Our Expert Network

Frederick (Rick) Funston

Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer

Rick is the Chief Executive Officer of Funston Advisory Services LLC (FAS). Since 2010, Funston Advisory Services has performed numerous reviews of public retirement systems' governance, strategy, risk, operations, compliance and control. FAS also provides related fiduciary consulting services and board and executive education. Since founding Funston Advisory Services in 2010, Rick has led a series of assignments with major public retirement systems, including the New York City Bureau of Asset Management (BAM), the South Carolina Public Employee Benefit Authority (PEBA), the South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission (RSIC), the School Employees Retirement System (SERS) of Ohio, the New York State Common Retirement Fund (NYS CRF), the Oregon Investment Council, and the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS).

In 2001, he created the concept of risk intelligence and he is the principal author of Surviving and Thriving in Uncertainty: Creating The Risk Intelligent Enterprise™ published by John Wiley & Sons in April, 2010. In 2017, Rick was the principal author and editor of One of a Kind! A Practical Guide for 21st Century Public Pension Trustees. He is a frequent public speaker and has published numerous articles on the topics of fiduciary duty, governance and risk intelligence. Rick has over forty years' experience in both not-for-profit and for-profit sectors. Prior to forming FAS, Rick was the National Practice leader for Deloitte's Governance and Risk Oversight Services. In that capacity, he served many of Deloitte's largest domestic and global clients and was responsible for the thought leadership that currently underpins Deloitte's global pre-eminent position in risk intelligence.

In the private sector, he has worked with small, mid and large cap companies across a broad range of industries including aerospace and defense, automotive, health, financial services, energy and utilities, consumer business, telecommunications and technology. In both public and private sectors, he consults with boards of directors and senior executives on strategy and means to improve decision-making for sustainable stakeholder value and competitive advantage through better risk intelligence, oversight and governance. Before joining Deloitte, Rick was the CEO of Continuous Improvement Services Inc. He began his career in the public-sector consulting on strategy and operations, organization and leadership development, performance management, program evaluation and survey research.

Rick has been a guest lecturer at the Yale School of Business and Princeton University. From 2009-2011 he served on the Board of Visitors for the Oakland University School of Business Administration and was an Adjunct Professor for the executive MBA program. He was also the interim Director of the Risk Institute of the Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University. He has a Bachelor of Arts from York University in Toronto, Canada and an M.S.W. from Tulane University in New Orleans.

Randall (Randy) Miller

Principal and Chief Operating Officer

Randy Miller has been Chief Operating Officer of Funston Advisory Services LLC (FAS) since its founding in 2010. He has been a leader of our fiduciary and operations reviews and is an expert in public retirement system governance. He leads FAS InGov™ peer benchmarking for public retirement systems. He has co-authored a number of white papers on the topics of public pension fund governance, operations and risk. He has extensive experience in planning and conducting complex reviews and improvement programs in large organizations.

Together with Rick Funston, Randy has co-led assignments with many major public retirement systems, including the New York City Bureau of Asset Management (BAM), the South Carolina Public Employee Benefit Authority (PEBA), the South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission (RSIC), the Wyoming Retirement System, the Florida State Bureau of Administration (SBA), the San Francisco Employees' Retirement System, the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System, the Los Angeles County Employee Retirement Association (LACERA), the School Employees Retirement System (SERS) of Ohio, the New York State Common Retirement Fund (NYS CRF), the Oregon Investment Council, and the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS). He has provided board and executive education for the Ohio Police & Fire Pension Fund and the Oregon College Saving Plan boards.

Randy left Deloitte Consulting LLP in 2010 after 27 years of service, where he most recently led Mergers & Acquisitions Integration Services to manufacturing industry clients. He has significant international consulting experience, led Deloitte's global automotive industry consulting practice, and was based in Germany with Deloitte from 1997-2003, where he led Deloitte Consulting DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) for two years. He specialized in planning and implementation of mergers, acquisitions and divestitures; market and supply chain strategy; and cost reduction/ operations improvements.

Randy received an A.B. degree from Dartmouth College with a major in Engineering Sciences. He also received a B.E. from the Thayer School of Engineering and an M.B.A. from the Amos Tuck School of Business, both also at Dartmouth. Prior to Deloitte, Randy started his career as a car product planner at Ford Motor Company.

Ken Kambiz Akoundi

Ken is the founder of Cordatius LLC. Cordatius (a derivative of "wisdom" in Latin) was created as a company to act as an agent for Long Term Investors and operates at the interface of the Investment office and their technological needs. It provides objective, knowledge-based advice, with a single goal in mind: To satisfy their functional needs, efficiently and cost effectively.

Since 1998, using his newsletter's insightful content (Investor DNA), Ken has built a loyal readership among Long Term Investors.

Ken was the President of ASPN Solutions (spin-off from Protégé Partners), a financial technology company that challenged how Institutional Investors managed their processes. ASPN Solution's first product was a comprehensive solution designed to empower Long Term Investors across all their quantitative and qualitative knowledge needs.

Ken joined Opera Solutions (a Big Data Spinoff of McKinsey) as the head of sales for the newly formed Capital Market Group. His mandate included developing new Big Data products for Long Term Investors.

