The fourth annual Cayman Alternative Investment Summit (CAIS), scheduled for 15-17 February in the Cayman Islands, will convene leading thinkers and decision makers from across the industry as they explore this year's theme: Defying Gravity: The Future of Alternative Investments in Exceptional Times.
In a change of venue, CAIS 2017 will be held at the brand new, Kimpton Seafire Resort + Spa, which is owned by Dart Enterprises, the host sponsor for CAIS. Other key sponsors this year include KPMG, Deutsche Bank, Mourant Ozannes, CIBC, Harmonic Fund Services and IMS.
The Cayman Islands, with over 11,000 regulated funds, has long been a home for the alternative industry, and CAIS regularly draws some of the top speakers and leaders in the industry.
The 2016 event, "Alternative Investments: Supercharged", was a huge success and talking to Hedgeweek about this year's theme, Chris Duggan (pictured), Director of CAIS and VP of Community Development, Dart Enterprises, says there are so many forces working against fund managers that in order "to successfully chart these turbulent waters one effectively needs to defy gravity to overcome them."
"Every year we like to have a novel theme which all of our speakers can centre around, and we thought defying gravity would be an appropriate theme for the 2017 event."
In keeping with this, two confirmed special guests for CAIS 2017 are Captains Mark and Scott Kelly, retired US Navy Captains and much-vaunted NASA astronauts. One of the keynote speakers is Virgin Galactic CEO, George Whitesides, former chief of staff at NASA.
"The idea is to further our knowledge of how to send someone to Mars. Can a human being sustain prolonged exposure in space?" says Duggan.
As part of that theme, CAIS formally announced the event by launching an invitation into space: https://vimeo.com/187992935. The headline keynote speaker this year is Hollywood actor and former Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The following is a sample of confirmed speakers: Pippa Malmgren, Founder of DRPM Group and an American policy analyst; Nouriel Roubini, Co-Founder & Chairman of Roubini Global Economics; Mark Yusko, Founder, Chief Investment Officer & Chief Executive Officer of Morgan Creek Capital Management; Valerie Sill, President & CEO of DuPont Capital Management; Mark Okada, Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer of Highland Capital Management; John Mauldin, President of Mauldin Economics; and, Amanda Pullinger, CEO of 100 Women in Hedge Funds.
There is an inclusive, collegiate feel to CAIS – attendee numbers are kept within the 400 to 500 range and great emphasis is placed on striking the right balance of investors to managers to service providers, and also between industry-focused panel sessions and non-industry speakers.
"We don't want delegates to feel like it's a sales pitch. We want there to be meaningful interaction, meaningful discussion, and meaningful takeaways to push for positive change in the industry," says Duggan. "One leading industry professional has said that CAIS is quickly becoming `one of the premier events on alternative investments around the world' which is exactly what we aim for CAIS to be."
One can think of CAIS as being to alternatives what Davos (World Economic Forum) is to economics.
Registration for CAIS 2017 is now live at www.caymansummit.com/register. The registration deadline is 3 February, 2017.
