Hello and Welcome to another episode of the Wall Street Lab Podcast. 

I am currently in the offices of Solactive in Frankfurt. The second in person interview in a very long time. With me is today's guest: Timo Pfeiffer. Timo is the Chief Markets Officer of Solactive and in charge of Research, Sales, and Communications. He joined in 2017 as Head of Research & Business Development, after working for more than 15 years at Deutsche Bank, where he has held various management positions in London and Frankfurt. Most recently, he served as Managing Director in charge of Structured Products distribution in Europe. He holds a bachelor's degree from the Berufsakademie in Mosbach. 

In this episode we explore the world of indices. You all have heard of the biggest indices, use them probably every day, but how much do you know about their origin, creation, administration? This is our topic for today. We look at the life of an index from beginning to end. Who comes up with the idea? How does the creation process work? What are the use cases? How to maintain an index? And in the end, what is the point of termination for an index? We speak a lot about trends and themes, like thematic investing, ETFs, sustainability, and much more.