FOR RELEASE
July 1, 2008

CONTACT
Beau Ballinger
303.850.3080

Nassim Nicholas Taleb to Headline IMCA Conference
2008 Fall Professional Development Conference to be Held in Denver

DENVER—July 1, 2008—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, researcher and best-selling author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, will be speaking at the Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA) 2008 Fall Professional Development Conference, September 25–27 in Denver, CO.

A scholar in the study of chance events, Mr. Taleb will discuss the “black swan”—a highly improbable event formed by three principal characteristics: it is highly unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, an explanation is concocted that makes it appear less random and more predictable than it actually was. For Mr. Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.

Mr. Taleb holds an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. in management science from the University of Paris. He is currently Visiting Professor of Marketing at the London Business School, the Dean’s Professor in the Sciences of Uncertainty at the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Adjunct Professor of Mathematics at the Courant Institute of New York University, and affiliated faculty member at Wharton’s Financial Institutions Center.

Other keynote presentations slated for IMCA’s Fall Professional Development Conference include:

• "The Upcoming Election: A Look Ahead in Politics and Policy", presented by Dan Bartlett.
• "Implications of Deleveraging", presented by Ronald Temple, Lazard Asset Management.
• "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About State Securities Regulation, but Was Afraid to Ask", presented by Fred Joseph, Colorado Division of Securities.
• "Let Me See Your Body Talk: the Science of Nonverbal Business Communications", presented by Jan Hargrave, Jan Hargrave and Associates.
• "Why the United States Will Continue to Dominate the 21st Century", presented by Paul Tiffany, Ph.D., Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, and The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

With a projected attendance of more than 1,200 investment consultants, wealth advisors, and investment managers, IMCA’s Fall Professional Development Conference offers a variety of workshops, covering topics like the emerging private foundation market, navigating the ETF landscape, and building a retirement income planning practice. Industry researcher Cerulli Associates also will present "2008 Retail and Institutional Consulting—Industry Research in Review".

For more information, or to download the full conference brochure, click here.

###

Note to media: IMCA offers full-time editors and reporters complimentary registration to the 2008 Fall Professional Development Conference in Denver. Contact Beau Ballinger via e-mail or at 303.850.3080 for more information or to register for the conference.