“Real estate touches all the big evolutions we see in society”. Listen as David Sol, Global Head of Policy, FTSE Russell, and Dominique Moerenhout, CEO of the European Real Estate Association (EPRA) discuss how mega trends such as specialisation, scale, consolidation, sustainability and innovation affect the real estate market. 

In this episode, Indrani De, FTSE Russell and Ed Tom, Cboe, present new research they have co-authored that explores how options on public equity can be used to manage private equity risk. Their findings reveal surprising similarities between private and public markets once smoothing techniques are applied—and how options strategies can be a good hedge of private equity risk exposures, using both tactical and systematic hedges.

Listen as Joe Thomson, Founder and CEO of Pacer ETFs, discusses Pacer’s origins in fund distribution.  Our discussion covers the launch of Pacer’s ETF business in 2015 and their focus on developing deep relationships with financial advisors. Guest: Joe Thompson, Founder and CEO, Pacer Financial  Host: Steve Kriechman, Director, Index Investments Group, FTSE Russell 

Marina Mets (FTSE Russell) and BlackRock's Joyce Choi talk about the recent market volatility and how the recent market dynamics in the US along with the falling US dollar make international fixed income more attractive to invest in. Joyce discusses the best way to dip your toes into international bonds and which iShares ETF invests that way.   Guest: Joyce Choi, Head of Institutional Product Strategy, Fixed Income, ETFs, BlackRock Host: Marina Mets, Head of Americas, Fixed Income & Convertibles, FTSE Russell

In this episode, Stephanie Maier, FTSE Russell and Laura Starks, University of Texas, discuss investor democracy and the evolving landscape of proxy voting where shareholder voting becomes more open and inclusive, enabling broader participation and representation. Laura explains the impact of decentralised voting and investor choice programs, revealing key findings from her latest research on how these shifts influence decisions on ESG and climate proposals, and corporate governance.  Guest: Laura Starks, George Kozmetsky Centennial Distinguished University Chair and Professor of Finance at the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin  Host: Stephanie Maier, Head of Sustainability, FTSE Russell 

Meet StepStone Group, a private markets solutions provider with $723 billion in total capital responsibility (as of June 30, 2025). In June 2025, FTSE Russell announced a partnership with StepStone to leverage their extensive private markets database in the creation of new indices—designed to help investors better understand these strategies and potentially broaden access to the asset class. We sat down with Tom Keck, StepStone’s Co-founder and Partner, to explore the hidden value these next-generation private markets benchmarks are poised to unlock.  

Dana Moody (FTSE Russell) and Vanguard's Carole Okigbo discuss recent Vanguard milestones and review some current ETF industry trends, including the resilience of the ETF structure in the face of more recent market volatility. Lastly, they look at portfolio construction considerations and some common ETF misconceptions. 

Portfolio construction is a key tool for investors. By applying a framework and a systematic approach, investors may understand their exposures better. Listen to learn more about both practical and theoretical ideas about building robust and resilience strategies.  Host: David Sol, Global Head of Policy and Governance FTSE Russell Guests: Dr. Joseph Simonian, Head of Equity Portfolio Design and Analytics, CalPERS and Sebastian Lancetti, Head of Index Research & Design, Americas, FTSE Russell  

Anthony Rochte (FTSE Russell) talks with GSAM's Brendan McCarthy and ProShares' Mo Haghbin about the evolution of the ETF industry. They discuss how the types of ETFs are evolving and how the question in portfolio construction is no longer about active vs passive, it's how you combine the two optimally.

Media reports, social media posts, press releases, CEO conference calls and many other channels deliver unstructured data to the market. MarketPsych uses AI and its large language models to analyse emotions and sentiment and turn these into signals and forecasts. Listen to learn more about this exciting and powerful growing field.   

