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October 14-16, 2003
The Ritz Carlton
1150 22nd Street, NW
Washington, DC

Speakers' Showcase

Zvi Bodie
A professor of finance and economics at Boston University's School of Management and co-author of the just-published Worry-Free Investing, takes a fresh look at investing. Instead of asking, "How much money will I make?" he and co-author Michael Clowes ask, "How much can I afford to lose?" They believe stocks, even when held for long periods of time, are too risky for many people to achieve financial security. The idea of Worry Free Investing, is to avoid the downside of investing that most have experienced over the past three years by locking in a long-term standard of living while taking as little market risk as possible. Zvi will explain why he is challenging conventional investing wisdom and talk about ways of protecting retirement savings for the long haul.

Francois Gadenne
A leader in building technology solutions for the financial industry, has now created a breakthrough investment product - GRInS© - that builds the predictable income of a defined benefit plan into a 401(k) plan. The CEO and co-founder of Retirement Engineering will share his beliefs as to why retirement savers are ready for investment products that provide guaranteed income with minimal risk.

Mike Jensen
Formerly NBC's News' Emmy-award-winning chief financial correspondent and rated by TV Guide's as one of the best economics/business correspondents in America, will share his insights from covering every major economic event of the last three decades to today's financial markets. What is the outlook for the U.S. economy? Has recent market experience changed investors' expectations and behavior? Mike will bring the same cutting analysis he showcases on MSNBC to SVIA's Forum to answer these important questions.

Andrew Lo
A professor of finance for MIT and Director of the Laboratory for Financial Engineering, will look at the risk management parameters in Stable Value to ensure that Stable Value delivers on it's three promises of principal preservation, income generation, and investor responsive liquidity. He will share his insights on how institutional and individual investors are interpreting risk given three years of a down stock market, the aging of the population, and the trend towards self-reliance for retirement security, and how Stable Value compares to other conservative investments.

Bill Press
From investigative reporter to political insider to nationally syndicated newspaper columnist to co-host of MSNBC's Buchanan and Press, Bill is in a position to examine an issue from every angle. Bill will combine his political expertise established in California Democratic politics with his reporting skills to give his perspective on the major issues, challenges, and the candidates that will shape the 2004 presidential elections.

Ann Combs
Ann L. Combs, Assistant Secretary of the Employee Benefits Security Administration, heads an agency which oversees approximately 700,000 pension plans with nearly $5 trillion in assets and another 6 million health and welfare benefits plans. These benefit plans have just undergone some major tests in the 49-year history of ERISA: the aging of the baby boomers, the move towards defined contribution plans, the three-year equity market decline with increased volatility, plus some of the lowest interest rates in the history of the bond and Treasury markets, and monumental corporate failures that have impacted defined contribution plans. Assistant Secretary Combs will give her insights as to how the corporate retirement system has fared these shocks and what the portend for ERISA's future.