HSRIF Principals & Investment Advisory Committee




2008-2009 Principals

 

Investment Advisory Committee

 

Past Principals

 


 

2008-2009 PRINCIPALS

 

Ben Biddle
MBA 2009
Ben Biddle brings a combination of finance and social sector work experience to the fund. He started out as a full-time Americorps volunteer working in microfinance for ACCION New York. After his term of service ended, Ben went on to spend three years at Citigroup’s Corporate & Investment Bank. Over his tenure there, he held a variety of positions in areas ranging from risk management to technology product management. Ben received a BA in Spanish and Economics from Boston College. He came to Haas to pursue his MBA with an interest in early stage ventures. Apart from the Fund, Ben is active in the Entrepreneurs Association and the Berkeley Energy & Resources Collaborative.

 

Matthew Blair, CFA
MBA 2009
Prior to attending Haas, Matthew worked for 5 years at Quellos Capital Management, a fund of hedge funds. He is an avid fan of the stock market, and has been managing his personal equity portfolio since college. Recently, he achieved a life pinnacle by meeting Warren Buffett. Matthew received a BA in International Political Economy from the University of Puget Sound, where he studied international trade, development, and lending institutions like the IMF and World Bank. He is currently an equity research intern at Mosaic Investments, and will be spending the upcoming summer as a high yield credit analyst at Franklin Templeton Investments.

 

Megha Doshi
MBA 2009
Megha has a background in public health and sustainability research. Prior to Haas, she worked for 2.5 years at KLD Research & Analytics, a socially responsible investment research firm, where she researched the social, environmental, and governance performance of domestic and international publicly traded companies. She also worked at the California Department of Health Services researching public and private sector solutions to address environmental and public health triggers of obesity and physical inactivity. Megha recieved a BA in Bioethics and Policy from Harvard University. At Haas, she is focusing her studies on strategic corporate responsibility, social venture finance, and marketing.

 

Eugene Pauksta
MFE 2009
Eugene Pauksta, currently a CFA Level 1 candidate, graduated with honors from Riga Technical University in Latvia, where he earned a BS in Computer Sciences and MS in Control Systems. During his graduate studies, Eugene conducted research on intelligent simulation tools, and used mathematical modeling techniques to analyze and design dynamic control algorithms and systems. Eugene applied for two patents in Latvia, and has enhanced Erling pivoting algorithm for linear programming. Prior to joining the MFE, Eugene developed a wide range of statistical, royalty management, and accounting systems. Most recently, Eugene interned with The Environmental Defense Organization in Oakland where he analyzed the influence of risk mitigation on the financial decision process in the ocean carbon sequestration industry. He joined the MFE program to pursue his keen interest in quantitative finance. Upon graduation, Eugene would like to pursue a career in investment banking, in the fixed income or derivatives markets. Eugene enjoys reading, skiing, cycling, and playing tennis.

 

Brandon Purcell
MBA 2009
Brandon Purcell managed the equities division of AGS Specialists, LLC at the American Stock Exchange prior to pursuing his MBA at Haas. In his role as Equity Product Manager, Brandon oversaw trading in 95 listed equities and communicated directly with the companies’ CEOs and CFOs to explain price and volume fluctuations. Brandon came to New York from Chicago, where he traded options on various indices and ETFs such as the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ for Ronin Capital, LLC. Before his stint at Ronin, Brandon served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin for 2 years. In the town of Save (pronounced “Sah-vay”), he taught English, computer skills, and HIV prevention, and also worked with a Girls’ Club to battle the problem of gender disparity in Benin’s schools. At Haas, Brandon plans to synthesize his trading floor and Peace Corps experiences in order to make a positive impact in the developing world.

 

Mike Simmons
MFE 2009

Prior to starting the MFE Program at Haas, Mike worked as a research associate in the International Group of the Economic Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. In the areas of international finance and economics, he has contributed to several research projects involving topics such as foreign exchange reserve sterilization, currency crises, international trade, and global price dispersion. Mike graduated magna cum laude from the University of California, San Diego in Bioengineering and Economics. He is excited at the opportunity to be involved with a fund of this nature and to contribute to the Fund's success.

 

Aiphi Wang
MFE 2009
Prior to entering the Haas MFE program, Aiphi Wang was a Research Assistant Professor at the University at Buffalo. In her research, she discovered an unexpectedly complex pharmacology of inhibitory neurotransmitters in the brain and mathematically modeled inhibition and its role in cellular communication. She also taught math and neuroscience courses to undergraduate and graduate students. Her awareness of corporate social responsibility originated when she worked at Novartis after medical school. She has been interested and invested in capital markets since the tech boom. She looks forward to contributing to the fund by combining her interest in equity markets with her quantitative skills.

 

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INVESTMENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE


Margo Alexander is currently the Chair of the Acumen Fund, a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. Margo was formerly a senior executive of PaineWebber, where she spent the greater part of her thirty-three year career in the financial services industry. Beginning as a research analyst, she later became Director of Research, then Director of Institutional Equity and, in 1995, CEO of Mitchell Hutchins Asset Management. She was a member of the PaineWebber executive committee until the firm's acquisition by UBS in November 2000. Ms. Alexander is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, where she met her husband, Robert Alexander. She has lived in New York since 1970 and has two sons. Ms. Alexander is a member of the advisory boards of the Haas School at Berkeley and The New School, serves on the board of the Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee and is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations.

 

George S. Dallas is Director, Corporate Governance at F&C Investments in London, which manages over £100 billion in assets on behalf of more than 3 million people. He is a member of F&C’s Governance and Sustainable Investment team, where he leads all aspects of F&C’s global policies relating to corporate governance, including proxy voting, remuneration and engagement matters. He joined F&C in January 2008, prior to which he was a Managing Director at Standard & Poor’s in the area of analytical policy and research. Mr. Dallas began his career as a corporate lending officer at Wells Fargo Bank before joining S&P in 1983, initially as an analyst. At S&P he served in a range of analytical and managerial roles, including global head of both Governance Services and Emerging Markets, regional head for S&P’s Ratings Services in Europe and head of the firm’s London office. As global practice leader for corporate governance at S&P, Mr. Dallas led the development of S&P’s governance analysis and built a global team of governance analysts. He has conducted governance evaluations on companies across the globe and contributed to the formal linking of these to the overall credit rating process. He has also served on a working group to develop an S&P emerging markets index focused on corporate governance and sustainability. Mr. Dallas has written extensively on corporate governance and international finance and edited the book Governance and Risk (McGraw Hill, 2004). Mr. Dallas holds a BA degree, with distinction, from Stanford University and an MBA from the Haas School of the University of California at Berkeley. He has dual US/UK nationality and speaks German and French.

 

David C. Distad, Ph.D., CFA is a managing director of the Roulac Group in San Rafael, CA where he is involved in the management of a global equity fund and supervises a team of security analysts in India. Dr. Distad has been affiliated with the Roulac Group in various roles since 1983. Previously, Dr. Distad was a portfolio manager with Leylegian Investment Management Co., Inc. from 1996-2001 and vice president and CFO of the publicly traded hotel chain, Thomas Edison Inns, Inc., from 1992-1996. Dr. Distad has been affiliated with the Haas School of Business as a continuing lecturer in finance since 1981.


Stephen Etter is a Partner at Greyrock Capital Group. Prior to joining the Greyrock Principals in 1996, Stephen held positions at GE Capital, Barclay's Bank and Citicorp for the preceding 9 years where he focused on senior and mezzanine debt. From 1983 to 1987 he worked for Price Waterhouse where he obtained his CPA. Stephen received his undergraduate degree and MBA from the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley, where he has been a Finance Lecturer for the past 10 years. Stephen is a member of Board of Directors for the San Francisco Giants Community Fund and currently serves as a Trustee on the University of California Berkeley Foundation.

 

Farha-Joyce Haboucha, CFA, is the Portfolio Manager of the Libra Fund and Director of Socially Responsive Investments at Rockefeller & Co. Before joining Rockefeller & Co., she spent ten years as a Senior Portfolio Manager and Co-Director of Socially Responsive Investment Services at Neuberger & Berman. She also was with Manufacturers Hanover Trust as a Vice President and Group Head of the Personal Trust Investment, Private Banking and Securities Division and Division, served at Union Trust Company as a Senior Investment Officer, Portfolio Manager, and Manager of Research. Joyce is past Chairman of the Social Venture Network and serves on the Investment Committee of the United Methodist Church and the Advisory board of the Heron Foundation's Community investment Index. She has also served on the boards of FTSE4GOOD USA Advisory Committee and several non-profit organizations, and over the years has been active in environmental and women’s issues. Joyce holds a B.A. from Columbia University.


