The ETF industry is over 25 years old and for the past 14, Arlene Reyes, COO of ExchangeTradedFunds.com has led the industry by hosting the Global ETF Awards. This year the Toroso ETF Think Tank sponsored the event which took place in NYC on July 19th.
This annual event brings industry insiders from all parts of the ETF ecosystem. ETF fund sponsors like State Street, Wisdom Tree, Granite Shares, Van Eck and Exponential ETFs, Index companies like Solactive, INDXX and Triline, Exchanges like NYSE and Toronto Stock Exchange, Liquidity firms like Flow Traders and JP Morgan and finally operational service companies like US Bancorp.
As usual the workshops before the awards focused on many interesting topics, but what was clear throughout all the discussions was optimism for continued ETF growth. Panels included discussions on ESG, factor investing, liquidity, blockchain and active ETFs. The speakers truly had a global presence with representation from the United States, Europe, Asia and Canada.
The final workshop of the event was focused on the history of ETFs and included Bob Tull and Kathleen Moriarty, two industry veterans that helped the first ETFs launch in America. We would also like to congratulate Bob Tull for receiving the life time achievement award. This panel gave insights into the early days of ETF trading and growth. The discussion was moderated by the Toronto Stock Exchange, which actually listed the first ETF in Canada before the launch of SPY, the first US ETF.
Finally, in celebration of the industry’s growth our own meta index was acknowledged, the TETF.Index. The ETF that tracks TETF.index received this year’s award for Most Innovative ETF. We are honored and excited to receive an award for innovation since we consistently sight innovation as a primary growth factor for the ETF industry. How is that for meta?
