Team

Ed Nicoll – Chairman
Mr. Nicoll was CEO of Instinet Inc., a global institutional broker, until its 2007 sale to Nomura Securities. He was previously CEO of Instinet Group, the world's largest electronic trading platform by trading volume, until its 2006 purchase by NASDAQ. Mr. Nicoll is also the former Chairman and CEO of Datek Online, The Island ECN, and was co-founder and President of Waterhouse Securities (subsequently acquired by TD Bank and merged with Ameritrade). Mr. Nicoll is a graduate of Yale Law School and was formerly a Trustee of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey.

Joel Hornstein – CEO
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Hornstein was Managing Director of Capital Allocation at Citigroup, where he restructured how Citigroup hedged its foreign capital, redefined how the company externally reported and internally evaluated business unit performance, and implemented uniform measures of risk and capital usage. He previously was an investment banker with Goldman Sachs, where he worked in financial services M&A and in multi-asset class derivatives, a consultant in McKinsey & Company’s financial services practice, and a private equity investor with the Fremont Group. Mr. Hornstein is also a former captain in the United States Army Reserve. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he earned Honors in fourteen fields (including all tax fields) and was a Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal. Mr. Hornstein earned his undergraduate degree in Economics magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College. He is a Trustee of the Center for Employment Opportunities.

Mark Gerson
Mr. Gerson is the Executive Chairman of Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG), which he co-founded in 1998. He is the author of several books published by the Free Press, Addison Wesley and Madison Books. Mr. Gerson has also written numerous articles and essays which have been published in newspapers and magazines including The New Republic, Reader's Digest, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal. He serves on the boards of the American Friends of the IDC, Manhattan Institute, Yale Chai Society, and Imentor. Mr. Gerson is a graduate of Williams College and Yale Law School.

Michael Olshan
Mr. Olshan currently serves as a Managing Director of JANA Partners LLC, an event-driven investment fund in New York City which actively manages over $8 billion across multiple asset classes. Previously, he was a Principal at Force Capital Management LLC, focusing on both passive and control investments in public and private companies. Mr.Olshan previously worked in the Investment Banking Division and MSREF Funds at Morgan Stanley. He serves as a Director and Trustee of the Morton & Carole Olshan Foundation. Mr. Olshan earned his undergraduate degree in Government cum laude from Harvard College.

Client Service

Kameron Rezai – Principal, Solution Strategy and Integration
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Rezai was a manager with McKinsey & Company, where he was a member of the financial services practice. Previously, he was an early member of Elm Ridge Capital Partners, a $1.5 billion long-short U.S. equity hedge fund, where he was responsible for all investments in the financial services, retail, and consumer sectors. Mr. Rezai earned his M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management and his undergraduate degree in Economics and Mathematics magna cum laude and with distinction from Yale University.

Elena Greeves McCarron – Vice President, Client Experience
Before joining Structural Wealth, Ms. McCarron was a senior product manager at Adobe Systems. Previously, she was a principal at The Parthenon Group, where she served clients in the consumer products and technology practices. Ms. McCarron was also an equities analyst at T. Rowe Price and an analyst in equity capital markets and private wealth management at Goldman Sachs. She earned her M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and her undergraduate degree cum laude with honors in History from the University of Pennsylvania.

Brett Merritt – Vice President, Client Service
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Merritt was President and General Manager of Columbia Components Group, an automotive supply company. Previously, he was an account executive and plant manager at Valspar Corporation. Mr. Merritt also served as an account manager at ArvinMeritor. He earned his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and his undergraduate degree in Biology from Indiana University.

Doug Richey – Vice President, Client Service
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Richey was Executive Vice President, Sales at Graduate Leverage, an organization responsible for originating $3.3 billion in student loans. Previously, he was a product manager at Guidant Corporation and also served as an account executive at 1GlobalPlace and Lucent Technologies. He earned his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and his undergraduate degree magna cum laude in Marketing and International Studies from Indiana University.

Katherine O’Gara – Director, Client Experience
Before joining Structural Wealth, Ms. O’Gara served as Director of Recruitment Strategy for Teach For America, where she led the design and execution of reporting for the 160 person team and advised on operational strategy. Previously, she was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where she was a member of the financial services practice. Ms. O’Gara earned her undergraduate degree in History and Literature cum laude from Harvard College.

Client Operations and Support

Ned Lucia – Principal, Client Operations and Support
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Lucia was Vice President, EU Operations at AOL, where he held full P&L responsibility for the Advertising.com European division, a $140 million business unit. Previously, he was Senior Director of Professional Services at Blue Pumpkin Software, a software consultancy. Mr. Lucia earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics with a focus on numerical analysis from the University of California, San Diego and his undergraduate degree in Mathematics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Aaron Kessler – Director, Client Support
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Kessler worked at Fisher Investments, where he helped grow the firm from 60 employees to over 1,100 and, most recently, managed the division responsible for sales, administration, and distribution of Fisher’s Purisima family of mutual funds. He earned his undergraduate degree in History from Harvard College.

Tracy Duong – Manager, Company Operations
Before joining Structural Wealth, Ms. Duong was a technical quality specialist at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Previously, she was co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Memoso, a mobile social services start-up. In addition to her work at Structural Wealth, Ms. Duong serves as a board member and youth mentorship program director at Aid to Children Without Parents, a non-profit in San Jose. She earned a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of California, Davis.

Yady Guitana – Manager, Client Operations
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Guitana served as a financial analyst at Coremetrics. Previously, he was an analyst at Cornerstone Research and a software engineer at Microsoft. Mr. Guitana holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, where he earned University Honors.

Joel Philpot – Manager, Client Operations
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Philpot served as an associate at Fisher Investments. Previously, he was an associate at Deloitte Financial Advisory Services. Mr. Philpot earned his undergraduate degree in Economics from Stanford University.

Financial Engineering

Sylvia Kwan – Principal, Chief Investment Officer
Before joining Structural Wealth, Ms. Kwan was Vice President, Portfolio Management for Financial Engines, managing over $14 billion in defined contribution assets for nearly 200,000 individual retirement accounts. She previously was a portfolio manager and Director of Equity Quantitative Research at Charles Schwab. Ms. Kwan began her career as a fixed income portfolio manager with The Boston Company. She earned a Ph.D. and M.S. in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University.

Somboon Chiewcharnpipat – Vice President, Financial Engineering
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Chiewcharnpipat worked at Sagamore Hill Capital Management, a $3 billion multi-strategy hedge fund, as part of the Capital Structure and Event Driven teams, where he developed the fund’s de novo Global Tactical Asset Allocation strategy. Previously, he participated in the oversight of Bowdoin College’s $450 million endowment. Mr. Chiewcharnpipat graduated magna cum laude from Bowdoin with a dual major in Economics and Mathematics and a minor in Computer Science. He attended Bowdoin as the sole recipient of the Central Bank of Thailand’s Economics Scholarship, awarded annually. Mr. Chiewcharnpipat is a past Silver Medalist at the International Mathematical Olympiad and Gold Medalist at the Southeast Asian Mathematical Olympiad.

Shuky Ehrenberg – Financial Engineer
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Ehrenberg worked in tax law at Cleary Gottlieb. Previously, he was a researcher and analyst at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a teaching assistant at Yale Law School and the Yale University Department of Economics. Mr. Ehrenberg is also a former non-commissioned officer in the Israeli military. He is currently completing his final coursework toward a J.D. from Yale Law School. Mr. Ehrenberg earned his undergraduate degree in Economics, Mathematics, and Political Science summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with department honors from Columbia University.

Thomas Davidoff – Advisor
Mr. Davidoff is Assistant Professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is a member of the Real Estate Group. His academic research focuses on the relationship between labor income, housing prices, and individual welfare and the role housing plays in individuals' investment portfolio. Mr. Davidoff earned a Ph.D. in Economics and Urban Studies and Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.P.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and an undergraduate degree in Social Studies magna cum laude from Harvard College.

Fred Fraenkel – Advisor
Mr. Fraenkel is Chairman of the Board and and Chief Investment Officer of Clear Asset Managment. He is also Chairman of Millenium 3 Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm. Previously, Mr. Frankel was Vice Chairman of ING Barings Furman Selz and Chief Operating Officer of Furman Selz. Earlier, he was a Managing Director and Director of Global Research at Lehman Brothers and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Market America Group, an investment advisory firm. Mr. Fraenkel also served as Chief Investment Strategist at E.F. Hutton. He began his career in securities research at Prudential Securities and Goldman Sachs. Mr. Fraenkel earned his undergratuate degree in Economics and Finance from Lehigh University and his M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Arthur S. Margulis, Jr. – Advisor
Mr. Margulis is the founder of Cognitive Capital, a provider of liquidity to capital markets using proprietary, automated trading technology. Previously, he was Managing Director and a member of the partnership pool at Goldman Sachs, managing several market making operations. Mr. Margulis joined Goldman Sachs following the acquisition of the Hull Group, a leading global market maker in exchange-traded equity Derivatives and an active market maker in equity securities, where he was President, Director, and Chairman of the executive committee. He earned his M.B.A. in Finance from the University of Chicago and his undergraduate degree in Economics from Princeton University.

