Project Punch Card Investment Conference 2023

About the Conference

Our goal at Project Punch Card is to foster long-term investment orientation amongst students underrepresented in the investment research and management business. 

The Project Punch Card Conference is an annual event for Project Punch Card, a non-profit focused on long-term investment orientation. The conference will be all about the long term. You’ll hear from thought leaders in the value investing community about what it means to be long-term oriented.

Who is the conference for?

We expect a blend of Portfolio Managers, Investment Advisors, Analysts and Allocators (i.e pension funds, Endowments, insurance, FOF etc). Though the mission of the not-for-profit is for students our events including this conference are geared primarily toward practitioners, i.e. analysts, portfolio managers and other investment professionals, as well as students who aspire to such roles. Marketing and strategic partners such as Smart Women Securities, Forte Foundation and SEO  may also be a material component of the audience composition.

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Date & Time

Tue, April 11, 2023

8:30 AM – 4:30 PM EDT

Location

Fordham University School of Law

150 West 62nd Street New York,
NY 10023
United States

Confirmed Speakers Include:

Leon G. Cooperman

Founder, Omega Advisors, Inc.,
Chairman & CEO,
Omega Family Office, Inc

A designated Chartered Financial analyst, Lee is a senior member and past president of the New York Society of Security Analysts; Chairman Emeritus of the Saint Barnabas Development Foundation; a member of the Board of Overseers of the Columbia University Graduate School of Business; a member of the Board of Directors of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation; He is a recipient of roger williams university’s honorary doctor of finance and of hunter college’s honorary doctor of humane letters; an inductee into hunter college’s hall of fame; and a recipient of the 2003 american jewish committee (ajc) wall street human relations award, the 2006 seton hall humanitarian of the year award, the 2009 boys & girls clubs of newark award for caring, and the 2009 uja-federation of newYork’s wall street and financial services division lifetime achievement award. In 2013, Lee was inducted into alpha magazine’s hedge fund hall of fame and was honored by the ajc at their 50 th anniversary with the Herbert H. Lehman award for his professional achievements, philanthropic efforts, and longstanding support for ajc. Lee and his wife, Toby, have two sons and three grandchildren.

Jonathan Brandt

Research Analyst at Ruane,
Cunniff & Goldfarb

Jonathan has over 25 years experience as a buy-side analyst at an NYC-based firm that makes long-term equity investments. He is also a generalist with broad interest and coverage but have an emphasis on conglomerates like Berkshire Hathaway and financial services firms. Jonathan Brandt has worked for Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb for nearly 30 years as a security analyst. For several years, he served on a panel of analysts asking questions of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting.

Chris Bloomstran

President and Chief Investment Officer of Semper Augustus Investments Group

Chris has more than three decades of professional investment experience with a value- driven approach to fundamental equity and industry research. Chris writes extensively on Berkshire Hathaway, and more broadly on thematical topics related to the stock market and the economy. His annual year-end letter is widely read among the value investing community. He very much enjoys giving back through mentorship and loves speaking regularly at colleges and universities. Chris has judged the local CFA Institute’s Global Investment Challenge as well as the Regional and the Global Finals for many years. A member of the CFA Institute, he earned his Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 1994.

Cheryl Strauss Einhorn

Founder and CEO of Decisive AREA Method

Cheryl Strauss Einhorn founded Decisive, a decision sciences company that trains people and teams in complex problem solving and decision-making skills using the AREA Method. AREA is an evidence-based decision-making system that uniquely controls for and counters cognitive bias to expand knowledge while improving judgment. Cheryl developed AREA during her two decades as an award-winning investigative journalist writing for publications ranging from The New York Times and Foreign Policy Magazine to Barron’s and The Stanford Social Innovation Review. Cheryl teaches at Cornell University and has authored two books Problem Solved, A Powerful System for Making Complex Decisions with Confidence and Conviction, about personal and professional decision-making, and Investing In Financial Research, A Decision-Making System for Better Results about financial and investment decisions. Her new book about Problem Solver Profiles, Problem Solver, Maximizing Your Strengths To Make Better Decisions, was published in March 2023. Learn more by watching her Ted talk and visiting areamethod.com.

Robert Robotti

President and Chief Investment Officer of Robotti & Company

Robert Robotti is the President and Chief Investment Officer of Robotti & Company. Prior to forming Robotti & Company, Incorporated in 1983, Bob was a vice president and shareholder of Gabelli & Company, Inc. He worked in public accounting before coming to Wall Street and is currently an inactive CPA. Bob holds a BS from Bucknell University and an MBA in Accounting from Pace University. Some of Bob’s areas of coverage include Special Situations, Energy Industry and Home Building. Bob is the principal of the managing member or general partner of several investment vehicles.

Bob currently serves on the Board of Directors of a NYSE-listed real estate company, AMREP Corporation, located in Germantown, PA; as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Pulse Seismic Inc., a seismic data licensing business located in Calgary, Alberta; as an Independent Director of PrairieSky Royalty, a Toronto Stock Exchange listed company located in Calgary, Alberta, having one of the largest portfolios of sub-surface mineral rights in western Canada; as a recently elected Director of NYSE-listed Tidewater, Inc. which owns and operates one of the largest fleets of OSVs (Offshore Support Vessels) in the industry; and was previously on the Board of Directors of BMC Building Materials Holding Corporation, prior to the completion of its merger with Stock Building Supply Holdings, Inc. on December 1, 2015; and Bob had served on the Board of Panhandle Oil & Gas Company, a NYSE-listed diversified mineral company located in Oklahoma City through May 1, 2020.

