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Frank Pusateri

Founder, CTA Expo LLC.

Program(s) Developed: Managed futures consultant

Interviewed by John F. Gallwas - Founder of Striker Securities, Inc.

Frank Pusateri has been a Managed Futures Professional and Industry Leader for over 30 years. He currently is:

President of Adirondack Portfolio Management, Inc., a consulting firm for managed futures
Founder, CTA EXPO LLC

CTA EXPO was established in 2008 to help professional capital raisers and allocators identify futures trading talent and to promote investing in managed futures. In just three years it has grown to offering leading industry events for commodity trading advisors, capital sources, brokerage firms, exchange representatives, and industry service providers. CTA EXPO now offers one day conferences in New York, London and Chicago and capital sources, including asset allocators, pool operators and professional clients, attend free.

From the beginning, Striker endorsed the concept of CTA EXPO and we were pleased to see record registrations of over 500 for CTA EXPO Chicago on September 13, 2011. Frank Pusateri and his partner Bucky Isaacson, based on the turnout in Chicago and the comments we heard have created an event the managed futures industry needed.

John Gallwas: This is a great story because you correctly identified a problem within a marketplace and decided to spend the time and capital to provide a solution, in the hope of making a profit. Let's start by telling our readers how this project got started.

Frank Pusateri: We tried for years to get someone interested in establishing a new conference that concentrated on managed futures. Everyone thought it was a good idea and no one would do it. Finally Bucky Isaacson and I, who knew nothing about running a conference, other than we had attended a lot of them, decided to do it ourselves.

John Gallwas: Who are the participants and how do they benefit by attending?

Frank Pusateri: The conference benefits its participants in different ways. New industry participants get an education in how products are structured, how other people market and how to compete, who can provide the services they are going to need and what those services are while meeting potential clients and allies. Current industry participants get to meet new people with new ideas and network with old acquaintances. We try to make it easy for people to network and quickly identify other people or CTAs that might be of interest to them. Roughly 35% of the registrations at our events are people who have never attended our conference before.

John Gallwas: Since your first CTA/Expo in 2008, what have you added or dropped from the program to make it more rewarding to the participants.

Frank Pusateri: We are continually changing CTA EXPO in response to people's comments and suggestions. We have added a LinkedIn Group, CTAEXPO, to provide updates on CTAEXPO that has proved very popular. We originally were going to stay away from speakers on regulations and compliance. In response to the increasing complexity of regulation we have added these speakers. We have also recently experimented with creating a venue in which people can ask their specific regulatory questions.

John Gallwas: Do you have any metrics, other than attendance, that would help our readers understand the importance of this conference to the managed futures industry?

Frank Pusateri: I estimate (guess) the number of registered CTAs, who are actively trading client equity, is about 1200. CTAEXPO Chicago had 90 CTAs attending. Our three conferences in 2011 had over 120 unique CTAs or over 10% of the active CTA Community.

I have also been very surprised at the quality of our speakers who volunteer their time and attend CTAEXPO at their own expense.

John Gallwas: In view of the growing interest in managed futures, is there anything new on your Expo agenda?

Frank Pusateri: Other than CTA/EXPO New York in April of 2012 followed by London in June, the continued growth in interest in managed futures has us looking at new conference locations in both South America and Asia. Please join our linkedin group, CTAEXPO, or go to our web site www.ctaexpo.net where we will be posting our plans for the new year as they are finalized.

This interview is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a solicitation of any kind. Trade only with risk capital. The risk of trading can be substantial and each investor and/or trader must consider whether trading systems are a suitable investment.