Kevin McGrath – Advisor, Income and Estate Tax Strategies
Mr. McGrath’s legal practice focuses exclusively on income, gift, and estate planning for individuals. He has written and lectured extensively on tax strategies. Mr. McGrath came to Structural Wealth’s attention with a Tax Notes article in which he correctly predicted that private annuity trusts – then a widely employed tax strategy commonly thought to be legally sound – would be challenged successfully by the IRS. He used Monte Carlo analysis to demonstrate that, even if legal, the strategy was unattractive economically, notwithstanding its apparent benefits in the initial years. Mr. McGrath earned a B.S. in Accounting with highest honors from the University of Florida, where he also earned his law degree, graduating Order of the Coif.

Todd Pulvino – Advisor
Mr. Pulvino is co-founder and Principal of CNH Partners, the merger and convertible arbitrage affiliate of AQR Capital Management. He is also a member of the finance faculty (currently on leave) at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, where his research has focused on the risks and returns of certain hedge fund strategies. Previously, Mr. Pulvino served on the finance faculty at Harvard Business School. Mr. Pulvino earned a Ph.D. and A.M. in Business Economics from Harvard University, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, and an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Adam Stevenson – Advisor
Mr. Stevenson is the founder of Stevenson Capital Management, a value-oriented hedge fund. Previously, he was a partner at Sagamore Hill Capital Management, a multi-strategy hedge fund with over $3B under management, where he founded and led the firm’s capital structure arbitrage business and oversaw several other strategies. Earlier, Mr. Stevenson worked as a fixed income trader at Citicorp. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School and his undergraduate degree in Economics and Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Eric Zitzewitz – Advisor
Mr. Zitzewitz is an Associate Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College. His recent research has focused on industry practices that disadvantage retail investors, as well as on the efficacy of prediction markets. Previously, Mr. Zitzewitz was an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He began his career as a consultant with McKinsey & Company. Mr. Zitzewitz earned his Ph.D. in Economics from MIT and his undergraduate degree in Economics magna cum laude from Harvard College.

Marketing

Bill Thompson – Principal, Marketing
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Thompson was Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing at Informative, a customer intelligence software company. Previously, he served as Executive Vice President, Marketing at Financial Engines, a 401(k) investment advisory firm. Earlier, Mr. Thompson led marketing and client service for a number of businesses at Fidelity Investments. He began his career as an account executive at Arnold Worldwide Partners and a consultant at Bain & Company. Mr. Thompson earned his undergraduate degree in History from Harvard College.

Matt Pollock – Director, Marketing
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Pollock worked as a venture capital investor with Partech International, where he focused on the software and services sectors. Previously, he was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he was a member of the technology and financial services practices and focused on sales strategy, marketing, and operational improvements. Mr. Pollock earned his undergraduate degree in Social Studies magna cum laude from Harvard College.

Technology

Patrick Donahue – Principal, Information Technology
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Donahue was a consultant with Vitale, Caturano & Co., where he advised financial services clients on their information technology infrastructure. His areas of expertise included network and systems security, disaster recovery and business continuity, resource virtualization, and scalability of high volume database and messaging environments. Previously, Mr. Donahue served in a variety of network administrator and team leader roles. He earned his undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College with a dual major in Computer Science and Economics.

James Warner – Principal, Software Development
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Warner was a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Oracle Corporation, where he served as a technical lead for the XQuery and SQL/XML group in the Server Technologies division. Previously, he was a research assistant at the Digital Knowledge Center at Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Warner earned his B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematical Sciences from Johns Hopkins University, where he graduated with university and departmental honors. He was the recipient of the Mathematical Sciences Achievement Award, awarded annually to the top undergraduate in the Mathematical Sciences department.

Paul Chen – Vice President, QA and Release Engineering
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Chen led software testing and release engineering for Hotwire.com. Previously, he was a senior software engineer at Scient Corporation. Mr. Chen earned his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Notre Dame.

Dem Pilafian – Product Manager
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Pilafian served as a product manager at Model N, Open Terracotta, and Selectica. Previously, he was an engineer and product manager at Togethersoft, Calico Commerce, and Pure Software. Mr. Pilafian earned his Master of Engineering in Software Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder and his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from the University of Arizona.

Steven Bancroft – Director, Platform Engineering
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Bancroft served as manager of information technology at Nimblefish Technologies. Previously, he was manager of information technology at Hotwire.com. Mr. Bancroft also worked as an engineer and systems administrator at Scient Corporation, where he served clients such as eBay, Southwestern Bell, and E*Trade. He earned an M.S. from the University of California, San Diego and a B.S. from the University of California, Davis, both in Computer Science.

Josh Lulewicz – Director, Software Development
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Lulewicz was a senior software engineer with Cisco Systems. Previously, he served as a software engineer at GlobalVR and Signature Devices. Mr. Lulewicz earned his B.S. in Computer Science from Winona State University and continued his study of computer graphics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Yang Tang – Software Architect
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Tang was a software engineer at eBay, where he led development teams for several product features from design through implementation. Previously, he was a consultant for Accenture in their Technology Labs division. Mr. Tang earned a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Jeremy Brown – Consulting Software Developer
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Brown was a software engineer at QLogic Corporation. Previously, he was an engineer at Macromedia, Silicon Graphics and SeeBeyond Technology. Mr. Brown began his career as a senior analyst at Wilshire Associates. He earned his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University.