At Deutsche Bank, he created the Global Markets' Pension Strategies and Solutions group. The group was focused on providing Long Term Investors access to competitive and practical Capital Markets solutions that addressed many aspects of their business (from Risk Parity to Liability Immunization products).

Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, he headed risk management at Optima Fund Management. In 1998, he co-founded RiskMetrics Group, where he last held the position of Chief Knowledge Officer.

Ken started his career at J.P. Morgan, where he managed software development, maintenance, and training. He has lectured on various risk management topics at NYU, Columbia, Baruch College, and NYU's Tandon School of Engineering. He holds a Doctorate in Civil Engineering from NYU's Tandon School of Engineering.

Steve Case

Steve Case is an institutional investment expert, having worked as an investment consultant, plan sponsor and investment manager. He has provided investment advisory and solutions services to large plan sponsors, insurers, health care organizations, foundations, family offices and other asset pools across the globe for over 40 years. He has a particular focus on evaluating the institutional constraints that exist within client governance structures to assure investment mandates are appropriately implemented.

Steve has experience advising on and implementing digital, advisory and OCIO investment solutions with clients of all size and sophistication. He has wide-ranging experience working with large public retirement systems and sovereign wealth funds.

Steve began his investment career working with the AT&T pension fund and transitioned into a career path focused on advising institutional investors on all aspects of their investment process. He is recognized as a leading implementer of creative, forward thinking solutions that blend what is possible in the marketplace with what is possible at his clients. Until late 2020 Steve worked as a Partner for Mercer Investments, working with many of their most sophisticated clients for over a decade. He held prior investment roles at Evaluation Associates, RogersCasey, AXA/Equitable, Rockefeller Foundation and Putnam Investments.

Steve earned his MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College and a AB from Occidental College in Los Angeles. He is a Certified Financial Analyst.

Alberto Cota

Alberto is a senior operations, technology and program management leader with more than 20 years of experience in business transformation. He specializes in helping institutional investors optimize their end-to-end business flows and operational processes to improve performance and scalability.

Alberto has worked with companies of all sizes, from smaller startups to large global enterprises, collaborating across business functions to implement best practices while developing integrated operating plans with aligned interests. He has a deep rack record of brining existing and new disruptive technologies at small and large organizations in the pension and retirement space.

Alberto was most recently principal and Chief Operating Officer at Rocaton Investment Advisors, a Goldman Sachs Company, where he was responsible for creating an effective operating model for one of top ranked institutional investment consulting practices in the World (with USD $640 billon in client assets) and had direct oversight over the Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO) business (USD $18 billion.) While at Rocaton, Alberto moved the firm to a cloud-based investment analytics and client reporting architecture by managing a mix of internal and external tech development resources/vendors.

Prior to joining Rocaton, Alberto served as COO of the Merrill Lynch Investment Management Group, where he implemented a streamlined operating model for the team by restructuring the organization and implementing modern technology solutions. In this role, Alberto was also responsible for overseeing investment advice, asset allocation models and portfolio model recommendations to the firm’s clients and the financial advisors that serve them (18,000 Advisors; $600 bill in AUM) as a member of the Investment Committee.

Alberto has also served as Chief Financial and Operations Officer at M. Safra & Co., Head of Global Operations at Bridgewater Associates, and has held senior operational and financial roles at Man Investments, UBS and Citibank.

Alberto holds a Bachelor of Science degree in International Politics from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and master’s in business administration from IPADE University in Mexico City, He is a member of the Wharton School Securities Industry Institute. Alberto is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese and French. He also currently serves on the Board of Directors of the New England Dance Theater, Inc., a not-profit organization supporting the arts in Fairfield County, CT.

William “Flick” Fornia, FSA

President, Pension Trustee Advisors Inc.

Personal Summary

William B. (Flick) Fornia founded Pension Trustee Advisors in 2010 and serves as president. PTA provides consulting services on public pension and retirement benefits to seventy clients. Previously, he led the public sector retirement plan actuarial consulting practice of a major consulting firm. His forty-year professional expertise is the analysis, design and modeling of postretirement employee benefits (pensions and health), particularly in the public sector.

Client Experience

Mr. Fornia’s work experience includes consulting for public and private sector retirement plans. He has consulted with numerous state and local government bodies regarding their public retirement systems, as well as with private sector and not-for-profit employers in the United States, Brazil and Argentina. He has also worked on federal, state and local compliance and accounting issues for many clients.

A frequent speaker, Mr. Fornia has testified before legislative and judicial bodies in fifteen states. He has spoken to numerous major industry groups and entities such as the Federal Reserve, AARP, Conference Board, Government Finance Officers Association, National Conference of State Legislators, National Association of State Retirement Administrators, National Council on Teacher Retirement, National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems, National Institute on Retirement Security, and International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans. He serves many clients as expert witness, having testified in Federal Court. Mr. Fornia has published several papers on pension and retiree health issues and has been interviewed by various periodicals on pension issues. His most cited paper is “A Better Bang for the Buck: The Economic Efficiencies of Defined Benefit Pensions.” He has served public sector clients in thirty-five states, Guam and Puerto Rico, and has consulted on retirement issues involving seven of the ten largest US cities.

Mr. Fornia was recognized with one of six retirement “Power Broker” awards by Risk & Insurance and Human Resource Executive Magazine in 2010.

Client Experience

Mr. Fornia is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (1986), an Enrolled Actuary under ERISA (1984), a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries (1983), and Fellow of the Conference of Consulting Actuaries (2005).

He was reelected to and serves on the Board of Directors of the 31,000-member Society of Actuaries, is chair of their Audit and Risk Committee, and is on the steering committee (past vice-chair) of the Conference of Consulting Actuaries Public Plans Community. He is on the Faculty of the Society of Actuaries Fellowship Admission Course and has previously served as chair of the Enrolled Actuaries Meeting Program Committee, on the Conference of Consulting Actuaries Committee on Professionalism, and on the Public Pensions Subcommittee of the American Academy of Actuaries.

Education

He graduated from Whitman College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics (1980).

Michael Gardner

Mike is the Managing Partner of GRC Advisory Services LLC, which he formed in 2015 to focus on developing and improving internal audit, risk management, and corporate governance activities. He is also an Associate Faculty in Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business where he has taught a wide variety of courses in accounting, internal audit, risk management, and business ethics.

Mike recently led the effort to develop and implement an internal audit function for Citizens Energy Group, a diversified public utility in Indianapolis, Indiana. He also advised Citizens on enhancements to their enterprise risk management activity and development of a corporate compliance function.

Mike has over 40 years of experience in the areas of internal audit, enterprise risk management, and financial and accounting leader ship. He has served as VP of Internal Audit and Chief Risk Officer at two Fortune 500 companies, Textron and Hillenbrand Industries, both international diversified manufacturing companies, where he led the development of the internal audit groups, as well as the development and implementation of enterprise risk management activities. He also served as the VP of Finance and IT for Hillenbrand’s European operation. Mike also led the internal audit group at Indiana University and assisted in the development of the enterprise risk management activity.

Prior to these roles Mike was a Chief Audit Executive at Ameritech, one of the “Baby Bells” split off from AT&T. He also served as the Controller of one of Ameritech operating subsidiaries.

In all of these roles Mike has focused on the control frameworks and risk management capabilities of the operational, financial, and IT functions of the businesses.

Earlier in his career Mike was an internal auditor for Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals. He began his career with Coopers & Lybrand, a legacy firm in what is now PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC). He has also held faculty positions at Indiana, Indiana State, and Butler Universities.

Mike earned his BA in Political Science and Economics and his MBA from Indiana University. He has also completed doctoral level work in higher education administration from Indiana University, and the certificate in Business Leadership from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), and Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA).

Michael Gold

Michael Gold has over 25 years of experience as an operations executive and management consultant to large asset management organizations. He possesses a consistent track record in applying innovative solutions to achieve best practices in operations, risk management, and investment compliance.

Michael is currently the Managing Member of New Heights Solutions, LLC., a management consulting firm in the asset management and asset owner space. From 2016 - 2019, he consulted to the Bureau of Asset Management of the five New York City Retirement Systems, with combined assets of approximately $200b in AUM. Over this time period, Michael has successfully delivered a number of transformational initiatives, which include:

• The establishment of an enterprise risk management monitoring program encapsulating investment, strategic, compliance, and operations risks and controls;
• The development of a middle office operating model, resulting in the effective remediation of fundamental risks and deficiencies;
• The creation of policies and practices for all major operational functions, establishing process ownership, end to end controls, and key metrics based on industry best practices;
• The proposed redesign of all periodic portfolio performance reports to the Trustees of the Retirement Systems and general public;
• The reengineering and documentation of key internal investment processes, including asset allocation rebalancing, transition management, and cash management, significantly reducing expenses, establishing high standards for performance, and remediating cash drag on the portfolio; and
• The definition and implementation of key performance metrics for critical counterparties, including the program’s custodian and fund accountant, securities lending agent, and foreign exchange trading agent.

In 2015, Michael retired from TIAA-CREF, an industry leader in the defined contribution marketplace, after 22 years of service, where he held many senior management positions within asset management. As Senior Managing Director and head of Asset Management Services, he managed all investment middle office operational functions for global equities, fixed income, commercial mortgages, real estate, private equity, and real assets. Concurrently, he led distribution operations for brokerage and mutual funds and directed the design and implementation of the division’s capabilities in CRM, sales reporting, and content delivery for institutional and intermediary distribution channels. During his tenure at TIAA-CREF, he also served as program manager of the corporation’s ten-year strategic planning initiative. Previous leadership assignments included managing the firm’s process excellence program, chairing the company’s Operational Risk Management Committee, and serving as a Director on the company’s investment advisors’ boards. He also led many successful investment technology solutions implementation efforts.

Michael is currently serving as a Trustee on the Stamford, CT Firefighters Pension Fund Board, is Board President of the Stamford JCC, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the JCC Association. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he earned a Bachelor of Sciences and a Master of Sciences in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research.

Daniel (Dan) Grossberg

Daniel A. (Dan) Grossberg has a broad range of technical skills including program/project management, internal controls assurance, IT/ERP risk management and ITIL implementation. He has experience working in a large IT organization which included supporting Knowledge Management and IT Portfolio Management and aligning IT strategy to business priorities. Dan also has eight years of experience as an IT consultant and advisor, including implementation of various commercial ERP packages and assisting in turning around troubled software implementation projects.

Dan most recently served three years as Audit Director for BDO USA, LLC, developing BDO's Information Systems (IS) Audit Practice for the Atlantic Region. He led IT audits for over 100 engagements annually, including 12-14 public companies that were subject to four PCAOB reviews (with no IT control findings). Dan also led advisory support for IT controls implementation across various industries.

Prior to BDO, Dan worked for 13 years with Ernst & Young in various information technology-related roles. His last assignment included rotating through several internal IT management roles in National and Global practice support including Knowledge Management and IT Portfolio Management. He served various internal clients including Americas Assurance leadership, Global Procurement leadership and Global Finance leadership in aligning IT strategy to business priorities through the development and execution of iterative budget and reporting processes and decision support.

Dan also served at Ernst & Young in a client service IT delivery role, including both internal- and external-facing responsibilities for project execution, business development and business management, including SAP and JD Edwards/EnterpriseOne implementations. He led analyses of several troubled ERP implementations to identify root causes and recommend adjustments to business processes and internal controls.

Dan received his Master of Accounting degree and completed PhD coursework in Accounting at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and also received a Bachelor of Science in Accounting, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA).

Keith Johnson

Keith L. Johnson is an attorney who heads Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c.'s (Reinhard Law) Institutional Investor Legal Services team representing pension funds and institutional investors on fiduciary, investment, securities litigation and corporate governance program matters. Keith previously served as investment legal counsel at the ninth largest public pension fund in the United States. He was also program director for the Wisconsin International Corporate Governance Initiative as well as an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Keith and the Reinhart Law team have been involved in most FAS public retirement system assignments.

Keith is a frequent presenter on fiduciary and investment topics at pension fund, legal and investor conferences in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia as well as a published author on investor-related topics.

With more than three decades of experience, Keith has developed a reputation of being reliable and forward thinking. Having served as the Chief Legal Counsel at the State of Wisconsin Investment Board provides Keith with a unique perspective since he is able to relate better with his clients and pull from his background when advising them with their legal needs. His cumulative experience, knowledge and insight situates Keith in a position where he understands his client's needs, their interests, what is most helpful for them, and most importantly: he knows how to execute a plan to meet his client's goals. Keith's experience enables him to see the bigger picture while his legal training and experience allows him focus on the smaller details when assisting both domestic and international investors.

In addition to numerous articles and other publications, Mr. Johnson recently helped write two books that provide guidance to public pension plans. He co-authored "The Prudent Fiduciary" chapter of One of a Kind: A Practical Guide for 21st Century Public Pension Trustees (March 2017). This book, "provides practical advice about the governance challenges faced by 21st century public pensions and is a 'must read' for all fiduciaries and those interested in or affected by the governance of public pension systems." And, he was co-editor of Cambridge University Handbook of Institutional Investment and Fiduciary Duty, Cambridge University Press (May 2014). This book is "a comprehensive reference work exploring recent changes and future trends in the principles that govern institutional investors and fiduciaries. A wide range of contributors offer new perspectives on the dynamics that drive the current emphasis on short-term investment returns. Moreover, they analyze the forces at work in markets around the world which are bringing into sharper focus the systemic effects that investment practices have on the long-term stability of the economy and the interests of beneficiaries in financial, social and environmental sustainability."

Keith is licensed to practice law in Wisconsin and Texas. He earned his J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School, and his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Kenneth (Ken) Johnson 

Kenneth (Ken) W. Johnson became Administrator for Global Investor Collaboration Services, LLC for eight years after retiring at the end of 2010 as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer for the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB). As COO/CFO for over 10 years, Ken had oversight of SWIB support services including financial operations, information technology, communications with the public, and cost-effectiveness benchmarking. He previously served as a team leader and analyst for the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau and as Executive Assistant to the Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs. Ken has been part of the FAS team on numerous public retirement system assignments.

Ken served as a board member and investment committee chair for the Wisconsin College Savings Program for 15 years. He was a board member and treasurer for Summit Credit Union, the second largest credit union in Wisconsin, for six years. For four years, he was the first outside director for Bankers' Bank, which supports community banking services in the Midwest. Ken holds a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University and a master's degree in public policy administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also holds the CFA Investment Foundations Certificate.

Jon Lukomnik

Forbes calls Jon Lukomnik "one of the pioneers of modern corporate governance". He has consulted to institutional investors with aggregate assets of $1 trillion and has himself been the fiduciary for assets of more than $100 billion. Jon has been a member of FAS engagement teams serving, among others, the New York City Bureau of Asset Management (BAM), the South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission (RSIC), the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System, the School Employees Retirement System (SERS) of Ohio, and the New York State Common Retirement Fund (NYS CRF).

Jon is a member of the Deloitte Audit Quality Advisory Committee, the Standing Advisory Group of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and the Board of Trustees of the Van Eck family of US mutual funds, insurance trusts and European UCITs. He is also a senior fellow for the High Meadows Institute and is scheduled to be the Pembroke Visiting Professor of International Finance at the Judge Business School, Cambridge University, during January – March 2020.

Jon has served as investment advisor for New York City's pension funds, was the executive director of the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute, and has been a director for public companies, private companies, not-for-profit corporations and litigation trusts. He was a member of the official creditors committee which rehabilitated WorldCom following its fraud and bankruptcy.

Jon has published 200 articles in academic and practitioner journals. His most recent book is What They Do with Your Money. His previous book, The New Capitalists, was a Financial Times pick of the year.

The International Corporate Governance Network awarded Jon its Excellence in Corporate Governance Prize, the Director and Chief Risk Officers honored him with its inaugural "Exemplar" award and the National Association of Corporate Directors (USA) has three times named him one of the 100 most influential people in American corporate governance. Other awards include recognition by Ethishpere Magazine and Global Proxy Watch.

Jon received his B.A. degree from Columbia University and also completed graduate coursework in public policy and administration at New York University.

Lisa Morris

Lisa J. Morris is the recently retired Executive Director of the School Employees Retirement System (SERS) of Ohio. Her public-sector career spans top leadership positions in multiple industry regulatory environments and public pensions. Most recently she is known for her expertise in public pension governance and senior leadership. As Deputy Executive Director of SERS of Ohio, she was the chief operating officer of a $12.8 Billion fund and had responsibility for all programs and financial operations of the system. As the Executive Director of SERS, she developed key relationships with legislators and legislative committee staff, as well as with all stakeholders to advance two successful pension reform initiatives. SERS was one of the first systems in the country to pursue pension reform and implement important demographic corrections. Lisa has significant knowledge of public pension fund leading practices, and as Executive Director she attracted top-tier investment professionals; she saw SERS' performance advance to the top quartile for one, three and five years. Known as a progressive leader focused on leading practices fostered by a high-performance culture for employees and leaders, and as a champion for transparency and accountability, Ms. Morris led SERS to national recognition and saw SERS become an employer of choice, attracting top performers in all areas.

Prior to joining the public pension world, Lisa spent several years as the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Water Director, representing Ohio on the bi-national treaty negotiating team to protect the Great Lakes, and overseeing a large state-wide regulatory staff. Before becoming the Clean Water Director, she spent several years as the state of Ohio's chief mining and mine safety regulator responsible for all coal and mineral mining regulation.

Lisa began her career in the private practice of law. She is an honors graduate of the College of Wooster and has a juris doctor from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

Lisa participates in numerous community activities and has significant non-profit and governmental board experience. She has a particular passion for animal welfare activities.

Tiffany Reeves

Tiffany R. Reeves is a shareholder with Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c. (Reinhart Law) in the Employee Benefits and Institutional Investor Services practices, having joined in 2017. Previously, Tiffany was Deputy Executive Director and Chief Legal Counsel at the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund (CTPF). In her role as CTPF's Chief Legal Counsel, Tiffany provided a full range legal services related to public and private market investments, custody and securities lending, general contract matters, and legislative, fiduciary, and governance matters. Most recently, as Deputy Executive Director, Tiffany functioned as the chief operating executive and was responsible for the investment, finance, technology, human resources, and legal departments.

Tiffany has extensive experience advising governmental and Taft-Hartley pension plans on all aspects of investments, fiduciary, tax and operational matters. Her practice focuses primarily on representing and advising institutional investor clients in domestic and international private investments in transactions on an individual or commingled basis. Tiffany also advises public pension fund clients on fiduciary, governance, legislative, and general fund administration matters.

In addition to her experience working with employee benefits and institutional investor clients, Tiffany is an experienced employment attorney. Early in her career she worked extensively with labor union clients on collective bargaining and other labor issues, and with individual and class action plaintiffs in employment discrimination matters. She has more than 12 years of experience practicing law, and her experience as an operational executive and in-house counsel give her a unique perspective in analyzing client matters and ensuring that legal advice is both pragmatic and administratively feasible.

Tiffany is licensed to practice law in Wisconsin, Illinois and Texas. She received her J.D. from the University of Oregon School of Law; M.A. from Northwestern University; and B.A. from the University of Oregon.

Steven J. Ross

Mr. Ross is Executive Principal of Risk Masters International, which he founded in 2009. He holds certification as a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) as well as a Master Business Continuity Professional (MBCP), a Certified Data Privacy Solutions Engineer (CDPSE) and a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA). Mr. Ross is a specialist in the field of information systems security and control, specializing in Information Security, Business Continuity Management, and IT Disaster Recovery Planning services. He has implemented Information Security and Business Continuity programs for numerous banks, government agencies and industrial corporations. Prior to founding Risk Masters, Mr. Ross was a Director and global practice leader with Deloitte.

In consulting engagements, he specializes in planning, policy development, implementation, and standardization of Information Security and Business Continuity processes. In recent years, his focus has been on reliability, prevention, detection and recovery from the technical and business impact of cyberattacks and other devastating circumstances. His recent clients have included pension funds, financial institutions, service companies, defense contractors and government agencies.

He is editor of the multi-volume series, e-Commerce Security, and author of several of the books in the series, including e-Commerce Security: Business Continuity Management. He has recently published Creating a Culture of Security. Since 1998, Mr. Ross has regularly published the column, “Information Security Matters”, in the ISACA Journal.