Welcome to the second episode of our new three-part FTSE Russell Convenes ‘geopolitical’ series with Tina Fordham, independent global political strategist and founder of Fordham Global Foresight.  In this episode Tina discusses this ‘very different victory’ for President Trump, and its potential impact on global markets. She shares her views and expectations on topics from the change in political power, investor optimism, and the new administration, through to global political stability.

Welcome to the second episode of our new three-part FTSE Russell Convenes ‘geopolitical’ series with Tina Fordham, independent global political strategist and founder of Fordham Global Foresight.  In this episode Tina discusses this ‘very different victory’ for President Trump, and its potential impact on global markets. She shares her views and expectations on topics from the change in political power, investor optimism, and the new administration, through to global political stability.

The spotlight is on the upcoming U.S. elections…   We are pleased to introduce the first episode of our new three-part FTSE Russell Convenes ‘geopolitical’ series, with Tina Fordham, Founder of Fordham Global Foresight. An accomplished independent global political strategist and advisor to senior leaders about the intersection between geopolitics, markets and the business environment, Tina shares her views on the polls, the ‘race’ from investor perspectives, and the acceleration in, and impact of, drivers of geopolitical risk.

Concluding this season of FTSE Russell Convenes, in the 40th anniversary year of the FTSE Russell US Indexes, we shine the spotlight on the evolution of FTSE Russell’s indices and how client input is key to their success.  With fifty years of indexing experiencing between them, Bryce Clarke, regional director, Index Investments Group and Catherine Yoshimoto, director of equity product management at FTSE Russell are ideally placed to discuss indexing from the product and client side.  Here they explain the necessity to collaborate with clients to really understand their desired investment outcomes, and how this intel feeds into FTSE Russell’s product development, customisation and delivery. 

Johannes Lee, Investor within the asset management team at Builders Vision—the family office and impact platform created by the grandson of Walmart founders—discusses the organisation’s mission, investment strategy and recent work in stewardship and engagement.    He provides detail on Builders Vision’s investment focus in key thematic areas including sustainable food and agriculture, healthy oceans, renewable energy and thriving communities, with a focus on how the portfolio plays out both actively and passively. 

In episode 8 of FTSE Russell Convenes, Walter Kress, Chief Investment Officer of Ernst & Young, LLP discusses the ‘large playground’ of fixed income and how individual components of the fixed income market are significantly different to two years ago.  He explains how the inflation environment is playing through to pension plans, the additional fixed income opportunity set beyond a core vanilla holding and the very different role of fixed income in portfolios today. 

How is robo advisory and machine learning impacting the financial services market? In episode 7, Alberto Rossi, Professor of Finance, at Georgetown University McDonough School of Business explains how the right balance of human and algorithmic engagement empowers investors to become more effective. He shares the importance of being cautious when using AI, the need to really understand signals and the advice he would give to a CIO of an asset management firm building a strategy around AI.

Fiona Bassett, CEO of FTSE Russell shares her unique perspective on indexing. Fiona discusses why she feels we are early in the evolution of indexing, what she sees as key challenges within the index industry today and the opportunities that are on the horizon.

How far is crypto exposure evolving beyond Bitcoin? In this episode of FTSE Russell Convenes, Inkoo Kang, Vice President, ETFs at Grayscale joins Kristen Mierzwa, Head of Digital Assets at FTSE Russell to discuss how pension plans and institutions are more easily gaining access to crypto products, and what Inkoo’s product development role involves, from the early stages of the ideation process all the way to in-market support. Inkoo also discusses the emergence of exposures in US ETF markets, his views on the story beyond Bitcoin, and why he sees Ethereum as a tech stack built for the modern world. 

In our fourth episode of FTSE Russell Convenes, Joyce Choi, Head of Institutional Product Strategy, Fixed Income ETFs at BlackRock, shares her knowledge on fixed income markets at what she sees to be a very interesting and pivotal time. From key market drivers through to market structure and products, Joyce explains the core components of fixed income markets that have enabled investors to build portfolios with a wider number of strategies, and for dealers to more easily hedge their risk.