About Spark – Spark Network

Our team

Jim Wiandt

Keeper of Clear Vision

Jim Wiandt, Keeper of Clear VisionJim Wiandt is a pioneer in the world of Exchange Traded Funds, a published author and entrepreneur. Wiandt is the founder of ETF.com and from 2002-2015 also published the Journal of Indexes, ETF Report and IndexUniverse.com. Alongside of this, he created the successful series of ‘Inside ETF’s’ conferences, which are the largest ETF-focused events in the world.

In 2015-2016, ETF.com sold its data business to FactSet, its events business to Informa and its publications to the CBOE.

Wiandt is the author of the Jon Wiley & Sons book, Exchange Traded Funds.

He currently sits on the board of directors of Granite Shares, Brella, and Fuzzy Logix, and is an investor in and/or advisor to HAN ETFs, Ethic Investing, Alaia Capital and Say Technologies.

Jim is also the Chief Executive Officer of Spark, which he founded in 2019. He has lived in San Sebastian, Spain with his wife and two children for most of the last 20 years.

Conor Ó Haonghusa

Keeper of Contagious Passion

Conor Ó hAonghusa, Keeper of Contagious Passion

Conor Ó hAonghusa is an entrepreneur who has spent over 20 years working in business development internationally. Conor spent 20 years in the premium spirits sector, living in Eastern Europe, South America and the US. Following his work in the premium spirits sector, he joined the growing ETF industry where he was the Head of Audience Development for ETF.com and the Inside ETFs conferences and additionally was Head of Business Development at Jobs in ETFs.

Conor was born shy and stayed that way for years. When he came out of his shell Conor realized that he had the gift of contagious passion and a kick-ass can do attitude – useful stuff actually. He has always wanted to help change the world in some small way and Spark Network is his opportunity to do just that. Connor lives in San Sebastian where his medicine is a year-round daily ocean swim, travel permitting.

Alicia Tebar

ambassador of art

Alicia Tebar

Nic Harcourt

Director of musical Alchemy

Nic Harcourt

You’d be hard-pressed to find a band or pop star today that hasn’t had their career somehow helped by Nic Harcourt. The host of longtime KCRW show Morning Becomes Eclectic in Los Angeles, Nic launched the careers of Sigur Ros, Adele, Coldplay, and Sia among so many other artists. He is the current host of “88.5 FM Mornings” in Los Angeles as well as host of the Spark Network podcast, The Sound of Success, in which he interviews the movers and shakers of finance about the bands and music they love. He lives in L.A. with his girlfriend and dog, Q.

Jon lukomnik

investor and author

Jon Lukomnik

Jon Lukomnik is managing partner of Sinclair Capital LLC, a strategic consultancy to institutional investors. Jon has been the investment advisor or a trustee for more than $100 billion (including New York City’s pension funds) and has consulted to institutional investors with aggregate assets of $1 trillion dollars. He served for more than a decade as the executive director of the IRRC Institute and is a former Pembroke Visiting Professor at the Judge Business School at Cambridge. Jon is a member of the Deloitte Audit Quality Advisory Committee, a trustee for the Van Eck mutual funds and serves on the Standards and Emerging Issues Advisory Group of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the Board of The Shareholder Commons and the Advisory Board of The Investment Integration Project. Jon co-founded the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) and GovernanceMetrics International (now part of MSCI). He is a Senior Fellow for the High Meadows Institute.

Jon’s most recent book, “Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Investing That Matters” is co-authored with Professor Jim Hawley. Their work focuses on MPT’s inability to deal with systematic risk, and how investors can and do mitigate risks such as climate change, income inequality, lack of diversity, and antimicrobial resistance.

Aaron Turner

keeper of clear thinking

Aaron Turner

Aaron Turner, phD, has dedicated his professional life to highlighting and applying the transformative potential of clarity of mind, or understanding the direct link between people’s state of mind and their outcomes.

He was interested in how a deeper understanding of humanity could enable positive change or at least more mental freedom that might allow new ways of thinking or behaving and break old patterns at home and at work.

During his career, he has provided individual and couples counselling, and has worked as a training consultant within businesses, organizational development, leadership development (corporate and military), sales training and team building.

For Spark, Aaron participates as a moderator and speaker at our events.

He is a founding board member of the 3PGC and currently its president. He has sat on a number of government advisory groups. He is a published author, international speaker and lives with his family in London.

About Us

Spark is

Spark is an events company that creates virtual and live experiences for the finance, tech and environmental sectors.

Our roots

Our roots are in the investing and business worlds.
Spark CEO, Jim Wiandt, is the founder of the leading authority on exchange-traded funds, ETF.com, where he also reimagined their influential conference series “Inside ETFs.”

With Spark

With Spark, we’ve widened our scope to include the arts world as well.
We believe highlighting culture at our events is just as important as delivering the research, analysis and out-of-the-box opinions to inspire the original thinking, conversations, connection, and creative solutions that raise the bar for humanity.

Our events

Our events feature a signature curated lineup of musicians, chefs, and thought leaders from a variety of backgrounds to help promote disruptive innovation, a more sustainable planet, and better accountability to the values of communities around the world.