The SCI Pricing, Trading & Risk Management Seminar

New York, March 31st 2011
Speaker Biographies

Mark Abramowitz Mark is the Director of U.S. Taxables at Standard & Poor’s Securities Evaluations (SPSE). He manages a team responsible for providing evaluated price opinions on High Grade Taxables, Syndicated Loan Evaluations, High Yield Taxables and Structured Finance. Mark held a number of senior positions having responsibility for initiating, building and expanding pricing coverage for ABS, CMBS, Bank Loans, municipal high yield securities and CDOs. Mark began his career as a member of the Tax-Exempt High Yield Evaluation Team where he was responsible for analyzing and evaluating a variety of non-investment grade bonds including land-secured debt, housing, education and project finance. Additionally, Mark helped to develop pricing methodologies and procedures for evaluating other domestic and international fixed income securities.Mark holds an M.B.A. in finance and information technology from the Stern Business School-New York University and a B.B.A. in finance and investments from Baruch College-City University of New York. He is a member of the Municipal Analysts Group of New York (MAGNY) and the National Federation of Municipal Analysts (NFMA).
Suzanne Carter Suzanne is an Associate Director with the Standard & Poor’s Enterprise Data group. Her current responsibilities involve the management of Standard & Poor’s loan level RMBS data. Suzanne oversees the development of the RMBS data product, including the integration of S&P’s proprietary data with updated property valuation data and consumer credit data, provided by Veros Real Estate Solutions and Experian respectively. Formerly, Suzanne was the product manager for Standard & Poor’s analytical credit model and cash flow model which are integral to the US RMBS ratings process for Standard & Poor’s. Suzanne has five years of experience with RMBS data and analytics. She started with Standard & Poor’s in 2006.Suzanne graduated with highest honors from Brandeis University, receiving dual B.A.s in International Studies and American Studies.
Christopher Chakford Christopher joined SecondMarket in 2005 and is currently a Managing Director, Co-Head of SecondMarket's Structured Products Market. He and his team are focused on building the firm's relationships with all of the participants in this marketplace (Wall Street banks / broker-dealers, issuers and investors – corporations and high net-worth individuals).  Prior to working at SecondMarket, Mr. Chakford was an Institutional Equity and Derivatives Trader at Rosenthal Collins Equities and a Floor Trader at the Chicago Board of Options Exchange. Mr. Chakford graduated from Miami University with a B.S. in Finance, Magna Cum Laude, and holds his Series 7, 24, 55 and 63 licenses.
Andy Chasen Andy founded Chasen Enterprises as a software consulting firm in 1989.  By 1994 the firm offered software for modeling CMO/ABS along with a complete library of Agency CMOs.  The product allowed customers to project cash flows on the bonds either by using the modeling tool, their own proprietary software or with any of Chasen Enterprises vendor partners.  Expansion to non-Agency RMBS and ABS begun in 1998 and by 2006 the library included over 20,000 deals.  In 2006, after working together on the successful launch of the ABX indices, the assets of Chasen Enterprises were sold to Markit where Andy served as a Managing Director until 2009. Chasen Enterprises has been re-launched as an advisory firm with a focus on M&A and Business Development for growth oriented firms in the Structured Finance Community. Andy started his career at Touche Ross where he worked in the Asset Securitization Group from 1987-1989.  He graduated Brown University in 1987 with a Bachelor of Science in Math-Computer Science.
Jamie Dixon Jamie is Principal and Product Manager on the Alternative Investments Team at Prudential Fixed Income. Mr. Dixon leads the firm’s US-based Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) Team, which is responsible for structuring, analyzing, and marketing new CDO transactions. His team also coordinates all administrative activities for the CDO platform. Mr. Dixon joined Prudential Financial in 1987 and was an original member of the Prudential Fixed Income CDO Team in 2001. He received a BBA from the University of Georgia and an MBA from Columbia University.
Brandon Dunn Brandon is a Managing Director  and  co-head of fixed income at  Rochdale Securities.  Prior to Rochdale Brandon was a Managing Director at UBS where he ran a   group that structured and distributed a variety of fixed  income securities.  He also served in various derivative and fixed income positions at firms such as Rabobank, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan . Over a 23 year career he has structured, traded and marketed mortgage, corporate, derivative and emerging market products. He graduated cum laude with a BS in Economics  from the Wharton School of Business and Finance in  1981. He also has a law degree  from Georgetown University Law Center where he graduated in 1984.
James Elder James is a Solutions Architect in Standard & Poor’s Valuation and Risk Strategies group.  His current responsibilities involve development of strategic solutions for this group. This includes modeling and analysis of complex structured securities, development of cross-product and cross-asset solutions as well as the development of analytical methodologies. Jim’s eight years of industry experience include positions in asset management, financial guaranty and structured finance.  He has worked at J.P. Morgan and XL Capital Assurance. Jim joined Standard & Poor’s in 2007. Jim holds an M.B.A in finance from New York University’s Stern School of Management.  Jim graduated with bachelor degrees in Computer Science and Management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Alberto Gallo Alberto is a credit strategist in the Global Macro and Markets research team at Goldman Sachs, New York. His research focuses on developing innovative views and strategies in the North American and European investment grade and high yield corporate bond markets. Mr. Gallo’s remit includes macro strategy, trade-specific research and bespoke solutions for global institutional clients. Previously, Mr. Gallo founded and subsequently managed the global Credit Derivatives Strategy team at Bear, Stearns, London. He was formerly a credit and credit derivatives strategist at Merrill Lynch, London, where he published market-leading research on the nascent credit derivatives market. He earned a Master's of Science in Financial Economics from Bocconi University in Milan and attended the Goizueta Business School at Emory University in Atlanta. Mr. Gallo is a CFA charterholder and a member of the New York Society of Securities Analysts. He is an alumnus of the F. Morosini Naval Academy in Venice, where he headed the 'Andromeda' class.
P.K. Jain Mr. Jain joined Advisors Asset Management recently to spearhead the distribution & development of structured credit and mortgage products into the AAM network.  He was previously at Broadpoint Capital where he established and managed a CDO/CLO sales and analytics group utilizing the group's quantitative infrastructure.  Prior to Broadpoint, Mr. Jain was at Fieldstone Capital with responsibility for the structured finance business and was instrumental in developing the existing team of sales and analytics.  Mr. Jain was a producing manager and directed global client coverage for levered and proprietary funds and a diverse group of bank clients.  Previously, Mr. Jain joined from ABN Amro Bank in NY where he was Head of Hedge Fund coverage for structured finance securities.  Mr. Jain was CEO of India World and instrumental in funding the company and sale to a NASDAQ-listed company for $115MM. Prior to this role, he was at Salomon Brothers Asia and led the firm's structured credit coverage team.  Before Salomon, he was an integral member of Bankers Trust Leveraged Derivatives group with numerous groundbreaking structured placements in the interest rate, credit, equity, and emerging markets sectors.  His career began at Continental Illinois Bank and encompassed asset-liability management, securitization, and asset sales.  His group was instrumental in Continental's recovery from the largest technical bankruptcy of a US commercial bank.  Mr. Jain has a BS in Accounting from Penn State and an MBA in Finance from Washington University's Olin School of Business.
James Jester James is an RMBS Specialist in the Structured Products Group at Sterne Agee in New York.  James has spent his entire career working in the RMBS space at firms such as R.W. Baird, Cohen and Guggenheim. James works as the lead execution for RMBS (both investment grade and non-investment grade), working with both the specialist and generalist sales forces. James graduated with a B.S. in Finance and Accounting from NYU’s Stern School of Business.
John Joshi Mr. Joshi is the founding partner of CapitalFusion Partners with responsibilities in Business Development, Portfolio Management and oversight of all strategic business initiatives at the firm.  At CapitalFusion Mr. Joshi established the renewable energy, project finance and structured finance advisory services, as well as strategic joint ventures in sustainability investment products, and the FinCap Financial Services joint-venture for capital markers advisory and analytics. Prior to establishing CapitalFusion Partners, Mr. Joshi was responsible for establishing and managing Countrywide Alternative Investments a division of Countrywide Financial Corporation.  As Executive Vice President, Mr. Joshi was responsible for Countrywide Alternative Investments’ developing the asset management business, hedge fund products and other investment vehicles.  Prior to establishing Countrywide Alternative Investments Mr. Joshi established the Structured Finance Asset Management and trading business for the Clinton Group, a multi strategy hedge fund based in NY. Mr. Joshi was previously a Managing Principal at C.Held Inc. responsible for whole-loan MBS trading and business development.  From 1990 to 1996, Mr. Joshi was a member of the quantitative research group at PaineWebber where he was involved in ABS and Whole Loan research.  Mr. Joshi started his career at Salomon Brothers developing MBS/ABS analytics and joined the Salomon Mortgage Analytics Group in 1986. Mr. Joshi holds a BS Computer Science and Economics (1985) from State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Brian Lancaster Brian is Head of US MBS, CMBS and ABS Strategy at RBS. Mr. Lancaster was Head of Structured Products Research at Wells Fargo/Wachovia for six years, where he was voted by National Real Estate Investor (NREI) magazine as one of "Ten to Watch" in commercial real estate; awarded the CMSA/CMBS World annual best research report award; and voted best CMBS Analyst of the Year by Real Estate Finance and Investment magazine. He was also Chief Investment Officer of the Real Estate Division at Wells Fargo/Wachovia for two years. Mr. Lancaster was an MBS and CMBS analyst at Bear Stearns for 11 years, where he was on the Institutional Investor All-America Fixed Income Research team. He was also a Capital Markets Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bank of England for four years. Mr. Lancaster is a Governor of the Board of the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council, head of the Global Real Estate Advisory Council and Board Governor of the Mortgage Bankers Association. Mr. Lancaster was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BSc), Columbia University (MIA) and New York University (MBA). He has also published several books and numerous journal articles, and taught finance course in the MBA program at Columbia University.
Vince Matsui Vince is a senior analyst and asset allocation committee member at EIM, responsible for credit-related hedge fund strategies.  EIM is a $7 billion fund of hedge funds manager, focused on delivering customized solutions to over 80 institutional clients.  EIM’s global client base includes sovereign wealth funds, public pension plans, foundations, and financial institutions.  Prior to joining EIM, Vince was with Fitch Ratings, where he led the firm’s CDO asset manager assessment and ratings program.  He has managed corporate and structured credit portfolios for Swiss Re, and mortgage and derivative portfolios for Citibank.  Vince received his BA in Comparative Literature from Brown University, and his MBA in finance from the University of Chicago.
John Niblo John has deep experience in the structured credit markets during both highly liquid and distressed conditions, as a market maker, proprietary trader and hedge fund manager. His experience includes issuing Emerging Markets CDO's and other structures offering credit exposures to global markets. In 2001 he joined UBS Principal Finance/DRCM where he ran a portfolio of structured credit focussed on high yielding mezzanine bonds, equity classes, and distressed bonds throughout the capital structure. Currently he is consulting on CDOs and other structured finance strategies.
Rob Perry Rob is Chief Strategist and Head of Event-Driven / Relative Value at Kingsland Capital.  His role as Chief Strategist includes chairing Kingsland’s risk allocation committee.  Mr. Perry’s experience includes both par and distressed credit analysis across multiple industry sectors and security-types primarily in below-investment grade.  Prior to joining Kingsland, Mr. Perry spent five years as a Principal and Senior Analyst at Katonah Capital, LLC, an asset manager focusing on leveraged loans and high-yield bonds. Prior work experience also includes two years as an Analyst with Octagon Credit Investors and one year with Chase Manhattan Asia on the capital markets desk.  Mr. Perry’s educational background includes a one-year study abroad program at the London School of Economics while graduating Magna Cum Laude with a B.S. in Business Administration from Georgetown University.
Dan Rosen Dan is the CEO and co-founder of R2 Financial Technologies and acts as an advisor to institutions in Europe, North America, and Latin America on derivatives valuation, risk management, economic and regulatory capital. In addition, he is an adjunct professor of Mathematical Finance at the University of Toronto. Dr. Rosen lectures extensively around the world on financial engineering, enterprise risk and capital management, credit risk and market risk. He has authored several patents and numerous papers on quantitative methods in risk management, applied mathematics, operations research, and has coauthored two books and various chapters in risk management books (including two chapters of PRMIA’s Professional Risk Manger Handbook). In addition, Dr. Rosen is a member of the Industrial Advisory Boards of the Fields Institute and the Center for Advanced Financial Studies at the University of Waterloo, the Academic Advisory Board of Fitch, the Advisory Board, Educational and Credit Risk Steering Committees of the IAFE (International Association of Financial Engineers), former Regional Director and current steering committee member of PRMIA (Professional Risk Management International Association) in Toronto, and a member of the Oliver Wyman Institute. He is also one of the founders of RiskLab, an international network of research centers in Financial Engineering and Risk Management, initiated at the University of Toronto. Dr. Rosen was inducted in 2010 as a fellow of the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, for his “outstanding contributions to the Fields Institute, its programs, and to the Canadian mathematical community”. Prior to co-founding R2, Dr. Rosen had a successful ten-year career at Algorithmics Inc., where he held senior management roles in strategy and business development, research and financial engineering, and product marketing. In these roles, he was responsible for setting strategic direction, new initiatives and alliances; the design and positioning of credit risk and capital management solutions, market risk tools, operational risk, and advanced simulation and optimization, as well as their application to industrial settings. He holds an M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Toronto.
