CAIA Texas Chapter Launch - Houston
FOLLOW US: 
Join us to celebrate the official launch of CAIA's 18th global chapter:
CAIA Texas
Educational & Networking Event
Wednesday, October 29th
5:30 pm - 8:30 pm
St. Regis, Houston, TX
Remarks
William Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association
Keenan Carstens, CFA, CAIA CAIA Texas Chapter Head, Houston
Featured Panelists
Moderator - Keith Black, Ph.D., CAIA, CFA - Managing Director, Curriculum and Exams for CAIA
Steve Bender - SVP, CFO and Treasurer for Westlake Chemical Corporation/Westlake Chemical Partners, LP
David Oelman - Capital Markets Practice Group Leader, Vinson & Elkins, LLP
Emily Hsieh, Director of Operations, Alerian
Gregory A. Reid - Managing Director for Salient Partners and President and CEO of Salient's Master Limited Partnership Business
This event is complimentary and open to CAIA members, candidates, and industry professionals interested in learning more about AI education and the CAIA charter.
Speaker Bios:
Gregory A. Reid is a Partner and Managing Director of Salient and serves as the President and CEO of Salient’s Master Limited Partnership (MLP) business. Salient manages approximately $4.8 billion in public MLP investments in both long-short and long-only strategies.¹ Mr. Reid and his team also actively invest in private MLP investments and other energy-related opportunities. Prior to joining Salient, Mr. Reid served as a Founder and CEO of RDG Capital LLC, a Houston-based asset management firm specializing in MLP investments. Prior to that, he served as Senior Vice President of Merrill Lynch. He began his career in the financial services industry with Goldman Sachs. Mr. Reid earned his undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University and later graduated from Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management with his Master of Business Administration (MBA). Mr. Reid is a member of the Austin Chapter of Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) and is very active in his community through his involvement in various charitable organizations. Mr. Reid and his wife, Janelle, have one son and two daughters.
Mr. M. Steven Bender, also known as Steve, CPA has been Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Westlake Chemical Partners GP LLC, the general partner of Westlake Chemical Partners LP since March 2014. Mr. Bender has also been Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Westlake Chemical Corp. since February 2008. Mr. Bender has been Treasurer of Westlake Chemical Corp. since July 2011, a position he also held from February 2008 to December 2010. Mr. Bender served as Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer at Westlake Chemical Corp. from February 2007 to February 2008 and its Vice President and Treasurer from June 2005 to February 2007. Mr. Bender served as Vice President and Treasurer of KBR, Inc. (formerly, Kellogg, Brown and Root, Inc.) from June 2002 to June 2005. He held the position of Assistant Treasurer and Director of International Treasury for Halliburton Company from 1996 to 2002. He held various financial positions within Halliburton Company. Additionally, He was employed by Texas Eastern Corporation for over a decade in a variety of increasingly responsible audit, finance and treasury positions. He has over 27 years of treasury and finance experience. He has been Director of Westlake Chemical Partners GP LLC since March 2014. Mr. Bender is a Certified Public Accountant, and holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Texas A & M University and an M.B.A from Southern Methodist University.
David Oelman
David focuses his practice primarily on corporate and securities transactions for public companies, private companies, investment banking and private equity firms. His representation includes: advising boards on corporate governance matters; public offerings and private placements of equity and debt; publicly traded limited partnerships; mergers, acquisitions and dispositions; and joint ventures and private equity investments. David has particular experience with publicly-traded master limited partnerships, exploration and production companies and royalty trusts.
Emily Hsieh, CPA is the Director of Global Operations at Alerian, which equips investors to make informed decisions about Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) and energy infrastructure. Ms. Hsieh manages the firm’s relationships with MLPs and licensees. She also oversees Alerian’s advertising campaigns and develops business strategies for the Alerian Index Series. Ms. Hsieh was previously with Raymond James & Associates Inc as a Senior Associate in the firm’s Equity Research Division, covering the midstream energy MLP space. She developed differentiated investment calls and worked closely with the firm’s financial advisors and institutional investors. Ms. Hsieh graduated with a Masters of Professional Accounting and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. She is also a contributing author to Midstream Business, a monthly publication addressing the need for business market intelligence on North American energy infrastructure.
He contributes regularly to The CFA Digest, and has published in a number of journals, including The Journal of Trading, The Journal of Investing, The Journal of Alternative Investments, and The Journal of Derivatives and Hedge Funds. He is the author of the book "Managing a Hedge Fund," as well as a contributor to the second of edition of the CAIA Level I and Level II textbooks. Dr. Black was named to Institutional Investor magazine's list of "Rising Stars of Hedge Funds" in 2010.
Dr. Black earned a BA from Whittier College, an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University, and a PhD from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He has earned the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and was a member of the inaugural class of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) candidates.
William (Bill) J. Kelly, CEO of the CAIA Association, is an asset management industry veteran with extensive managerial and boardroom experience gained through successive CFO, COO, CEO and Independent Board director roles. He has led both start-ups and full scale global organizations. Bill is the former CEO of Robeco Investment Management, a subsidiary of the Netherlands-based global asset management organization with over $200 billion of assets under management, where he oversaw all aspects of United States business, including portfolio management, distribution and product development. He also was responsible for the strategic growth, introduction, and positioning of new managed products in the US and Europe, including alternative investments. Bill was a founder and former CEO of Boston Partners Asset Management, a self-funded partnership enterprise, which became one of the industry’s largest and most successful start-up money management organizations. Previous to that, he served as CFO of The Boston Company Asset Management and earlier in his career held various positions at Bear Stearns and was an auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers.