As global finance shifts toward digital infrastructure, few leaders bring the depth of institutional experience and forward-thinking vision that Dr. Peter Knez offers. A former Chief Investment Officer for Fixed Income at BlackRock (before that, Barclays Global Investors) Dr. Knez played a pivotal role in growing global assets under management to over \$80 billion, while overseeing groundbreaking advances like the Aladdin risk platform, which now supports over \$20 trillion in institutional capital. With academic roots at Wharton and the University of Chicago and leadership roles at Goldman Sachs and Lincoln Capital, Dr Knez has always operated at the intersection of analytics, strategy and innovation.

Today, he’s channeling that expertise into a new frontier; regulated digital finance. As Chairman of Palm Global Technologies and incoming Chief Executive Officer of the Palm–Promax Joint Venture, Dr Knez recently spearheaded the launch of a gold-backed stablecoin at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi. Backed by over \$1 trillion in tokenised real-world assets including gold, oil, ports and carbon credits, the initiative aims to create a secure, asset-anchored bridge between traditional finance and the digital economy. He joins us on the line.