Chambers & Partners
 
Speakers
Paul Dykstra
Partner
Ropes & Gray LLP
Paul Dykstra is a partner in Ropes & Gray’s investment management group in Chicago. He focuses his practice on the representation of mutual funds and fund boards throughout the country. He also has experience counseling independent fund directors involved in corporate reorganizations and internal or SEC investigations. A frequent speaker and author on mutual fund and independent director issues, Paul co-authored the Fund Director's Guidebook for the American Bar Association.  He also serves as Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University School of Law, where he teaches a course, along with Paulita Pike, on mutual fund regulation. Paul is currently ranked in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, Legal 500 US, and Best Lawyers in America, and has been twice named Fund Directions’ “Independent Counsel of the Year” with Paulita. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School.
 
Steven Farmer
Chief Compliance Officer
50 South Capital Advisors LLC
Steven P. Farmer is a Senior Vice President and the Chief Compliance Officer for 50 South Capital. Mr. Farmer is responsible for developing and managing a comprehensive compliance program to effectively monitor compliance with internal procedures and policies as well as regulatory requirements. With numerous years of experience in asset management compliance, he most recently held the chief compliance officer role for Mesirow Advanced Strategies, Inc., as well as senior compliance positions for Mesirow Financial International UK, Limited and Mesirow Financial Hong Kong, Limited.  Mr. Farmer received a Bachelor of Science degree in finance from Northern Illinois University, and a Master of Business Administration from DePaul University. He is a frequent speaker at national and regional compliance and alternative investment industry conferences, and currently serves as a Member of the Board of Directors of the National Society of Compliance Professionals.
 
Charles McCain
Chief Compliance Officer
Harbor Funds

Charlie McCain serves as the Chief Compliance Officer for Harbor Funds, an actively managed family of no-load mutual funds with net assets of approximately $80 billion. Harbor Funds utilizes a manager-of-managers approach to investing. Charlie also serves as a Director, Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Harbor Capital Advisors, Inc., the investment adviser to each Harbor fund, and as the Chief Compliance Officer to each of Harbor Funds Distributors, Inc., the principal underwriter for Harbor Funds, and Harbor Services Group, Inc., the transfer agent for Harbor Funds.

Prior to joining Harbor Funds and Harbor Capital Advisors in 2004, Charlie served as a Junior Partner in the investment management practice for the law firm of WilmerHale in Boston. Charlie joined WilmerHale in 1996.

Charlie has a J.D., with Distinction, from Stanford Law School, and a B.A., Summa Cum Laude, from Dartmouth College.

 
Deborah Monson
Partner
Ropes & Gray LLP
Deborah Monson focuses her practice on commodities law, asset managers and private investment funds. Debbie has represented registered and exempt commodity pool operators and commodity trading advisors for nearly 30 years and also regularly advises mutual funds, banks, insurance companies, endowments and foundations on commodities law matters. Debbie represents U.S. and offshore private investment funds, fund sponsors and investment advisers. She has significant experience with registration, regulation and compliance issues, as well with counseling clients on product design, fund formation, securities offerings, marketing, and negotiations and documentation with service providers and trading counterparties. This experience includes working with regulators on behalf of clients, assisting with regulatory audits, and obtaining exemptive and no-action relief. For institutional investors, Debbie concentrates on reviewing and negotiating the terms of their investments in private equity, hedge, managed futures, real estate and infrastructure products. In the past year, various publications recognized Debbie as a leading lawyer in her field, including Best Lawyers in America, which named Debbie the “Lawyer of the Year” in Chicago for private funds/hedge funds law; Legal 500 US and The International Who’s Who of Private Fund Lawyers, which listed her as a top lawyer in the funds space; and The Chicago Daily Bulletin, which cited Debbie as one of Chicago’s “top hedge funds lawyers.”
 
Paulita Pike
Partner
Ropes & Gray LLP
Paulita is a partner in the Chicago office of Ropes & Gray LLP. Paulita represents mutual funds and their boards as well as investment advisers throughout the country. Some of the fund complexes with which she works include: Oppenheimer, Prudential, the Northern Trust, Jackson National, Curian and Calamos.  In her capacity as board counsel, Paulita advises on a range of governance issues, including committee structures, committee and chair rotations, succession, director compensation, communications with the press, board and committee self-evaluations, and the identification, selection and orientation of new board members. In her work representing advisers, Paulita counsels on wide-ranging issues, including compliance matters, regulatory filings, public disclosures, corporate restructurings, regulatory communications, contractual matters and client relations, including in the context of subadvisory arrangements.
Paulita received her Juris Doctor from the University of Notre Dame in 1996 and her B.A. in Government and International Studies from the University of Notre Dame in 1993.  
Paulita was named as “Independent Fund Counsel of the Year” in 2008 and 2013, along with Paul Dykstra, by Fund Directions. She is on the advisory board of Board IQ, a national bi-weekly publication for mutual fund directors, and on the advisory board of The Mutual Fund Directors Forum, an organization dedicated to mutual fund independent directors. She also is an adjunct professor of law at Northwestern Law School where she teaches a course on mutual fund regulation.  
Paulita has served on the Executive Committee of the Auxiliary Board of the Art Institute of Chicago since 2005, as a Vice President of the Board from July 1, 2007 through June 30, 2010, and as President of the Board and Trustee of the Art Institute from July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2012. She was elected to the Art Institute Committee on Architecture and Design in February 2013. She also is a member of the Board of Directors of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater and serves on its Finance Committee.

 
Matt Posthuma
Partner
Ropes & Gray LLP
Matt Posthuma is a partner in Ropes & Gray’s private investment funds group in Chicago who focuses on the formation of private investment funds and other transactions involving real estate companies, asset managers and financial institutions worldwide.  Matt handles open- and closed-end funds with a wide range of investment strategies, such as real estate (including core, value-added and opportunistic), private equity, infrastructure, debt, hedge, global and foreign country funds. He also has expertise in joint ventures, separate accounts, and other corporate and securities transactions. Matt dedicates a significant portion of his practice to funds and other investments in Brazil, Mexico and other parts of Latin America.  Throughout his career, Matt has been recognized by Legal 500 US for Real Estate, Private Equity Funds and Latin America – Corporate and M&A, and has been named an Illinois Super Lawyer. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Harvard Law School.
 
Dee Sekar
Editor
Chambers and Partners
Dee Sekar is a UK qualified solictor and Editor at Chambers & Partners. Dee trained and worked at two London city firms before moving to Chambers & Partners 4 years ago. Her main focus has been establishing a network of relationships with in-house counsel across the globe. Dee works very closely with numerous in-house lawyer groups. She successfully launched the Chambers General Counsel seminars in Latin America and Asia while continuing to strength the programme in the USA. Dee is also head of Chambers Diversity which is a global programme that provides a platform to the most outstanding lawyers who have shown a real commitment to advancing diversity in the law. Chambers Diversity investigate the recruitment, retention and promotion of diverse lawyers in companies, law firms and barristers' chambers and will monitor this progress over time.
 
David Tittsworth
Counsel
Ropes & Gray LLP
David joined Ropes & Gray in June 2015 after serving as president and CEO of the Investment Adviser Association for 18 years. David’s past experience at the IAA, a not-for- profit organization that represents the interests of SEC-registered investment advisory firms before Congress, the SEC, the CFTC and other regulators, gives him a unique perspective on the issues faced by investment management firms.