Lawrence R. Johnson retired in 2007 from Milliman, a worldwide employee benefits consulting and actuarial firm based in Seattle, WA. Mr. Johnson was the Founder and CEO of Lawrence Johnson & Associates, a national retirement plan recordkeeping firm and InvestorLogic, LLC, a Registered Investment Advisory firm. Both of these firms were merged with Milliman in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Mr. Johnson had overall responsibility for ensuring that the firm’s retirement plan clients had access to the full recordkeeping and investment advisory resources of both organizations. He has over 35 years of tax and
investment experience, of which the last 30 have concentrated on qualified retirement plans. Mr. Johnson is a nationally recognized expert in retirement plan design and administration. He has extensive experience in IRS and DOL compliance and audit issues and lectures frequently on fiduciary responsibilities affecting qualified retirement plans. Mr. Johnson served on several administrative and investment committees on behalf of the firm’s clients. Mr. Johnson currently serves on the U.C. Berkeley Foundation Board of Trustees; and the Investment Committee– U.C. Berkeley Foundation. Mr. Johnson received his B.S. degree in Business Administration from the University of
California, Berkeley.

Lloyd Kurtz is a senior portfolio manager at Nelson Capital and lead PM for socially responsible investing (SRI). Before joining Nelson Capital in 2004, Lloyd was a Senior Vice President at Harris Bretall Sullivan & Smith in San Francisco where he served as Director of Quantitative Research and provided research coverage for the healthcare, basic industry and energy sectors. Before joining Harris Bretall in 1995, he spent four years as Senior Research Analyst at KLD, a Boston research firm specializing in social investment research. At KLD, he did much of the initial quantitative work in the development of the Domini Social Index.
Lloyd is a Research Fellow at the U.C. Berkeley Haas Business School's Center for Corporate Responsibility, and serves as Program Administrator for the Moskowitz Prize. He has published numerous articles on SRI in academic journals, and authored a chapter on SRI for the Oxford Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility, which will be published in 2007. He holds a B.A. from Vassar College, an M.B.A. from Babson College, and is a Chartered Financial analyst. In 1999, he received the SRI Service Award for his contributions to social investing.

Lisa Leff is a Vice President and Portfolio Manager with Trillium Asset Management, the oldest and largest independent investment management firm devoted exclusively to socially responsible investing. Before joining the firm in 1999, Lisa served as Director and Portfolio Manager with the Social Awareness Investment program at Smith Barney Asset Management in Manhattan. While in New York, Lisa founded the Social Investment Security Analysts group and served on the Board of Directors of the Social Investment Forum. More recently, Lisa has served on the boards of the Idaho Conservation League; the Fund for Idaho, and Ten Thousand Villages, Boise, and currently serves on the board of the EcoLogic Development Fund. Lisa was named Idaho’s Progressive Businessperson of the Year for 2004. She is currently an active member of the Idaho Women’s Charitable Foundation. Lisa holds a B.S. in Business Administration from California State Polytechnic University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School. Lisa is a member of the Association for Investment Management and Research and the New York Society of Security Analysts, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Kellie A. McElhaney is the John C. Whitehead Faculty Fellow of Corporate Responsibility and the Executive Director of the Center for Responsible Business at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. She developed and launched this new center in January 2003, which has helped place corporate responsibility squarely as one of the core competencies and competitive advantages of the Haas School. Kellie teaches multiple courses on Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility in all of the Haas School's degree programs, which include in-depth student consulting engagements with companies on high-visibility strategic CSR challenges. Her research focus is in the area of analyzing companies’ CSR strategy, and its fit with their core business objectives and core competencies. She consults to several Fortune 500 companies in developing an integrated CSR strategy, bridging her academic focus with the practitioner world. She is a member of the UN Global Compact Faculty and serves on the Association for Corporate Growth Strategic Philanthropy Advisory Committee. Kellie was recently named a 2005 Faculty Pioneer for Institutional Impact by the biennial report, Beyond Grey Pinstripes. Prior to joining Haas, she spent nine years at the University of Michigan Business School, where she was adjunct professor of corporate strategy and managing director of the Corporate Environmental Management Program (CEMP). Before joining academia, she was in the acquisitions and mergers area of commercial banking. Kellie holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, a M.A. from Ohio University, and a B.A. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Charles F. Michaels, CFA is the Founder, Managing Partner, and Portfolio Manager Sierra Global Management. Mr. Michaels was born in Europe and has spent much of his personal and professional life there, including six years with Goldman Sachs & Co. in London and Zurich. Mr. Michaels served as a vice president during his nine years with Goldman, as well as a founding member of Goldman's European equities business. Prior to Goldman, Mr. Michaels was an assistant vice president at Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco and New York City. Mr. Michaels graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and received his MBA from the Columbia Business School.

