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She is president of the National Association for Business Economics, a former member of the Economic Advisory Council for the Federal Reserve Banks of New York and Chicago, past Chair of the Economic Advisory Panel for the American Bankers’ Association, and former Chair of SIFMA’s Economic Advisory Roundtable. Ms. Zentner is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a trustee of the Graduate Center Foundation of the City University of New York. She is an avid fly fisher and holds a BBA and an MBA in economics from the University of Colorado Back To Top ^^


Please fill out your 2025 Economic Forecast Contest Ballot by January 31st, 2025 to have a chance to win a prize! The fillable PDF form contains instructions on how to mail and fax your ballot back to CFA Society Los Angeles, but you may also email your ballot back to us at info@cfala.org