Who We Are

Vadim is an entrepreneur and innovator, founder of several companies focused on novel technologies in Biology and Finance. Involved at the early stages of the genome revolution, Vadim designed key algorithms finding similarities in DNA and molecule structure.
Immediately prior to founding Turing Technology, Vadim was Managing Director and the Head of Asset Management Division at Incapital where he led efforts focusing Holdings Recognition technologies and Risk Sensitive Investment Strategies.
Turing is not Vadim's first entrepreneurial effort, as he also was the Co-Founder of Evolving Machines, LLC and Founder and CEO of IntelDM, Inc., a consulting firm providing mathematical and programming services for the financial services and biotech industries.
Vadim is fluent in multiple computer and web programming languages, software and database programs. He earned an MS in Technology from the Kharkiv Politechnical University in Kharkiv, Ukraine.

Rob has over 30 years of experience in asset management with functional business leadership roles across product development, enterprise commercialization, and distribution strategy. In recent years, he consulted with private equity and venture firms around early maturation and technology driven firms in the financial technology space, including the early-stage efforts of Qraft Technologies, an artificial intelligence (AI) driven asset manager.
Prior to consulting efforts, Rob was President and Head of Direxion, a leading provider of ETFs and mutual funds with nearly $30B in assets under management (AUM). In this capacity, Rob led all aspects of the firm’s business including commercial strategy and business development.
Rob held a number of executive positions at Blackrock, including Managing Director and Head of iShares US Smart Beta ETFs, head of the iShares product strategy for Blackrock’s US Wealth Advisory (USWA) business, and Head of iShares Global Product Marketing and US Channel Marketing.
Before joining BlackRock, Mr. Nestor was at Vanguard, working in a variety of product and business development leadership roles in both the retail and institutional divisions. Key positions included running business, product, and marketing development for the Institutional Asset Management business, leading Vanguard's strategic business development in the area of retiree advice, product, and service development, leading Vanguard's Annuity & Insurance Services, and Global Head of Product Development, when Vanguard launched their first Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) in the early 2000s.
Mr. Nestor is a CFA charterholder. He holds an M.B.A. from Drexel University in Finance - Investment Management and B.S. in Economics from the University of Delaware. He is also a member of the Financial Analysts of Philadelphia and the CFA Institute. Rob is also a founding and current Board member of the Philadelphia Chapter of Women in ETFs.

Matthew M. Bell, CFA, CFP^® is President of Bell Family Interests LLC, a private family office management and consulting firm. Mr. Bell is also an active investor in private companies through direct transactions, through his involvement as a Founding Member of the Alamo Angels Network, and through other various venture capital funds and private equity investment vehicles.
He served previously as Chief Investment Officer and Director of Family Office Services for Cross Financial Services Corporation, a Texas-based financial planning and investment management firm, from 2007 through 2015, as well as served as an investment advisor representative registered with the United States Securities & Exchange Commission and the Texas State Securities Board. In addition, he attained the Certified Financial Planner (CFP^®) designation in 1997. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA^®) charter holder, having been awarded his charter by the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute in 2003.
Mr. Bell is a graduate of Southern Methodist University and holds a B.B.A. degree in finance. He was previously the President of Southwest Investment Management, LLC, a Texas-based registered investment advisor firm, from its founding in 1997 through 2006. Mr. Bell was previously a Managing Director of The Trust Company, N.A., a federally chartered trust bank headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, and has been a registered representative with various NASD-registered broker-dealer firms in San Antonio and Dallas, Texas. Prior to founding Southwest Investment Management, LLC, Mr. Bell oversaw the investment operations of a financial planning and investment management firm in Dallas, Texas from 1993 to 1997. Prior to 1993, he performed investment research and analysis for a regional money management firm.

