Top Questions: BattleFin Discovery Day New York, 2025

BattleFin is hosting its annual New York data conference on June 10–11 in Midtown Manhattan.

Jun 09, 2025

BattleFin’s Discovery Day NYC (June 10–11, 2025) brings together top alt-data, AI, and LLM leaders for curated panels, vendor showcases and speed-date-style buy-side/vendor meetings.

To help the data community prepare, I've created targeted questions for each speaker and panel. There are 3 key themes to my questions:

To help the data community prepare, I've created targeted questions for each speaker and panel.

AI-Driven Transformation of Data Workflows
Vendor-to-Buy-Side Commercialization Challenges
Macroeconomic and Sector Specific Signal Development Using Alternative Data

https://www.battlefin.com/events/new-york-2025-new#event-agenda

Welcome to the Data Score newsletter, composed by DataChorus LLC. This newsletter is your source for insights into data-driven decision-making. Whether you're an insight seeker, a unique data company, a software-as-a-service provider, or an investor, this newsletter is for you. I'm Jason DeRise, a seasoned expert in the field of data-driven insights. I was at the forefront of pioneering new ways to generate actionable insights from alternative data. Before that, I successfully built a sell-side equity research franchise based on proprietary data and non-consensus insights. I remain active in the intersection of data, technology, and financial insights. Through my extensive experience as a purchaser and creator of data, I have a unique perspective, which I am sharing through the newsletter.

Note: Agenda as of June 8th, 2025

June 10th, 2025: Quant Focus

2:00 PM Overview, What’s to come from BattleFin & Exabel
Tim Harrington, CEO, BattleFin

Question: How will you integrate Exabel’s modeling sandbox with BattleFin’s Discovery Day data-vendor pipeline to shorten the cycle from proof-of-concept to production deployment on the buy side?

2:10 PM Setting up for success at BattleFin events
Sarah Smith, SVP of Sales, Exabel

Question: Based on your interaction with quant teams and the Exable platform, what are the top three misalignments you see between vendor pitch decks and buyside workflows? How can vendors recalibrate?

2:20 PM Making your data AI and Analytics ready
Daniel Petzold Head of Marketing, Crux

Question: As explainable AI becomes mandatory, which metadata standards should vendors adopt to ensure transparency in automated feature-generation pipelines?

2:40 PM Tactical strategies for data providers to go beyond the first 5 customers
Alex Nephew, CEO, FirstParty

Question: What frameworks has FirstParty found most effective for helping emerging data vendors get past early trial periods with asset managers on the way to broader success with the account?

3:10 PM Exabel Partner benefits and opportunities. Research, Exposure, Joint Marketing
Romit Sevani, Partner Growth, Exabel

Question: When evaluating co-marketing programs, which shared KPIs deliver the clearest ROI signals that the collaborative marketing is working for the partner?

3:30 PM Buy side feedback for vendors
Rich Brown, Global Head of Market Data, Jain Global

Question: From procurement to live-production handoffs, where do you see the biggest friction points in a vendor’s delivery process?

3:50 PM What to expect from BattleFin New York
Tim Harrington, CEO, BattleFin

Question: What innovations can attendees expect at BattleFin New York 2025 to further facilitate deal flow between data providers and buy-side teams?

June 10th, 2025: Alt Data Content

3:30pm Let's talk AI, Alt Data and the future of finance
How will research and models need to evolve in the world of AI Efficiency or Signal, where will Alt data and AI have the biggest impact
Tim Harrington, CEO, BattleFin
Naim El-Far, Head of Equities Investment Engineering, Bridgewater Associates

Question: How should asset managers consider integrating LLM-powered pipelines to enhance the discovery and evaluation of alternative data signals, and what new guardrails should be in place for model governance as AI moves from “assist” to “automate”?

3:50 PM Hierarchical Modeling: Advancing the Frontier of KPI Modeling with Alternative Data
Improving model accuracy and unlocking profitability forecasting by incorporating financial logic into machine learning models
Zac Yang, VP of Product, Exabel

Question: What were the biggest challenges in scaling that architecture to handle limited-history alt data, and which enhancements are you prioritizing to improve interpretability for buyside stakeholders in Exabel’s multilevel KPI forecasting?

4:05 PM New Vendor/Product Showcases
Joseph Berger, Managing Director, Guideline
Ben Darr, Founder, CredolQ
Paul Mann, Director, Business Development. Zeki Data
Ethan Atwood, Product Manager, Sherlock Analytics

Question: Good luck to the showcase participants. Can you highlight your strongest investment use cases, your methodology (including compliance considerations), and how your offering differs from competing datasets?

4:25 PM Data Mosaic: A Macro perspective of the global economy using alternative data for a more timely read
Monetary regime change/reflationary world, Deglobalization and supply chain realignment. What effects are tariffs having? How to track these using alt data.
Geopolitical risks, Labor market trends, AI Driven Productivity Boom, Healthspan and Demographic Transitions, Infrastructure and real estate monetization, tokenization
Scott Asher, Chief Data Officer, Xantium
Laurent Bilke, CEO & Head of Research, Alternative Macro Signals
Andrew Harris, Deputy Chief Economist, Fathom Financial Consulting
Ajit Agrawal, CEO, Akanomics

Question: With deglobalization under way, which alt signals (e.g. AIS, port congestion, payment flows, etc.) have most reliably tracked 2025 tariff impacts?