Chris Waddell

Chris W. Waddell, now Senior Counsel at Olson Remcho, joined Olson, Hagel & Fishburn, LLP as a Senior Attorney in December 2008, where he headed the firm’s Public Retirement Law practice. In this role, Chris has been part of the FAS project teams working with the New York City Bureau of Asset Management and the Teacher Retirement System of Texas. Chris previously served as General Counsel for two California public retirement systems; first at the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), the second largest public pension fund in the country, and later at the San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System (SDCERS). He has extensive experience in advising public pension trustees and staff on fiduciary obligations, Article XVI, Section 17 of the California Constitution (Proposition 162), the Political Reform Act, Government Code 1090, the Brown and Bagley-Keene open meetings acts, and the Public Records Act.

Chris currently serves as the outside General Counsel to the San Luis Obispo County Pension Trust, as the outside counsel for the CalSTRS Appeals Committee, and as fiduciary counsel to SDCERS, the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association (LACERA), and the three City of Los Angeles retirement systems. He has also worked with the San Diego County Employees’ Retirement Association and the City of Oakland Police and Fire Retirement System.

Prior to joining CalSTRS, Chris was the Chief Counsel for the California Department of Finance and before that was the Chief Counsel for the California Department of Personnel Administration. During a portion of his tenure at Finance, he served as the Department's representative on the CalSTRS Board. At both departments, he worked on a number of significant pension issues affecting CalSTRS and CalPERS.

Chris is the author of a study released in 2009 by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees entitled "Enhancing Public Retiree Plan Security: Best Practice Policies for Trustees and Pension Systems." He has served as a Corporate Governance Fellow at the Stanford Law School and was a Co-Director of the Stanford Fiduciary College. Chris was the lead author for the “Clapman 2.0 Report”, an update and expansion of the original 2007 Clapman report on pension fund governance best practices, issued by the Committee on Fund Governance of the Stanford Institutional Investors' Forum. He also authored a chapter entitled "Fulfilling Fiduciary Duties in an Imperfect World—Governance Recommendations from the Stanford Institutional Forum" for the Cambridge Handbook of Institutional Investment and Fiduciary Duty, published in 2014 by Cambridge Press.

Chris is a member of the California Association of Public Retirement Systems, the State Association of County Retirement Systems, and the National Association of Public Pension Plan Attorneys (NAPPA), where he served as the Chair of the Investment Section and Co-Chair of the Fiduciary Section. He has spoken frequently on fiduciary duty, pension governance, conflicts of interest, and securities litigation issues before the National Council on Teacher Retirement, NAPPA, CALAPRS, and the Stanford Fiduciary College. He has also testified before Congress, the California Legislature, the San Diego City Council, and the San Diego Charter Revision Commission.

Chris earned his Bachelor's degree in Political Science/Public Service from the University of California at Davis and his law degree from the McGeorge School of Law, where he was a writer and editor for the Pacific Law Journal. He is a member of the State Bar of California.

Senior Advisors

Keith Ambachtsheer

Keith Ambachtsheer is Director Emeritus of the Rotman International Centre for Pension Management, Adjunct Professor of Finance at the Rotman School of Management, and publisher and editor of the Rotman International Journal of Pension Management.

Keith's firm, KPA Advisory Services Ltd., has provided advice to governments, industry associations, pension plan sponsors, foundations and other institutional investors since 1985. Keith's role in advancing research and providing strategic advice on governance, finance, and investment around the world is evidenced in his industry contributions. He speaks regularly on finance and investment topics at universities and corporate events, and is a co-founder of CEM Benchmarking, which monitors the organizational performance of 300 of the developed world's largest DB and DC pension funds. Keith sits on a number of organizational boards and is the past President of the Association of Canadian Pension Management (ACPM).

Keith's articles appear regularly in the Financial Analysts Journal, the Journal of Portfolio Management, and other professional journals. He has also authored three critically acclaimed books, Pension Funds and the Bottom Line, (Dow Jones-Irwin 1986), Pension Fund Excellence – Creating Value for Stakeholders (with Don Ezra, John Wiley & Sons, 1998), and Pension Revolution: A Solution for the Pensions Crisis (John Wiley & Sons, 2007). He is currently completing his next book, entitled The Future of Pension Management: Integrating Design, Governance and Investing, which is targeted for release on April 1, 2016 by John Wiley & Sons.

Keith earned his undergraduate degree in Commerce and Economics from the Royal Military College of Canada., M.A. in Economics from University of Western Ontario, and completed coursework for his PhD in Economics at McGill University.

Keith Bozarth

Keith S. Bozarth retired as Executive Director of the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) in June 2012 and has been an active team member with FAS since that time.

During his tenure at SWIB he successfully led a number of key initiatives:

• Modernization of Wisconsin law governing SWIB investments, providing full "prudent investor" authority;
• Changes in Wisconsin law to provide trustees with full control of SWIB budget and staff positions;
• Thirty percent increase in staffing at SWIB, which facilitated an increase in internal management from 20% of assets to over 50%, resulting in net cost savings;
• Review of the actuarial assumptions used for investment return and wage growth, resulting in significant adjustment to both;
• Implementation of a cost attribution system, assigning cost to individual portfolios, and a revised incentive program to reflect full "net return" calculation;
• Revised incentive program to reflect market for comparable operations; and
• Implementation of an enterprise risk management function for SWIB.