In addition, he serves on the Boards of many non-profit organizations where he generously donates his time and expertise. Previously, Bob was a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies, established to examine the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other aspects of the federal securities law.

John D. Spears

Managing Director Tweedy, Browne Company LLC

John D. Spears has been with Tweedy, Browne since 1974 and is a member of the firm’s Management Committee and Investment Committee. He is also Vice President of Tweedy, Browne Fund Inc., a mutual fund group. Additionally, he is a member of the Board of Managers of Haverford College. Before joining Tweedy, Browne, Mr. Spears had been in the investment business for five years with Berger, Kent Associates; Davic Associates; and Hornblower & Weeks-Hemphill, Noyes & Co. He studied at the Babson Institute of Business Administration, Drexel Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania — The Wharton School. Mr. Spears brings over 50 years of experience to bear in the investment management business. He has spoken from time-to-time on the topics of value investing, investment theory and behavioral finance, as well as co-authored a number of Tweedy, Browne studies and white papers.

Laura Rittenhouse

Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Rittenhouse Rankings

Laura Rittenhouse is CEO and founder of Rittenhouse Rankings, a pioneer in Financial Analytics Research. The company measures corporate candor to provide clients with unique insights into operational performance, results, and valuation. A financial and strategic coach, Rittenhouse consults with CEOs and CFOs on how to improve performance and boost revenue by strengthening trust with investors, customers, and employees. A former Wall Street executive, Rittenhouse is a keynote speaker, board advisor and author of Investing Between the Lines, which was endorsed by Warren Buffett. In addition to Acus, Ms. Rittenhouse is an advisor to the Nantucket Project Scholar’s program. Her invention of Candor Analytics was chosen by CFA Institute as a “Future of Finance” initiative and she has been featured on CNN, CNBC, Canada’s BNN, and in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, BusinessWeek, Forbes, Fortune, Barron’s, Money Magazine, Fast Company, NACD, and IR Alert.

David E. Marcus

Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Evermore Global Advisors, LLC

David E. Marcus is Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Evermore Global Advisors, LLC. He co-founded the firm in 2009. David is Lead Portfolio Manager of the Evermore Global Value Fund and our separate account portfolios.

Beginning his career in 1988 at Mutual Series Fund, where he was mentored by renowned value investor Michael Price, David rose to manage the Mutual European Fund and co-manage the Mutual Shares and Mutual Discovery Funds, representing over $14 billion in assets. He also served as director of European investments for Franklin Mutual Advisers, LLC.

In 2000, David founded Marcstone Capital Management, LP, a long-short Europe-focused equity manager, largely funded by Swedish financier Jan Stenbeck. After Mr. Stenbeck passed away in 2002, Mr. Marcus closed Marcstone, co-founded a family office for the Stenbeck family, and advised on the restructuring of a number of the public and private companies the family controlled.

David later founded and served as Managing Partner of MarCap Investors LP, which was seeded by Reservoir Capital. David graduated from Northeastern University in 1988 with a B.S. in Business Administration and a concentration in Finance.

Murray Stahl

Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Investment Officer, Co-Founder Horizon Kinetics

Murray is Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Board of Horizon Kinetics and is a co-founder of the Firm. He has over thirty years of investing experience and is responsible for overseeing the Firm’s proprietary research. Murray serves as the Firm’s Chief Investment Officer, and chairs the Firm’s Investment Committee, which is responsible for portfolio management decisions across the entire Firm. He is also the Co-Portfolio Manager for a number of registered investment companies, private funds, and institutional separate accounts. Additionally, Murray is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of FRMO Corp. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, the Bermuda Stock Exchange and Texas Pacific Land Corporation. Prior to co-founding the Firm, Murray spent 16 years at Bankers Trust Company (1978-1994) as a senior portfolio manager and research analyst. As a senior fund manager, he was responsible for investing the Utility Mutual Fund, along with three of the bank’s Common Trust Funds: The Special Opportunity Fund, The Utility Fund, and The Tangible Assets Fund. He was also a member of the Equity Strategy Group and the Investment Strategy Group, which established asset allocation guidelines for the Private Bank. Murray received a Bachelor of Arts in 1976, a Masters of Arts in 1980 from Brooklyn College, and an MBA from Pace University in 1985.

​​​Joyce Zhang

Senior Investment Officer at The Wallace Foundation

​​​Joyce Zhang joined the investment team at Wallace in 2016. She assists the chief investment officer in the management of the foundation’s investment portfolio. Her responsibilities include the monitoring of investment managers, and risk management and analytical support.

Zhang received her M.B.A. from Yale University, holds an M.S. in global business from Pepperdine University and a B.S. in electrical engineering from Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China.

Zhang worked as a senior fixed income trader at Ping An Asset Management, one of the largest insurance companies in China. There, she traded Chinese and Hong Kong stocks and international bonds for 200 portfolios with more than $100 billion in assets and was one of the firm’s top traders. Earlier, as an intern at Xin Tian Fund Management, a global macro hedge fund, Zhang analyzed global currencies and commodities, and developed computer models to monitor the Chinese fixed income markets. Zhang is both a chartered financial analyst (CFA) and chartered alternative investment analyst (CAIA).​

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