Mike Chen – Senior Software Developer in Test
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Chen was a senior software engineer at Investools, where he developed and maintained systems to deliver financial data. Previously, he served as a developer at Caliber Financial Service. Mr. Chen earned his M.E. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toledo, his M.S. in Computer Science from Bowling Green State University and his undergraduate degree from the University of Science and Technology of China.

John Hovell – Senior Software Developer
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Hovell was an engineer at Tesla Motors. Previously, he was an engineer at Spansion and worked at SRI and the Paul Allen Center for Integrated Systems. Mr. Hovell earned his M.S. and B.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Tony Palladino – Senior Software Developer
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Palladino was a software engineer for Miria Systems, where he built customized solutions for large scale, Java-based, enterprise applications. He earned his undergraduate degree from San Jose State University with a concentration in Software Engineering and Mathematics.

Krishnan Seshadri – Software Consultant in Test
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Seshadri served as a business design analyst at Reporterist and Jambool. Previously, he served as a trader and application developer in the ETF and Index Arbitrage groups at Credit Suisse. Mr. Seshadri also worked as an application developer at Econovo Software Company and a systems analyst at Merrill Lynch. He earned his undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Business Administration, and Information & Decision Systems from Carnegie Mellon University.

Jason Snell – Database Administrator
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Snell was a senior systems programmer at Cloudmark. Previously, he served in software development and systems administration roles at Plus Three and Bigfoot International. Mr. Snell earned his undergraduate degree in Neural Science from New York University and an A.A. from Simon’s Rock College of Bard.

Jon Todd – Senior Software Developer
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Todd was the lead software engineer and founder of Adventex Design, a firm that built CRM, listing search, and marketing management systems. Previously, he was a system administrator and network technician for Bowdoin College. Mr. Todd earned his undergraduate degree in Computer Science summa cum laude from Bowdoin College. At Bowdoin, he was recipient of the award for highest distinction in the Computer Science program.

Tommer Wizansky – Senior Software Developer
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Wizansky conducted Ph.D. research in particle physics and cosmology, where he designed and implemented a Monte Carlo event generator for the simulation of complex particle collisions. Previously, he was a software engineer at NDS Technologies in Israel, designing automated testing tools for the company’s products. Mr. Wizansky earned a B.Sc. in Physics from Hebrew University and a Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford University.

Ian Haken – Software Developer
Mr. Haken works for Structural Wealth while pursuing his Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, with a focus on computer science applications. Previously, he participated in research at Berkeley on software implementations of Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms. Mr. Haken was an Intel Science Talent Search Finalist for his research on computational chemistry, developed during his work at the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute. He earned his undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Michael Phillips – Network and Systems Engineer
Before joining Structural Wealth, Mr. Phillips served as a network and information technology manager at the University of California, Berkeley. He also served as a teaching assistant in the University’s Department of Mathematics. Mr. Phillips earned his undergraduate degree in Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mike Gurevich – Advisor
Mr. Gurevich is a technology advisor to FT Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on technology for the financial services industry. Before joining FT Ventures, Mr. Gurevich was founder and CEO of Inventigo, LLC, a company that specialized in developing innovative software solutions. Previously, he was a founding partner of VentureKPI, a research service that employed a quantitative approach to technical due diligence. Earlier, Mr. Gurevich was Vice President of Product Development and Chief Architect of 724 Solutions, managing the company's Advanced Technology Center and Back Office Integration Center. He was also a co-founder and CTO of Concorde Solutions Inc., which was acquired by Bank of America, where he subsequently served as a Chief Architect and Vice President of Development. Mr. Gurevich earned an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Minsk Institute of Radio Technology.

Alan Peterson – Advisor, Software Architecture
Mr. Peterson is a consultant to technology-intensive companies, focused on software architecture and system scalability. He currently divides his time between Structural Wealth and a prominent social networking company, and his past clients include Apple Computer, SRI, and MacroMedia. Before becoming a consultant, Mr. Peterson was technical director of Reactivity, Inc. and a research computer scientist in Apple Computer’s Advanced Technology Group. He earned a B.S. in Symbolic Systems with a concentration in artificial intelligence from Stanford University and a Masters of Environmental Science and Management from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Peter Stern – Advisor
Mr. Stern is President of Zenbe. Previously, he co-founded Datek Online and served as its Chief Technology Officer from founding through its merger with Ameritrade. Earlier, Mr. Stern served six years in military research and development. He earned his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.