4:55 PM Are U.S. investors rotating to European and Asian markets? What sectors are avoiding tariff chaos?
A look at the European consumer sector
Asset, Sector and Country Rotations
Is China Bottoming? Tracking Asia Consumer Behavior
Tim Harrington, CEO, BattleFin
Sayad Baronyan, Head of Quantitative Research, ISI Markets
David DeRose, Global Head GTM Sales & Strategy, DataBurning

Question: How do you use investor sentiment indicators and trading flow data to detect sector shifts and geographic investment rotation? Which alternative datasets best complement market-level data?

5:15 PM Data Mosaic: Healthcare - Analyzing Alt Data to Identify Emerging Healthcare Trends
GLP-1: Using data to understand the size of the market (Connector effects like RO, Hims/Hers, etc.)
What other patterns are shifting: grocery health patterns, connect the dots with data
Will less obesity lead to less knee and hip surgeries
Rayne Gaisford, Chief Risk Officer & Chief Data Strategy Officer, RTW Investments
Mark Holmquist, Vice President, SG2
Graham Lincoln, Head of Product, Kyber Data Science

Question: How can hospital-level analytics and consumer behavior data be combined to get ahead of long-term underlying trends as GLP-1 adoption evolves?

5:40 PM Deep Research with Alt Data into the Consumer Sector (Online and In-store Retail Sector Highlights)
What categories of alt data are producing the highest alpha and insights
Understanding consumer behavior patterns, cohort analysis, going beyond calling quarters to identify longer-term themes and changes
Gene Gallagher, Director of Research, Exabel
Alyssa Lewis, Vice President and Global Head, Investors Vertical, SimilarWeb
Jon Ciaio, Senior Director, Client Success, Facteus
Thomas Paulson, VP and Head of Market Insights, Advan

Question: Can you share examples where combining these datasets uncovers a leading signal missed by each on their own, and what does that imply for designing robust consumer sector investment strategies?

June 11th, 2025: Alt Data Content

8:45 AM New Data Provider Showcase Competition
3 new data providers will present
Datasets will be reviewed over Exabel to showcase specific signal power
Ish Pandher, Chief Strategy Officer, BattleFin
Ben Cohen, Ex-WorldQuant
Alexander Izydorczyk, Data & AI, Something New
Rayne Gaisford, Chief Risk Officer & Chief Data Officer, RTW Investments
9:15 AM 5-Min Vendor Presentation
Data Showcase: OceanStream powered by SQD
Howie Altman, Co-Founder, Subsquid
9:20 AM Data Showcase - REsimplifi
Vicky Reddy, Product, REsimplifi

Question: Like the previous day’s session—good luck to the showcase participants! Can you highlight your strongest investment use cases, your methodology (including compliance considerations), and how your offering differs from competing datasets?

9:25 AM Focus on AI and Alternative Data Onboarding and Due Diligence
Navigating pain points and hurdles to ensure an efficient and compliant onboarding and due diligence process for AI and alternative data providers, including implementation of appropriate policies and procedures
Boris Liberman, Partner & Co-Chair, Derivatives and Structured Products, Lowenstein Sandler
Jordan Hauer, Co-Founder & CEO, Amass Insights

Question: Which policy-template innovations accelerate compliance review without compromising rigor?

10:05 AM Supply Chain Deep Dive
Tariffs and their impact on Supply Chain, Pricing and movement of goods
Which datasets can help monitor supply chain disruptions and identify potential risks?
Does commodity tracking, retail activity and product availability provide insights?
Using Shipping data, weather predictions and social media sentiment to enhance supply chain visibility
Alexander Izydorczyk, Data & AI, nx1
John Miller, Chief Economic Analyst, Trade Data Monitor
Richard Davenport, Contractor, Dun & Bradstreet

Question: What alerting architectures ensure actionable supply-chain warnings hit desks before earnings?

10:35 AM The Future of Expert-Based Research: Quantifying the Qualitative
AI impact on insight generation
Conducting expert-based research at unprecedented scale
Democratization - alt data is no longer just for big funds.
Dan Entrup, Co-Founder, AggKnowledge
Aarti Desai, RVP, Financial Services, NewtonX
Rutwik Ghodadra, CEO, Guidepoint Insights

Question: How might we move beyond the qualitative signal of expert networks and B2B surveys to a back-testable quant signal? Which hybrid human expert + AI workflows have you seen unlock step-change improvements in signal quality of expert networks and B2B surveys?

11:05 AM Data Mosaic: Energy perspective - Oil & Gas demand/supply, Renewable Energy
Data centers, Power grid demand and which datasets can help track these
Global Oil, Gas and LNG flows (Geospatial/Shipping data)
Battery Supply chain and renewable infrastructure buildout
EV Charging Infrastructure (geospatial mapping of charger deployments)
Tim Harrington, CEO, BattleFin
Mike McCormick, Partner, Rystad Energy
Reza Haidari, Head of Power, Gas, Coal, Carbon, LSEG
Antoine Halff, Co-Founder and Chief Analyst, Kayrros

Question: Which dataset combinations and analytical techniques will help investors best understand the implications of a protectionism scenario for US energy needs?

11:35 AM Follow the Flow: Mapping Business Relationships for Market Insights
BRA network - Business Relationship Analytics (BRA)—a cutting-edge dataset designed to uncover hidden connections and predictive signals across supply chains, customer-supplier networks, and strategic partnerships.
How BRA has been leveraged to track the impact of Trump-era tariffs on key sectors, identifying actionable opportunities and emerging risks through data-driven analysis.
Dan Sandberg, Global Head of Quantitative Research & Solutions, S&P Global Market Intelligence

Question: Within the BRA network framework, do upstream supplier links or downstream customer links have the most predictive signals of earnings surprises, and how are you embedding causal-edge attribution into your graph-analytics pipelines to distinguish genuine leading signals from spurious correlations?

11:55 AM Data Spotlight - Third Bridge
Mike Grubert, Managing Director, Third Bridge

Question: What NLP-driven post-call summaries have proven most time-saving for buyside investment teams?

12:10 PM Decoding the Economic Pulse: Unlocking Market Signals from SMB Workforce Data and Alternative Intelligence
SMBs as Early Indicators: Understand why small and mid-sized businesses are key to detecting early shifts in the U.S. economic landscape.
Explore how Paychex’s payroll, hiring, and wage data reveal real-time economic signals.
Democratization - alt data is no longer just for big funds.
Multi-Source Intelligence: See how Carbon Arc combines diverse alternative data sources to build a holistic economic view.
Tim Harrington, CEO, BattleFin
Kirk McKeown, Co-Founder, Carbon Arc
Beaumont Vance, SVP Data and Artificial Intelligence, Paychex

Question: Given Paychex’s granular SMB payroll and wage-growth indexes and Carbon Arc’s high-frequency transaction and geospatial feeds, how would you collaboratively architect a composite real-time economic signal to reliably anticipate turning points in the broader U.S. labor market, and what validation framework would you use to ensure its accuracy across industries and regions?

June 11th, 2025: LLMs, Agents & Edge: The New Data Frontier

9:00 AM The Silent Shift: How AI Has Already Changed Finance Forever
AI isn’t coming—it’s already here. This keynote dives into how LLMs and agents are redefining the research stack and giving early adopters a competitive edge.
Key Themes:
How LLMs are augmenting or replacing traditional workflows
The rise of the AI-first research stack
What does it mean for data providers to be "AI Ready"
Arkin Gupta, Vice President, Morgan Stanley
Braden Dennis, Co-Founder & CEO, FinChat
Tarun Amasa, CEO, Endex

Question: How would you collaboratively define the foundational pillars required to architect an “AI-ready” research stack that maximizes time-to-insight while mitigating operational and compliance risks?

9:35 AM From Search to Synthesis: LLMs Are Changing How We Discover & Value Data
AI-led discovery and tagging
Structured metadata and the future of alt data search
Embedding GPT-style interfaces into analyst workflows
Rethinking the data RFP process
Ben Cohen, Director of Data Strategy
Jacob Ayres-Thomson, CEO, 3AI

Question: How do you guard against “hallucinated” metadata when embedding GPT-style interfaces into data catalogs?

10:10 AM AI in Action: How We’re Using LLMs to Add Value to Our Data
Ten-minute pitches from providers deploying real AI capabilities across their data offerings.
Hendrik Bartel, CEO & Co-Founder, PostSig
Nicole Königstein, CEO & Co-Chief AI Officer, Quantmate
Alexander Fleiss, CEO, Rebellion Research

Question: Good luck to each participant! How have you established a performance and governance framework to rigorously quantify and manage an agentic framework output considering latency benchmarks, drift-monitoring protocols, and user-feedback loops?

10:55 AM Buy-Side Chat - Autonomous Agents Are Here: What Happens to the Human Analyst?
Where AI is replacing vs. supporting analysts
How investment workflows are being rebuilt
Use cases: autonomous reporting, modeling, and alerts
Risks: over-reliance, hallucination, and trust-building
Carson Boneck, Chief Data Officer, Balyasny Asset Management
Keshavan Seshadri, Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Prudential Financial
Timothee Consigny, Chief Technology Officer, H20 Asset Management
Evan Reich, Head of Data Strategy & Sourcing, Verition Fund Management

Question: As your firms evolve from isolated assistants to fully choreographed agentic systems, spanning data ingestion, signal generation, modeling, and even trade execution, what orchestration architecture and human-in-the-loop guardrails are you implementing to manage inter-agent dependencies, detect and correct cascading model drift, and enforce audit-grade accountability? What acceptance tests must be passed prior to deployment given an agentic AI framework is not deterministic?

What questions do you have for the panelists? Leave a comment below

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