The Pershing team kicked off Pershing Insite 2017 yesterday with a multi-part session featuring a former U.S. Treasury Secretary. Today Silicon Valley types and a famous photographer will take the main stage, and tomorrow will feature a different sports celebrity than expected.

Jack Lew U.S. Department of the Treasury Former secretary

Yesterday afternoon Jack Lew, Secretary of the Treasury under President Obama and longtime Washington insider, delivered a general session speech, then had an on-stage chat with John Brett (chairman of Pershing affiliate Lockwood and managing director of Pershing), then had an often-heated on-stage debate with Capital Group PM Wesley Phoa and First Trust chief economist Brian Westbury. Pimm Fox of Bloomberg Radio moderated the debate.

Lew's three-part session offered a variety of interesting tidbits. Lew is a fan of the DoL's fiduciary reg, and he praised the Trump administration (without naming Labor Secretary Alex Acosta) for letting the reg take effect last week and shared fears that the effect that the fiduciary reg uncertainty has on the wealth management industry. Yet Westbury won spontaneous applause from the audience when he lumped the DoL rule in with Dodd Frank as an "all-wrong" Washington reaction to 2008. Indeed, financial advisors and other industry insiders are still passionate about the 2007-2009 financial crisis. When arguing over the causes of and reactions to the crisis, Lew and his fellow panelists each were interrupted, multiple times, by spontaneous audience applause and cheers.

Lew also offered some insight into his take on serving as Treasury Secretary, "being a lawyer working with economists."

"I don't have a great background in math or computer science," Lew said, while adding that being flexible, being able to engage in critical thinking, and having a technical background are key for succeeding in the economy of the future.

Lew's three-part session followed welcome remarks by Pershing CEO Lisa Dolly. Dolly recently checked off "visit the Galapagos Islands" from her bucket list, and she urged financial advisors to heed three lessons she was reminded of on her trip: ecosystems are critical; you have to adjust to your environment to survive, and you really need a guide.

This morning at Insite, hosted at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, Bloomberg Radio's Carol Massar will moderate a panel featuring: Oscar Salazar Gaitan, founding chief technology officer at Uber; Rana el Kaliouby, co-founder and CEO of Affectiva; and Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit and Initialized Capital. Mark Santero, CEO of Dreyfus (another BNY Mellon arm, like Pershing) will introduce the session, "the Science of Innovative Technology."

Earlier this morning, Jeffrey McCarthy, who earlier this year became BNY Mellon's first CEO of ETFs, will speak. Dolly will return to the main stage with three of her top Pershing lieutenants: Jim Crowley, chief relationship officer; Ram Nagappan, chief information officer; and Tom Sholes, managing director.

This afternoon famed portrait photographer Platon will take the main stage. Then tonight for the closing night conference party, Pershing will take over a city block in San Diego's Gaslamp district.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, Dolly has good news for Insite attendees who are football fans but bad news for those who are tennis fans. Tennis star Serena Williams, who is about seven-months pregant, will not be speaking tomorrow morning as planned. Williams' spot will be taken by Aaron Rodgers, quarterback of the Green Bay Packers. (Last year Pershing also made a last-minute celebrity speaker swap at Insite, when actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus substituted for talk show host Charlie Rose.) 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE