2025 Keynote information coming soon…
Ian Charles
Ian H. Charles is Co-Managing Partner and Founder at Arctos Partners. In addition to his investment responsibilities, Mr. Charles directs investment strategy, firm governance and investor relations for Arctos Partners. Prior to the formation of Arctos Partners, Mr. Charles served as a member of the private equity and infrastructure investment committees and Partner at Landmark Partners, a leader in the global private equity, real estate and infrastructure secondary markets. At Landmark, Mr. Charles helped design and execute the firm’s private equity strategy; helped build the firm’s quantitative research group; and sourced and structured large, innovative liquidity transactions across the firm’s investment verticals.
Prior to joining Landmark Partners, Mr. Charles was a co-founder of Cogent Partners, the first secondary market sell-side advisor. Cogent, which was acquired by Greenhill & Co., is widely recognized for transforming the private equity secondary market by providing institutional-grade advisory services to sellers and providing a consistent source of deal flow for existing, new and non-traditional secondary buyers.
Mr. Charles graduated with honors from Texas Christian University, where he received a BBA in Finance and a BBA in Accounting. He received his MBA from the Wharton School of Business and is a CFA® charterholder.
Navneet Arora
Navneet Arora joined Citadel in 2013 as a senior quantitative researcher, shortly after the founding of Global Quantitative Strategies (GQS). In 2019, he was named Head of GQS. Navneet has taken a successful strategy and grown it significantly by scaling our platform, attracting world-class talent, and encouraging deeper collaboration between teams. He also serves on Citadel’s Portfolio Committee.
Prior to joining the firm, Navneet served as Director of Quantitative Research at American Century Investments, Managing Director and Global Head of Model-Based Credit Research at BlackRock, and Global Head of Credit Research at Barclays Global Investors.
His research has been published in academic and practitioner journals, including The Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Accounting Studies, Journal of Investment Management, and Energy Risk.
Navneet received a bachelor’s degree from Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur, a post-graduate degree from Indian Institute of Management-Kolkata, and a PhD in finance from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Lynn Baranski
Ms. Lynn Baranski, Managing Director, is Global Co-Head and Chief Investment Officer of Private Equity Partners (“PEP”) within BlackRock's Equity Private Markets group. Ms. Baranski chairs PEP's Internal Investment Committee and Exit committee and is a member of PEP's Executive Investment Committee. Ms. Baranski is also a member of the investment committees of the Secondary Liquidity Solutions Funds I and II, the Global Credit Opportunity Fund II, and the BlackRock Impact Opportunity Fund. Lastly, Ms. Baranski serves on the Executive Oversight Committee of the Direct Private Opportunities Group. Overall, Ms. Baranski has over 33 years of private equity and related experience.
Ms. Baranski’s service with the firm dates back to 1997, including her years with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (“MLIM”), which merged with BlackRock in 2006. Prior to her current leadership role, Ms. Baranski was PEP’s Global Head of Investments with primary responsibility for all aspects of PEP’s investment process including sourcing, due diligence, and monitoring as well as portfolio construction and strategy. Before joining PEP in 2001, she worked as a high yield portfolio manager and research analyst in the fixed income division. She joined MLIM from Bank of America Securities, Inc. (formerly NationsBank), where she was a member of the Financial Sponsor Advisory group.
Ms. Baranski currently serves on the advisory boards of certain funds managed by Certares LLC, Black Diamond, Tailwind Capital Partners, 1315 Capital and Z Capital Partners. Additionally, she is currently on the board Internova Group and Guardian Alarm. She previously participated on the boards of Juweel Holdings, Amex Global Business Travel, TowerCo, Canbriam Energy, and Evenflo.
Ms. Baranski earned an MBA in Finance from Vanderbilt University and a BA in history and Art History from Wake Forest University.
Dwight Scott
Dwight Scott retired as the Chairman of Blackstone Credit and Insurance in September 2024, having previously served as the Global Head of Blackstone Credit and the Global Head of Blackstone Credit’s Energy business in his nearly 20 years at the firm. In these roles, Mr. Scott helped guide the growth and management of Blackstone Credit and was a member of the investment committee for Blackstone Credit’s funds.
Before joining Blackstone Credit, then known as GSO Capital Partners, Mr. Scott was an Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of El Paso Corporation. Prior to joining El Paso, Mr. Scott served as a Managing Director in the energy investment banking practice of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette after beginning his career in investment banking at Citibank and S.G. Warburg
Mr. Scott is a member of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Visitors, the UNC Hussman Foundation Board of Trustees, and the Wall Street for McCombs Advisory Board. Mr. Scott is a member of the Board of the coldwater conservation organization Trout Unlimited. Mr. Scott has served on numerous public and private corporate boards during his career.
Mr. Scott graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Texas’ McCombs School of Business MBA program.
