2018 FOX Spring Global Investment Forum Presenters
Presenters
Partner, National Business Director Private Client Services, RSM US LLP
Randy Abeles is a Partner in the Private Client Services (PCS) practice of Great Lakes. Mr. Abeles has national business development responsibilities for the PCS practice. He has 40 years of tax and personal financial planning experience and is an MST, who advises senior executives, owners of highly successful privately held businesses and other significantly affluent investors. He works extensively with high-net-worth individuals and families, service organizations, and closely held companies, providing guidance through tax regulations.
Mr. Abeles is experienced in a number of key areas of personal financial planning. He uses his knowledge as an individual tax specialist combined with his background in all areas of alternative investments to help high-net-worth individuals and families. He advises his clients on issues such as business succession, estate planning, charitable giving, and intergenerational family wealth. He also counsels his clients on all areas of asset protection. Mr. Abeles incorporates many sophisticated asset protection strategies including the use of insurance, entity planning, and the establishment of offshore trusts. He counsels his clients on all of their financial matters and helps them maximize their opportunities for growth while preserving wealth for future generations and charitable intentions.
Mr. Abeles has a B.S. in Accounting, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a M.S. in taxation from DePaul University.
Managing Director and Head of Global Private Investment Research, Cambridge Associates, LLC
Andrea Auerbach is a Managing Director and Head of Global Private Investment Research at Cambridge Associates where she oversees due diligence on investment opportunities in private equity, venture capital, growth equity, and distressed markets, among other areas. She also overseses the firm’s industry-leading quarterly private investment benchmarks. She serves as the Head of U.S. Private Equity Research and Head of the firm’s Global Co-Investment Practice. She regularly co-authors in-depth research papers, backed by over 40 years of the firm’s proprietary data and insights, most recently focused on investment-level benchmarks, co-investments, sector-focused investments, and sponsor-to-sponsor transactions.
Ms. Auerbach’s private equity career spans nearly 25 years. Before joining Cambridge Associates in 2001 as Head of International Private Equity and Venture Capital Research, she was a Senior Director in the Leveraged Buyout Group at Prudential Insurance. There, she led early efforts to benchmark Prudential’s $5 billion buyout portfolio and domestic and European fund investment portfolios, among other responsibilities.
Ms. Auerbach received her M.B.A. at Harvard Business School and B.A. in Economics at Smith College.
Director of Asset Management, R.J. OASIS
Kevin Craney is the Director of R.J. OASIS, a solutions-based alternative investment company. He is primarily responsible for business development activities for OASIS working with both investors and managers to provide alternative investment solutions.
Mr. Craney’s financial career includes experience as Associate Director of Managed Futures, Senior Trading Consultant, Investor Relations Analyst, and has experience in Treasury and Cash Management.
President, Twenty-First Securities Corporation
Robert N. Gordon is the president of Twenty-First Securities Corporation, which he founded in 1983.
Since 1991, Mr. Gordon has served as an adjunct professor at New York University’s Graduate School of Business, teaching one course on “Arbitrage” theories and another titled "Taxes and Investing". He has been involved with the Wharton School’s Securities Industry Institute since 1979, starting as a student, becoming a lecturer in 1983, and serving as chairman in 1994 and 1995. Mr. Gordon has had many roles at the Securities Industry Association, having served as an SIA director, as treasurer, as chairman of the Tax Policy Committee and chairman of the New York District. He is on the Board of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, on the Board of and Chair of the Collections Committee of the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.
Mr. Gordon is the author (with Jan Rosen) of Wall Street Secrets for Tax Efficient Investing and author and coauthor of chapters in Tax Planning for the Affluent, Market Shock and Harold Evensky’s The Investment Think Tank. He has published many articles on tax, arbitrage and hedging strategies. He serves on the editorial advisory boards of Derivatives Report, The Journal of Taxation and Investments and The Journal of Wealth Management.
Before founding Twenty-First Securities, Mr. Gordon was a partner at Oppenheimer & Company. Prior to that, he worked at Laidlaw, Adams & Peck, where he became a regional manager and senior vice president. He has been in the brokerage business since 1976.
Associate Partner, McKinsey & Company
Deepa Mahajan is an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company. She led the research with the McKinsey Global Institute on the Future of Work on topics including Automation and Independent work and the Gig economy. She also serves a number of technology, payments and retail clients on topics related to digital payments and automation and the future of work. Deepa has an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters from Stanford and Bachelors from UC Berkeley in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Head of Emerging Manager Practice, Silicon Valley Bank
Jim Marshall has been working in the start-up ecosystem in Silicon Valley for over 20 years and re-joined (after five years early in his career) Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in 2012. At SVB, Mr. Marshall leads the Emerging Manager Practice and strives to be a trusted partner and resource for start-up and emerging VC firms who represent the new early stage in venture.
Throughout the course of his career, Mr. Marshall has been consistently early in identifying creative financing and technology solutions that establish or reshape entire industries. In the late 1990’s, he realized the incredible potential of the Internet and the emergence of more capital efficient business models and in 1998, co-founded Selby Venture Partners to exploit this opportunity and be a true partner to entrepreneurs. While at Selby, Mr. Marshall raised and managed more than $130M from a variety of corporate and institutional investors around the world—including the U.S. Government—helping to establish it as one of the premiere seed and early stage venture funds in Silicon Valley. After an initial Selby investment, its portfolio companies went on to raise more than $1.5 billion in follow-on financing from other sources. Mr. Marshall is proud to have been an early investor in category-defining companies like Pandora, BigFix, Coremetrics, and Sugarsync.
Mr. Marshall received a B.S. degree in Finance from Santa Clara University, and an M.B.A. from Pepperdine University, where he was honored as a Distinguished Alumnus in 2007.
Portfolio Manager, Motif Capital Management
Raymond Mok is Portfolio Manager, lead research analyst, and a member of Motif’s Investment & Risk Management committee. He works with the investment team to bring data-driven, systematic thematic portfolios to clients. Raymond focuses on both top-down thematic and bottom-up fundamental research, using traditional and non-traditional techniques which leverage unique datasets. He is responsible for idea generation, theme research, and construction of portfolios.
Before joining Motif, Mr. Mok worked at Spot Trading as an analyst covering technology, financials, and basic materials sectors, while also conducting macro research. Prior experience includes being a key member on the investment team at Riversville Capital, a multi-family office, which managed a multi-billion dollar portfolio of internally and externally managed assets.
Mr. Mok graduated from the College of Business at the University of Illinois with Bachelor of Science degrees in Accounting and Finance. He graduated with Highest Honors and was a Bronze Tablet recipient, given to the top 3% of students. He is a CFA charterholder, has his CPA license, and holds the Series 56 and Series 63 licenses.
Vice President - Financial Institutions Group, Macquarie Investment Funds
Kurt Phares is a member of the financial institutions group, a strategic focus of the firm that specializes in partnering with retirement firms, registered investment advisors (RIAs), Family Offices, and other financial firms. He joined Macquarie Investment Management, which includes the former Delaware Investments, in 2011 as a member of the Consultant Solutions group, specifically working to bring investment strategies and services to institutional-oriented investment consultants, including the firm’s liability-sensitive investing capabilities for pension plans (LDI), foundations, and endowments. Previously, he was affiliated with Macquarie Allegiance, where he worked with senior management and manager research analysts at national and regional platform sponsors. Mr. Phares has more than 30 years of experience in financial services. He was one of the founding owners of Allegiance Capital, a taxable fixed income investment management firm he helped grow to $5 billion in assets.
Chief Investment Officer, Ascent Private Capital Management of U.S. Bank
As Chief Investment Officer of Ascent, Dan Rauchle oversees wealth management strategy for over 125 families across the US. With more than 25 years in executive positions with some of the industry’s most respected organizations, Mr. Rauchle has both broad and deep experience in developing strategies in economic strategy, asset allocation, investment risk modeling, thematic investing, and alternative investments. Prior to Ascent, Mr. Rauchle was President of Wells Fargo Alternative Asset Management, LLC, and developed Wells Fargo’s RiskOptics (SM) investment risk practice. Prior to Wells Fargo, Mr. Rauchle was a Director with Charles Schwab’s Investment Management division.
Mr. Rauchle earned an M.B.A. in finance, investments, and real estate from the University of Wisconsin—Madison, a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin School of Law and a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Wisconsin—Oshkosh. He has served on boards for Habitat for Humanity, the American Red Cross, and Hedge Fund Research LLC, and The Clearing House.
Partner, Albourne Partners
John Shearman is a partner at Albourne Partners, an alternative investment advisory firm, where he advises sophisticated investors on alternative investments.
Previously, Mr. Shearman was CEO of IV Lions, a registered investment adviser specializing in the use of liquid alternative investments. Before that, Mr. Shearman was a senior analyst at Goldman Sachs in London. He holds the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designation and has authored two books: Foundations of Investing, and Liquid Alts – A Guide for Financial Advisors and Advanced Investors.
Mr. Shearman received a B.A. in Politics and North American Studies from the University of Sussex, and a M.Sc. from Birkbeck College, University of London.
Deputy Chief Investment Officer, DoubleLine
Mr. Sherman joined DoubleLine in 2009, currently serves as the Deputy Chief Investment Officer and is a member of DoubleLine’s Executive Management and Fixed Income Asset Allocation Committees. Additionally, he serves as a portfolio manager for multi-sector strategies. Prior to DoubleLine, he was a Senior Vice President at TCW where he worked as a portfolio manager and quantitative analyst focused on fixed income and real-asset portfolios. Mr. Sherman assisted in developing real-asset strategies for TCW and was a portfolio manager overseeing several commodity funds.
Prior to TCW, he was a statistics and mathematics instructor at both the University of the Pacific and Florida State University. He also taught Quantitative Methods for Level I candidates in the CFALA/USC Review Program for many years.
Mr. Sherman holds a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of the Pacific and a M.S. in Financial Engineering from the Claremont Graduate University. He is a C.F.A. charter holder.
FOX Staff Biographies
President, FOX Private Investor Center™, Family Office Exchange
Kristi Kuechler runs the FOX Private Investor Center™ and is the moderator of the FOX Private Investor Council™ Kristi opened the West Coast office for FOX and is based in San Francisco.
Kristi joined FOX after five years as Partner and Managing Director of Lattice Strategies, an investment firm based in San Francisco. Prior to her work at Lattice, Kristi served as President of the Institute for Private Investors (IPI), where she was responsible for content and curriculum development and oversaw all matters related to membership. Kristi also created the Private Wealth Management program offered at Stanford University and ran it for three years.
Kristi has a bachelor’s degree from University of California-Davis, and a masters in educational policy from Stanford University.
Director, Direct Investing Network, Family Office Exchange
Irene Mello is the Director of the FOX Direct Investing Network. Ms. Mello has over 15 years of experience in private equity, investment banking and strategic planning. She began her career in investment banking at Goldman Sachs and has worked for several private equity funds, including Frontenac Company in Chicago and Standard Bank in Brazil. Most recently, Ms. Mello ran a large and dynamic angel investor group in Brazil, comprised of Harvard Business School alumni sharing a common interest in early stage investing.
Originally from Chicago, Ms. Mello has lived and worked in several major international markets, including Brazil, England, and Russia. She has an Economics degree from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.