Bob has been a well-recognized expert in the ETF market since 1993, when he was one of the principals behind the development of WEBS -- the precursor to iShares ETFs. In the ensuing years he has consulting to issuers and governments on ETF infrastructure support, became a named inventor on multiple security patents involving exchange-traded products, and he has played a leading role in the design and development of over 400 exchange traded products in the U.S., Europe and Pacific Rim. Recently, Bob was presented the ETF 2018 Nate Most Lifetime Achievement Award.
Bob is one of the founders of ProcureAM, LLC, and prior to ProcureAM, Bob was the owner and primary consultant of Robert Tull & Company. Prior to launching Robert Tull & Company, he held senior level roles at such firms as Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, where he was Managing Director and COO of Bankers Trust Global Custody, Benefit Payments and Master Trust business units, and the American Stock Exchange LLC (AMEX), where he was Vice President of New Product Development and Executive Director of AMEX ETF Services.
Bob has over twenty years of experience providing ETF and ETP consulting services to governments, SROs and issuers to develop and list 400 ETFs and ETPs in 18 different countries. As the result of this work I am a named inventor on multiple financial patents at the USPTO.
Services include consultation on new financial regulations, investment management system modifications, issuer workflow changes, SRO modifications to support creations and redemptions, and issuer product design features.
Consulting and design work has extended into the development of equity indexes that include smart beta, sectors, and long/short index features.

David M. Blitzer is former Managing Director and Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) where he had overall responsibility for index security selection, as well as index analysis and management.
Prior to becoming Chairman of the Index Committee, Dr. Blitzer was Standard & Poor's Chief Economist. Before joining Standard & Poor's, he was Corporate Economist at The McGraw-Hill Companies (now S&P Global), S&P DJI's parent corporation. Prior to that, he was a Senior Economic Analyst with National Economic Research Associates, Inc. and did consulting work for various government and private sector agencies including the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the National Commission on Materials Policy and Natural Resources Defense Council.
Dr. Blitzer won the 2012 William F. Sharpe Indexing Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Blitzer is the author of Outpacing the Pros: Using Indices to Beat Wall Street's Savviest Money Managers, (McGraw-Hill, 2001) and What's the Economy Trying to Tell You? Everyone's Guide to Understanding and Profiting from the Economy, (McGraw-Hill, 1997).
In the year 2000, Dr. Blitzer was named to SmartMoney magazine's distinguished list of the 30 most influential people in the world of investing, which ranked him seventh, and in the year 1998, Dr. Blitzer was named the nation's top economist, receiving the Blue Chip Economic Forecasting Award for most accurately predicting the country's leading economic indicators for four years in a row. A well-known speaker at investing and indexing conferences, Dr. Blitzer is often quoted in the global business press, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Financial Times, and various other financial and industry publications. He is frequently heard on local and national television and radio in the U.S.
A graduate of Cornell University with a B.S. in engineering, Dr. Blitzer received his M.A. in economics from the George Washington University and his Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University.

Avi co-founded Strategic Insight (SI), a thought leadership and business intelligence firm for mutual fund industry leaders just as the modern U.S. mutual fund industry was emerging in the mid-1980s. Today Strategic Insight's research and technologies are used by investment companies across the mutual fund industry (who in total oversee over 90% of industry's assets); the SEC's Investment Management unit; the Investment Company Institute; industry lawyers, mutual fund directors, as well as service and consulting firms.
Although Avi retired after his 30th year at SI, he continues to be invited to keynote speaking engagements, industry conferences and panels to offer his perspective as one of the fund industry's most experienced researchers.
As Strategic Insight's Director of Research, Avi pioneered the firm's fact-based research approach, served as the firm's leading voice for the mutual fund industry's key developments, and initiated many areas of research focusing on topics of interest for fund industry executives and independent fund trustees. Avi also educated U.S. and global regulators on mutual fund industry trends, including areas where fact-based observations offer some guidance in the development of the industry's regulations.
Avi is an Advisory Board Member of Baron Funds, and an advisor to a number of service firms to the fund industry, including FundGuard. He presents at times in industry conference and panels and offers educational sessions to mutual fund executives and independent directors.
Avi received a B.Sc. degree in Chemistry from Tel Aviv University, and an MBA with distinction from the NYU Stern School of Business.