Before joining SWIB, Keith w as CEO of the Orange County Employees Retirement System in California. His experience working with public pension funds began in 1992 and also includes the Teachers' Retirement System of Illinois and both the State Employees' and Public School Retirement systems in Missouri. He has served 11 years in a CEO role with oversight of investment, benefit and actuarial funding pl ans. In addition, he spent five years providing counsel to the Missouri section 457 deferred compensation plan and served one term as a member of the oversight member of the board for the plan. In total, he has nearly 25 years involved in deferred compensation or pension issues. He has overseen asset-liability studies at four different public funds, working with a range of consultants and actuaries. Keith is a well-known figure among the pension fund community and has regularly published and presented.

Keith holds a bachelor's degree and a J.D. degree, both from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He also was awarded the Retirement Plans Associate designation from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (joint program with the Wharton School).

Stephen Davis

Stephen Davis, Ph.D. is associate director of the Harvard Law School Programs on Corporate Governance and Institutional Investors, and a senior fellow at the Program on Corporate Governance. He is also a nonresident senior fellow in governance at the Brookings Institution. From 2007-2012 he was executive director of the Yale School of Management's Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance and Lecturer on the SOM faculty.

Stephen served on the U.S. SEC's Investor Advisory Committee, where Chair Mary Schapiro appointed him chair of the Investor as Owner Subcommittee. He is a board member and former chair of Hermes EOS, the shareowner engagement arm of Hermes Pensions Management, the UK's largest retirement fund; co-organizer of the World Forum on Governance in Prague; Member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Future of Long Term Investing; Member of the Contributing Committee of Development Partners International; Member of the advisory board of Cartica Capital; Member of the Private Sector Advisory Group of the Global Corporate Governance Forum; and member of the advisory boards of the Centre for Corporate Governance in Africa at Stellenbosch University and the Center for Corporate Governance at Handelshochschule Leipzig. He is President of consultant Davis Global Advisors and founder-editor of the Global Proxy Watch newsletter.

Winner of the 2011 ICGN Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance, Stephen co-authored The New Capitalists: How Citizen Investors are Reshaping the Corporate Agenda (Harvard Business School Press, 2006), which was named by the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Australian Financial Review as one of the best business books of 2006. The book has been translated into Japanese, Portuguese, Complex Chinese, and Korean. He is also the author of Mobilizing Ownership: An Agenda for Corporate Renewal, published by Brookings in May 2012. He contributed to Corporate Governance in the Wake of the Financial Crisis (UNCTAD, 2011) and The Origins of Shareholder Advocacy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

Stephen co-chaired The Conference Board's Working Group on Hedge Funds and served on the US National Association of Corporate Directors' Blue Ribbon Commission on board-shareholder communications. He has testified at U.S. congressional hearings, been a columnist for the Financial Times and Compliance Week, and is a frequent media commentator on corporate governance. He has been named by Directorship as among the 100 most influential figures in corporate governance; by Trust Across America as among the Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior; and by Competia as among 'the most influential corporate governance tweeters.' Stephen is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.

Stephen pioneered the field of international corporate governance when he founded the global unit at the IRRC, in Washington, DC. His Shareholder Rights Abroad: A Handbook for the Global Investor (1989) was the first study comparing corporate governance practices in top markets. He is a co-founder of the International Corporate Governance Network, and was its representative to the OECD. He was a member of the UNEP steering group which produced global Principles for Responsible Investment. He co-founded GovernanceMetrics International.

Stephen earned his doctorate in international business and security studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and completed undergraduate studies at Tufts and the London School of Economics. Other books include Apartheid's Rebels: Inside South Africa's Hidden War (Yale University Press, 1987), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Sharmila (Shar) Chatterjee Kassam

Sharmila (Shar) Chatterjee Kassam is a proven business professional and institutional investor who most recently co-managed the $30 billion Employees Retirement System (ERS) of Texas. During her tenure at ERS, she and her team accomplished:

• Evolution of the trust portfolio from a 60/40 model to an endowment model;
• Aligned the investment program's team of 77 staff so its culture and practices were closer to that of a professional global asset manager;
• Four compensation studies and the redesign of the incentive compensation plan;
• Initiated multiple governance best practices with the highlight being an overhaul of the investment policy, emphasizing the critical relationship between Board and staff and clearly defining the established governance structure;
• Led the most recent asset allocation study targeting a portfolio of the highest possible risk-adjusted returns net of fees and designed to leverage the talent of the investment staff for execution;
• Advised the $2.9 billion Texa$aver 401(k) / 457 Program, a defined contribution plan, focused on the necessary evolution of investment products offered; and
• Transformed the $1 billion emerging manager program to be a model of how these portfolios can be accretive to trust returns and can be at the forefront of innovation by establishing profitable seeding platforms.

Shar has spent over a decade studying asset allocation processes, global retirement programs and risk management. She has spent time promoting leading practices in the industry through the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA), Alignment of Interest (AOI), and the CFA Institute. Before joining ERS, she spent 15 years in the venture and technology industry working in financial, legal, operational and management roles.

