Context365 by Apex Miami 2023

Georges Archibald

Apex Group

GEORGES ARCHIBALD

Chief Innovation Officer & Head of Americas

New York, NY

Georges has over 20 years of experience spanning law, capital markets, and fund administration. He currently oversees Apex Group’s business across the Americas and joined as part of the Apex Group acquisition of Deutsche Bank Alternative Fund Services (AFS) group. His previous experience includes Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and other financial services companies in a variety of management roles.

Lance Armstrong

Next Ventures

A globally known cyclist and endurance athlete, Lance remains passionate about the benefits of an active lifestyle. Through his decades of competitive racing, Lance has developed extensive worldwide contacts in the sports, fitness and health markets, regularly being invited to review early stage companies. His extensive connections have resulted in highly successful early investments in Docusign and Uber that reflect his strong investment insights. In this digital age Lance understands the importance of digital brand building and the power of influencers.

Lance currently hosts THEMOVE, a podcast that provides analysis of stages of the Tour de France and other cycling and endurance races; this podcast has had millions of downloads and has been ranked in the top 10 in the sports and recreation category on Apple’s iTunes. He also hosts a podcast called THE FORWARD where Armstrong interviews authors, musicians, athletes, politicians and influencers from all walks of life. These form the cornerstones of WEDŪ MEDIA, part of his WEDŪ brand, a budding community of endurance athletes who go Forward, Never Straight.

Lawrence Bosley

New York City Employees' Retirement System

US Air Force Veteran 
College: Thomas More College, BA History, KY 
Law School: Salmon P. Chase College of Law, KY 
Assistant District Attorney, Kings County, NY 
Hearing Officer, NYC Department of Education, NY 
Senior Counsel Teamsters Local 237 and NYCERS Trustee, NY

Tyler Grossman

El Paso Firemen & Policemen's Pension Fund

Tyler was elected to the El Paso Firemen & Policemen’s Pension Fund Board of Trustees in 2001 and served until 2006 when he took a brief leave of absence to work in Iraq with a private company protecting United States Diplomats to include the US Ambassador of Iraq. Upon his return, he was re-elected to the board as a trustee in 2009 and served as Chairman of the Board until his retirement in October 2015. He served El Paso citizens since 1994 as a Police Officer retiring at the rank of Lieutenant. Upon his retirement he assumed the position of Executive Director of the El Paso Firemen & Policemen’s Pension Fund and added the title of Chief Investment Officer in February 2020.  He holds a BS with Distinction in Criminal Justice from Park University and an MBA from the University of Texas-El Paso. Tyler was elected and currently serves on the TEXPERS Board of Directors since March 2012.

Jeff Lewis

Pantera

Jeff joined Pantera in 2022 as Director of Capital Formation. Jeff has an extensive background in the investment management space as an entrepreneur, investor, and trader. He was a Senior Managing Director at Guggenheim Partners and held senior roles at York Capital Management and DLJ. He has broad experience across asset classes, having traded equities, fixed income and derivatives on the sell side and for world-class hedge funds. Jeff created The American Flag Football League. In this endeavor, he established a partnership with the NFL, built a community of over 200,000 social media followers, and produced over 700 games and 30 telecasts on CBS, NFL Networks and other media outlets. Jeff received his B.A. and MBA from Cornell University.

Laura McGee

Diversio

Laura McGee is the Founder and CEO of Diversio, a technology company that uses artificial intelligence to help companies and investors unlock diversity for improved performance. Diversio is a two-time recipient of Fast Company’s “World Changing Ideas” award and has been featured at global events like the G20 and Davos. Through partnerships including UN Women, the Investor Leadership Network, and the Human Resources Professionals Association, Laura leads industry-level change in DEI practices.

Prior to Diversio, Laura was a consultant at McKinsey & Company in their Public and Social Sector Practice. She was named Co-Chair of Canada’s Expert Panel on Women Entrepreneurs and holds Board and Advisory positions with Global Citizen, ArcTern Ventures, and the University of Waterloo. She is a C100 Fellow and David Rockefeller Fellow with the Trilateral Commission.

Laura is a lawyer by training and a graduate of the University of Toronto and Western University (gold medallist). She currently lives in New York City. 

Chase Rankin

Oklahoma Firefighters Pension & Retirement System

Chase Rankin is the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System (OFPRS). An Oklahoma City native, Chase received his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Southern Nazarene University and his Masters of Business Administration from Oklahoma Christian University, where he maintained a 4.0 GPA.  After becoming a Certified Public Accountant, Chase served 7 years in the role of Controller for OFPRS, where he worked his way to adding the role of legislative liaison to his Controller duties, before being named as the Chief Executive in March of 2018.  Chase is proud of the technological advances and superior investment performance the plan has achieved during his tenure.  When Chase is not diligently working to administer the $3.5 Billion pension plan, he loves playing golf and spending time with his wife and their furry four-legged children.   Chase, his wife Alicia, and their fur babies reside in Oklahoma City where they are also small business owners.

Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson

Founding Partner, Include Ventures 

Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson is a recognized innovator in the inclusive investing space, with a sharp sensibility for identifying and cultivating strategic linkages between established capital sources and emerging and diverse communities. Her expertise in leading technology, investment and social impact initiatives inform her role as Founding Partner of Include Ventures. Born in Palo Alto, California, and raised between Central California and NYC, Bahiyah was educated around the themes of science, technology and equity. Her expertise is enriched by real-life and professional practice. Bahiyah’s motivation for creating diverse spaces within the technology and investment industry is driven not only by passion but by data. With just 1.4% of the $82 trillion of assets in the U.S. managed by diverse asset managers, she formed VC Include in 2018 to meet this market opportunity by building an ecosystem of women, Black, Latinx, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ fund managers in alternative investments. The crossroads of cultural engagement, investment, and innovation are the kickstarters of Bahiyah’s professional career. Upon graduation from the University of California, Davis in 2001, she managed the portfolio of technology, media and social enterprise businesses for a former president of CBS Records and managed licensing deals for over 100 million records sold during her tenure. Bahiyah also applied her savvy in activating impact investment in emerging technology ecosystems in Africa from 2009-2015. As Senior Consultant with Ashoka’s Changemakers she devised value-added propositions for clients in government, NGOs and the private sector—including ExxonMobil, G20, Amgen, eBay Foundation, Omidyar Network and Google. Many of Bahiyah’s accomplishments are ‘firsts’. From 2012-2015, she served as Managing Director of the Appfrica Fund in public-private partnership with the World Bank Group and U.S. Department of State. Bahiyah led a team that established one of the first six accelerators and early-stage investment funds created on the African continent and invested in the first generation of African tech founders. Her leadership attracted global tech organizations like Microsoft, Salesforce, Mozilla and Nokia to provide training, mentorship and access to early-stage capital to the first wave of technology entrepreneurs in East and West Africa. Bahiyah understands the success of communities is driven by investments in technology as well as by concern for the welfare of people. In 2014, to enhance user and media engagement with the Ebola crisis, she developed a social impact microsite called Ebola Deeply within News Deeply, a startup recognized as one of Entrepreneur Magazine's 100 Brilliant Companies. Bahiyah remains an active participant in the arts sphere. In 2012, she founded The Young Art Collector to inspire young collectors to focus on contemporary visual artists working in Africa, Europe, and North and Latin America. She has hosted member events at art fairs and exhibitions in New York City, Miami, Lagos and Bermuda.

Bahiyah is currently a member of the President’s Council of Ceres, Inc., and the Private Equity Women in Investments Network (PEWIN). She formerly served as Co-chair of Capacity Development with the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE). Bahiyah’s commitment to increasing access to investment capital in diverse environments has been recognized by the Knight Foundation, Echoing Green, Entrepreneur Magazine, The Stanford University Social Innovation Review, Responsible Investor Magazine, Crunchbase, The BBC, Impact Alpha, Entrepreneur Magazine, Opal Group, Nation Swell, Social Venture Circle, SOCAP, Toniic, CNN and Forbes. She is a 2021 Bloomberg News New Voices Fellow.

Kirk Sims

Teachers Retirement System of Texas

Kirk Sims heads TRS’ Emerging Manager Program. Since being established in 2005, TRS has committed $3.7 billion to one of the largest programs of its kind. An additional $2 billion has been invested directly with EM Program graduates. Each graduate was selected as a result of consistent outperformance among a group of more than 160 EM managers. Recognizing the Program’s success, in early 2019, TRS rolled out a plan to invest another $3 billion over the next three to five years.

Sims joined the Teacher Retirement System of Texas on March 1, 2019. Before joining Texas Teachers, he was a Senior Investment Officer for the Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois. Sims had oversight and management responsibility of TRS’s Emerging Manager Program, a $750 million evergreen pool of capital designed to identify and invest in emerging investment managers across all asset classes.

Prior, Sims worked at Prudential Retirement where he was responsible for a manager of manager’s retirement platform as well as an open architecture investment platform. He also has a background in asset management and has held various positions with both large and small asset managers.

Sims is a CFA charter holder and holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration from Howard University in Washington, DC.

Steve Swanson

Park Employees' Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago

Steve Swanson is the Executive Director for the Park Employees' Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago (PEABF). The PEABF is a single employer, defined benefit plan covering the eligible public employees of the Chicago Park District. The PEABF has total fund membership of 10,878 and approximately $350m AUM.
Steve’s prior position was the Executive Director for the Firemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago (FABF) which is a defined-benefit, single-employer pension plan that provides benefits to the firefighters and paramedics of the City of Chicago. The FABF has over 9,000 participating members and approximately $900m AUM.

Prior to joining the FABF, he worked for the City of Chicago, where he had been the Director of Finance for the Chicago Fire Department.