Mr. Azrak is founder of ETFx Investment Partners and of ETFx Indexes, LLC an index developer for the Exchange Traded Funds market (ETFs). Elias has been a pioneer in the ETFs and index space since 2004 and has been instrumental in bringing to market the first clean energy ETF, the first water ETF, as well as other ETFs to the US and Europe which cumulatively attracted over $4 billion. The success of the water ETF has been critical to the development of the ETF market. Mr. Azrak's experience has been through a hands-on approach to investment, either by managing portfolio companies or by creating ways to develop liquidity for companies or industries. His efforts have covered both the US and Emerging Markets, and provided investment opportunity in sectors that had not traditionally been in easy reach to investors.
His experience spans more than 35 years in the financial markets, including Mergers, Acquisitions, Direct Investments, Structuring and Placement of Funds and other type of Offerings, Investment Management and Trading, Shareholder Meetings, Proxy Battles and other Corporate Actions.
From 2001 to 2005 he was the Managing Member of Hydrogen Ventures LLC, a technical and financial advisory firm specializing in advanced energy and transportation technology companies in the early to development stage. From 1999 to 2001 Mr. Azrak represented SAM Sustainability Group in Geneva, Switzerland where he was responsible for marketing SAM funds and was also involved in the structuring of derivative products based on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. From 1992 to 1998 Mr. Azrak managed Private Equity transactions, Foreign Direct Investments and portfolio investments in Russia where he was founder of Soyuz Advisors, which provided investment and corporate finance services, as well as liquidity development programs, to Russian companies in the telecom, utilities, oil & gas and automotive industries. From 1987 to 1992, Mr. Azrak worked with SASEA Holding SA, where he was involved in a number of acquisitions and divestitures. During 1989 to 1991 he was the Treasurer of Pathé Communications, a portfolio company that successfully acquired the US movie conglomerate MGM, and became responsible for the management of a yearly cash flow of over $1 billion.
Elias Azrak served on a number of corporate boards of listed and private companies as well as non-profit organizations such as the California Hydrogen Business Council, the Hydrogen Financing Forum, and other organizations.

Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Distinguished Professor of Moscow State University, head of the Department of Probability Theory in Moscow State University's Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics. Senior researcher at the Steklov Mathematical Institute. Works on a broad range of questions of general probability theory and mathematical statistics. Author of 10 monographs, eight textbooks and more than 280 scientific articles. Educated 57 Candidates and 30 Doctors of Science. A student of Andrey Kolmogorov, he is the editor-compiler of two volumes of Selected Works and other jubilee publications dedicated to the anniversary of the outstanding mathematician. In his lectures at the School of Data Analysis, he shows students how the theory of stochastic processes "works" in the field of data analysis.

Billy Bean is a former professional baseball player, an accomplished author, and is currently a major league baseball (MLB) front office executive serving as Vice President and Special Assistant to the Commissioner. In 2014, Mr. Bean was announced as MLB's first-ever Ambassador for Inclusion.
As a senior advisor to Commissioner Rob Manfred, his role focuses on baseball's social responsibility initiatives and LGBT inclusion. Among his responsibilities, Mr. Bean works with MLB's 30 clubs to bring awareness to all players, coaches, managers, umpires, employees, and stakeholders throughout baseball to ensure an equitable, inclusive, and supportive workplace for everyone.
Billy is on the Board of Directors of LGBTQ Loyalty Holdings, which delivers progressive financial indices and marketing platforms for the LGBTQ community, and is in the process of launching an ETF based upon its first such index. This ETF and Index will fit within the environmental, social and governance ("ESG") segment. Billy is also on the Board of Directors of LifeApps Brands, Inc., a publicly traded company which intends to deliver financial and marketing platforms specific to the LGBTQ community.
Mr. Bean is a member of the MLB Owner's Diversity and Inclusion Committee and was instrumental in the development of MLB's 'Shred Hate' bullying prevention program, a ground breaking educational youth campaign and partnership with ESPN. He is also the author of the book, "Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life in and out of Major League Baseball."
He broke into the big leagues with the Detroit Tigers, and tied a major-league record with four hits in his first game. He went on to play for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres, in a career that spanned 1987 - 1995. Mr. Bean was a two-time "All-America" outfielder at Loyola Marymount University before graduating with a degree in Business Administration. During the 1986 season, Bean led the Loyola Marymount Lions to a midseason #1 national ranking and a berth into the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.

Mr. Daukas has over 30 years of investment management, mutual fund, wealth management and trust experience. Previous roles include Chairman and CEO of People’s United Advisors, Inc., Chairman of the Management Committee at Harbor Capital Management, Chief Operating Officer of Fleet Investment Advisors, and Chief Operating Officer of The Managers Funds division of Affiliated Managers Group.
Mr. Daukas earned his Bachelor's degree at Dartmouth College and his Masters at Trinity College. He holds both the Chartered Financial Analyst and the Certified Financial Planner credentials.