Bill Sharon Bill is the founder and CEO of SORMS (Strategic Operational Risk Management Solutions).  He has over 25 years of experience in the Financial Services and Marketing/Communications industry in a variety of “C” level positions and consultancies. The consistent thread throughout his career is a focus on streamlining operational environments in the service of the business strategy.At JP Morgan as the COO of Corporate Real Estate, he was a key player in the transformation from a commercial bank to an investment bank through the development and construction of high tech offices in 23 markets that reflected the new organizational culture. He went on to develop cross functional processes for penetrating new markets and establishing new products. He also created the first proactive operational risk management process designed as a vehicle to communicate opportunities as well as uncertainties by leveraging internal business intelligence.At Price Waterhouse, he established the North American Operational Risk Management practice which focused on the “upside” of risk – the choices an organization needs to make to execute strategy. His clients included American Express where he assisted the organization in evaluating their operational readiness to issue bank sponsored cards in the US and Corning where he evaluated the operational environments of acquisition targets. More recently he has worked in the marketing services industry, initially as a consultant to McCann Erickson in professionalizing the wholly owned subsidiary that provided IT services and then as a consultant to Interpublic as they began to centralize operational services. As the CIO of McCann Worldgroup, Bill developed a global collaborative system as the foundation for supporting the cross-discipline business strategy of Demand Creation. Bill holds a BA from Colgate and a clinical degree in social work from Hunter.  For the first ten years of his professional life worked with adolescents in the South Bronx and East Harlem, an experience that taught him the very difficult skill of how to listen.
Christopher Skardon Christopher joined Gorelick Brothers Capital in 2008. Christopher manages a fund of funds in distressed mortgage opportunities. Christopher has over 16 years of trading and investment experience in structured finance securities. Previously, Christopher was a Managing Director at Banc of America Securities LLC, where he was head of Collateralized Debt Obligation trading and syndications, based in Charlotte. Christopher has held senior investment and trading roles at American Capital Access, Prudential Securities, and Deutsche Bank Securities as well. Christopher graduated from Yale University in 1991.
Joseph Suh Joseph E. Suh is a partner in the Structured Products & Derivatives Group at Schulte Roth & Zabel, where he focuses his practice on structured private investment funds and other structured products, including ABS investment funds, structured notes, credit derivatives, equity derivatives, total return swaps, fund-linked derivatives, fund-linked notes and asset-backed securities. Joseph represents fund managers, dealers, issuers and managers of charitable foundations in connection with a wide range of structured fund, structured finance and derivatives transactions. Joseph obtained his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law.
John W. Uhlein Mr. Uhlein is the Managing Principal and founder of Grenadier Capital LLC.  Grenadier Capital provides independent risk, structuring and valuation expertise, focusing on the structured finance, infrastructure, municipal and monoline sectors. Grenadier Capital’s clients include issuers, investors (both equity and fixed income) and other market intermediaries. Grenadier Capital will assist its clients in identifying sources of capital, and will invest its own capital. Grenadier Capital has also been active with issues relating to the monoline sector, wrapped securities, and new credit intermediation models. Mr. Uhlein is also a Senior Advisor at RoundTable Financial Group.  RoundTable provides investment and advisory services in the alternatives space. Focus is on hedge fund investments, mergers or acquisitions, seeding and incubation, private equity investments, marketing and sales advisory services. RoundTable has a global network in both the product and marketing sides of the industry. Previously, Mr. Uhlein worked at Ambac Financial Group for over 15 years, as Executive Vice President and was Founder and Chairman of Ambac UK Ltd.   In his last position, he ran the US Structured Finance business(excluding CDOs), which included Student Loans, Mortgage related product, Credit Cards, Utilities, Insurance, Conduits, Project Finance, Commercial Loans (including small and big ticket leasing), as well as the Emerging Markets.   Mr. Uhlein was a member of the Senior Management and Senior Credit Committees.   Mr. Uhlein was also a banker at Kidder, Peabody and started his career as a lawyer at Skadden, Arps. Mr. Uhlein received his BA from Hamilton College and JD/MBA from Syracuse University.  He is a member of the New York State Bar.