John O’Brien is an Adjunct Professor and Executive Director for the Masters in Financial Engineering program at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. Previously John was a Managing Director at Credit Suisse Asset Management, responsible for developing CSAM’s first Risk Management department. Prior to CSAM, John was the Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Leland, O’Brien Rubenstein Associates (LOR), a financial services firm that developed innovative funds, including precursors of the first exchange traded funds. Before LOR, John worked on pension investment management for A.G. Becker Funds Evaluation Group (now SEI Investment, Inc.). John joined A.G. Becker after the sale of O’Brien Associates, where he was co-Founder, Chairman and CEO. O’Brien Associates introduced modern portfolio theory and analytical risk management into the purely "Graham and Dodd" investment industry of the time. He created the first "beta" book of individual stock systematic risk, the first risk-adjusted investment performance measurement service, and the first Monte Carlo simulation of multi-asset-class return distributions for pension policy analysis and was the co-creator of the O'Brien 5000 Stock Index –re-named the Wilshire 5000. John received an MS, Engineering (Operation Research) from University of California, Los Angeles, CA and an SB, Economics and Engineering (Electrical) from MIT, Cambridge, MA.

 

Marc Orlitzky is an Associate Professor of Management at Penn State University Altoona. He has served on the editorial review boards of the Academy of Management Journal and the Sage Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society and has published papers in two Oxford University Handbooks, Organization Studies (a highly cited, award-winning meta-analysis of corporate social/financial performance), International Journal of Human Resource Management, Business & Society (in 2001 an award-winning article on corporate social performance and business risk and another study in 2006), Small Group Research, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Management Education, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Investing, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, and several other publication outlets. His book, Integrative Corporate Citizenship: Research Advances in Corporate Social Performance, co-authored by Diane Swanson, is forthcoming in fall 2008.  Previously, he held teaching and research positions at the University of New South Wales, the University of Auckland, and Nottingham University Business School. Marc’s research interests revolve around corporate social, environmental, and financial performance, corporate strategy, human resource management, and quantitative methods (especially measurement and meta-analysis). Dr. Orlitzky received his PhD from the University of Iowa.

 

Scott Pinkus retired from Goldman, Sachs and Co. in 2000, after having been a partner there since 1990. At Goldman, Scott established and headed the Credit Derivatives Group, which was responsible for the trading, structuring, and distribution of over-the-counter credit derivative contracts, credit-linked notes, and credit-intensive securitized instruments. From 1988 to 1998, he headed the Fixed Income Research Department, which developed decision support tools using the latest computer technology, building quantitative models to assist in security valuation, and creating investment and trading strategies. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Mr. Pinkus founded and headed the Mortgage Securities Research Department at Morgan Stanley & Co. and before that held the same position at Merrill Lynch & Co. Mr. Pinkus is on the Advisory Board of Home Equity Securities, LLC, a new venture that developing a standardized structure and liquid market for securitized fractional shares of home equity. He is a Special Advisor to Azimuth Asset Management, a hedge fund-of-funds. Mr. Pinkus is the Chairman of the Steering Committee for the MFE program at Haas. Mr. Pinkus received both an MBA (1981) and a B.S. in Economics (1980) from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

John C. Whitehead is Chairman of The Goldman Sachs Foundation. Mr. Whitehead began his professional career in 1947 at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he worked for 38 years. He rose quickly within the company and was named Partner in 1956 and Co-Chairman and Senior Partner in 1976. He has served on the boards of numerous companies and as a Director of the New York Stock Exchange and Chairman of the Securities Industry Association. From 1985 to 1989, Mr. Whitehead was asked to become Deputy Secretary of State. Mr. Whitehead was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Reagan. He is a former Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, the UN Association, the International Rescue Committee, the Greater New York Councils of the Boy Scouts, International House, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Harvard Board of Overseers, Haverford College, and the Asia Society. He is a Director of the Nature Conservancy, Lincoln Center Theater, the East-West Institute, and the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowships, and a former Director of Rockefeller University, the J. Paul Getty Trust, Outward Bound, and the National Humanities Center. Mr. Whitehead is Chairman Emeritus of the Brookings Institution and the Trustees Council, National Gallery of Art.

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2007-2008 PRINCIPALS

 

Ambuj Chaudhary
MFE 2008
Prior to joining Haas, Ambuj worked with Oracle Corporation as a Senior Applications Engineer. Ambuj brings with him more than four years of invaluable experience in designing and developing solutions for banking, treasury, investment management, and supply chain domains. While at Oracle he played an active role in an industry wide collaboration for data interchange and transfer standardization under the aegis of UN's Center for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business. He was also highly involved with voluntary community services organized by Oracle Volunteers. Ambuj received a BS in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology. Ambuj is a CFA level II candidate and wants to pursue a full time career in investment management.

Lance Durham
MFE 2008
Lance earned an MBA and MSME from MIT in 2002. After spending six months on religious missions in Asia, he returned and worked at Booz Allen Hamilton until joining Haas. At Booz Allen, about twenty-five percent of his consulting projects focused on overseas development. Lance believes that the purpose of business is to serve people, not to ‘make a profit’; rather, ‘making a profit’ is the strategy by which the business raises the capital necessary to serve people, just as ‘asking for donations’ is how charities raise the capital to serve people. Lance received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University. He is interning at a WR Hambrecht hedge fund until early 2008 and is pursuing full-time opportunities making BOP-focused investments.

Margot Kane
MBA 2008
Margot has a background in international development and public health. She has worked for non-profit NGOs in the U.S. and East Africa, and is highly engaged in corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship at Haas. Last summer, she worked at socially responsive investment management firm Walden Asset Management, performing investment strategy and equity research for their small cap portfolio. Margot received a BA in History and Spanish from Macalester College. She is pursuing full-time opportunities in social capital, venture philanthropy, and social enterprise in developing economies.

Michael Pearce
MBA 2008
Prior to attending Haas, Michael spent six years at UBS Investment Bank, raising over $1.5 billion in 30 transactions in the telecom, technology, biotech, medical device and business services sectors. At Haas, Michael is focusing on investment management and social enterprise. Last summer, he worked for Pacific Community Ventures, analyzing, structuring and closing new portfolio investments; including financial modeling, valuation analysis, industry research, and company diligence. Michael received a BS in Finance with a minor in Mathematics from Georgetown University. Michael is pursuing full-time opportunities in socially responsible investing in both the public and private capital markets.

Clayton Schloss
MBA 2008
Clayton brings eight years of personal investing and six years of professional equity market experience to the HSRIF. As an undergraduate he was an inaugural member of the Davidson College Investment & Finance Association, a student team that managed $250,000 of the College’s endowment by investing in individual stocks. As an investor relations consultant with Thomson Financial, he provided strategic advice to senior management teams and investor relations officers at the world’s largest technology companies regarding the trading dynamics of their common stock. Clayton interned with Apple as a business analyst in worldwide product marketing. Clayton received a BA in Economics from Davidson. He is currently pursuing full-time employment opportunities in the management consulting, technology, and alternative energy industries.

Elizabeth Singleton
MBA 2008
Elizabeth brings a variety of nonprofit experience in education, international health, and natural resource management. Elizabeth came to Haas after four years in Arusha, Tanzania as the Director of the Tanzania Natural Resource Forum, a nonprofit dedicated to the equitable, sustainable, and transparent management of Tanzania’s natural resources. At Haas, she has been exploring the field of CSR and the power for corporations to create positive social and environmental impact through their core businesses. She interned with The Dow Chemical Company working on their 2015 Sustainability Goals. Elizabeth has a BA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University where she minored in Environmental Studies and African Studies. Elizabeth is currently pursuing full-time employment opportunities in social impact consulting, with the aim of supporting both nonprofit organizations and corporate responsibility efforts.

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