John D'Agostino, Moderator

John D’Agostino is the Managing Director and Global Lead Investor Engagement for DMS’ Governance, where he provides guidance and independent oversight as a board member to ensure adherence to governance, regulatory and compliance requirements. John has served as a director in a wide range of industries, with notable expertise is in technology driven companies and investment vehicles characterized by complex strategies and asset classes including finance (derivatives, structured credit, direct lending, high frequency/quant and similar strategies), consumer (credit scoring, transportation) and general technology enabled companies. John manages the firm’s institutional LP and regulatory relationships and works with large global pension funds and global regulators to share information and determine industry best practices for governance.

John began his career as Vice President and Head of Strategy of the New York Mercantile Exchange, where he helped transition the floor to electronic trading and was part of the leadership team building out the core systems to accommodate co-location, quant and HFT volumes. He also led the effort to develop the first Middle East energy derivatives exchange in partnership with the Dubai Government and became the subject of two NY Times bestselling books on the effort (Rigged by Ben Mezrich and the Start Up Of You by Reid Hoffman).

A cum laude graduate of Williams College, John received a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Harvard Business School, and he also studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University. He has lectured at INSEAD University and guests lectures at MIT Sloan Business School and develops research notes with the MIT Media Lab around Fintech. In 2019 he was named Chairman of the UK Government’s Asset Management Working Group at request of the UK Consul General in NY.