Shar holds a bachelor's degree in Accounting (with honors) and a J.D. degree, both from The University of Texas. She is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in Texas and licensed to practice law in California and Texas. She was the 2018 Institutional Investor NextGen CIO Finalist.

She is a nationally recognized leader in the pension industry and sought out globally as a speaker. Shar is a Senior Fellow for the Center for Financial Markets with the Milken Institute, is a member of the CAIA Allocator Advisory Council, and is an ILPA Policy Advisor and Instructor.

David (Dave) Mills

David Mills has nearly thirty years of experience in the management of public pension plans and investments, and an additional twelve years of years of experience in governance and investment of large non-profit organizations and foundations. He left public service in 2007 as Executive Director of the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), the independent state agency that managed $95 billion on behalf of the Wisconsin Retirement System and state and local governments. Subsequently, Dave joined the Board of Trustees at Casey Family Programs, a $2.2 billion private operating foundation headquartered in Seattle, where he chairs the Investment and Compensation Committees and serves as the Board's Governance Officer.

Additionally, Dave's experience includes ten years as Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer for the Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds, the agency which manages health, retirement and other benefit programs for the state and local governments in Wisconsin. His career also includes ten years of administration in higher education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and as Assistant Dean at Cornell University. Related experience includes five years as a Board member and Chair of Summit Credit Union, with assets at the time in excess of $150 million.

Dave's affiliations have included the Council of Institutional Investors (CII), the Government Finance Officers of America (GFOA), the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP), and the National Council on Teacher Retirement (NCTR) for which he served as national President in 2002. He has been a frequent speaker at seminars and conferences held by those organizations on topics involving governance, investment compensation design and organizational development, and cost effective benefit plan design.

Dave has served as a member of the Hewitt EnnisKnupp Investment Client Advisory Committee, advisor to the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program's capital market Long Term Value Creation project, a member of the review panel for the National Public Budgeting Awards Program sponsored by GFOA, and Board member of the Madison Children's Museum. His international engagements have included leading World Bank-sponsored investment compensation design workshops for sovereign wealth funds and as one of thirty world leaders invited to advise the Chinese National Council for Social Security Fund on worldwide best practices for pension investment organizations.

Dave holds a B.A. degree in political science and M.A. degree in public policy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he has also completed 31 post-graduate credits in law.

Anthony (Tony) Oliveira

Anthony (Tony) Oliveira served for seven years as an appointed member of the CalPERS Board of Administration. Tony initially served as chair of the Finance Committee at CalPERS. When the Board decided to initiate a new risk management program and established a new Risk Management Committee, Tony was the first chair. As Risk Committee chair he led the development of the new Office of Enterprise Risk Management and was instrumental in creation of a new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) position to insure risk and policy compliance.

Tony has four years of study towards his Ph.D. in public policy, with his dissertation work in the field of sustainability based on formula selection, volatility indexing, risk analysis, asset class mixes, and assumed rates of return. He is an economist and professor of economics who understands assumed rates of returns and the implication of the decision process.

In addition to a distinguished business career, Tony served for 20 years as a local government elected official in Kings County, California. During that time, he also served as president of the nation's largest state county organization, the California State Association of Counties (CSAC), and worked both at the state and national level on pension issues including the significance in the asset allocation and assumed rates of return process and selection.

Upon his appointment to the CalPERS Board of Administration by Gov. Schwarzenegger as the only local government representative, Tony represented cities, counties, school classified, and special districts throughout California and worked directly with hundreds of agencies assisting in the understanding of volatility indexes (annual payroll divided into market assets), formulas, asset allocation and assumed rates of return implications. He has since taken that background to apply governance and fiduciary overlay metrics and interpretation of CSR and ESG implications to the decision process.

Oliveira Advisory Services LLC. (OAS) is a California certified SB micro business managed wholly by Tony who is the majority owner of the company. Tony is a Vietnam Era Veteran and OAS is certified as a nationally-recognized Vets First business.

David Stella

David Stella has more than 25 years of experience administering pension and other employee benefit plans and almost 40 years of experience in public administration, having served in state and local government in Wisconsin and Colorado. He served as the Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds from 2007-2012, where he was responsible for leading the administration of twelve employee benefit plans, including the $98 billion Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS), which covers over 575,000 state and local public employees in the State of Wisconsin. In addition to providing overall leadership of the organization, he was responsible for directing 260 staff and managing a broad array of benefit plans. During his tenure with the Wisconsin Retirement System his titles included Deputy Secretary of the Department of Employee Trust Funds, Administrator – Division of Retirement Services, and Director – Retirement and Survivor Benefits. He previously served as Executive Director of the Denver Public Schools Retirement System (DPSRS).

Dave is currently state president of AARP Wisconsin and is a Past President of the National Council on Teacher Retirement (NCTR), a non-profit organization that represents over fifty public pension funds with assets exceeding two trillion dollars. He also served as a Trustee on the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, the agency charged with investing over $98 billion of assets of the Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS) and other public trust funds. He currently serves as a Trustee on the Boards of the Wisconsin Education Association Insurance Trust and its subsidiary the Wisconsin Education Association Insurance Corporation which provide health, life, vision, dental and disability policies issued to public school teachers.

Dave holds Bachelor and Master degrees from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and earned the designation of Certified Employee Benefit Specialist (CEBS) through the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.