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Matthew O'Hara
BlackRock |
Matthew O'Hara, PhD, CFA, Director, is head of Research and Product Development for BlackRock's US & Canada Defined Contribution Group. Dr. O'Hara's service with the firm dates back to 2003, including his years with Barclays Global Investors (BGI), which merged with BlackRock in 2009. At BGI, he was Director of Research for the US & Canada Defined Contribution Group. He was responsible for research on defined contribution and pension outsourcing issues. Prior to joining the DC group, he was responsible for all research and model creation for asset-backed and commercial mortgage-backed securities. He also worked on corporate and treasury bond long/short strategies. As part of his masters program, he worked in the fixed income derivatives research group at Lehman Brothers. Earlier, he worked as a research and design engineer. Dr. O'Hara earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland in 1992. He earned an MS degree and a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1993 and 1997, respectively. He also graduated as valedictorian from the Master's in Financial Engineering program at UC Berkeley in 2003. |
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Frank Sortino
DTR Mapvest |
Frank Sortino is a finance professor emeritus from San Francisco State University and Director of the Pension Research Institute (PRI) which he founded in 1981. For 10 years he wrote a quarterly analysis of mutual funds for Pensions and Investmetns Magazine. Dr. Sortino co-authored "Managing Downside Risk in Financial Markets," with Professor Stephen Satchell at Cambridge University to be used as a text book in graduate school seminars. His recent book, "The Sortino Framework for Constructing Portfolios" was designed for investment professionals. His writings also appear in books for Brunel University and Cambridge University in the UK; and Groningen University in the Netherlands. Dr. Sortino recently founded an affiliate of PRI to work with a team of financial experts to offer a defined benefit approach to managing 401(k) plans (see www.sortinoia.com). Professor Sortino received his BS in business from USC, an MBA from U.C. Berkeley, adn a Ph.D. in Finance from The University of Oregon. He has published many articles on the appliation of downside risk based research conducted with: Shell Oil Pension Funds, Netherlands; Fortis, Netherlands; Manulife, Toronto, Canada; Twentieth Century Funds, City & County of San Francisco, Marin County Retirement System, The California State Teachers Retirement System and others. He has been a featured speaker at many conferences in the U.S., Europe, South Africa, and the Pacific Basin. Research papers are posted on www.sortino.com. |
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Kathleen Odle, Esq.
Sherman & Howard L.L.C |
Kathleen A. Odle is an attorney at Sherman & Howard L.L.C., whose practice has focused on employee benefits for over 23 years and where she is the Manager of the Tax Department. Ms. Odle provides advice to all sizes and types of employers, including private employers and publicly traded entities, non-profit entities and governmental employers, on all aspects of employee benefits, including qualified plans and 401(k) plans, 457(b) and 457(f) arrangements, executive compensation, welfare benefits, and equity arrangements. She has defended numerous IRS and Department of Labor audits for her clients. Ms. Odle is a member of the Western Pension & Benefits Conference, the ESOP Association, and the Tax Sections of the American Bar Association and the Colorado Bar Association. She is ranked #1 in Chambers USA for Employee Benefits Law, is included in The Best Lawyers in America for Employee Benefits, and is recognized as a Super Lawyer in the area of Employee Benefits. |
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Melissa A. Tuttle, CPA.
BKD, LLP |
Melissa has more than eight years of experience providing audit and consulting services to a wide variety of clients, including manufacturers, distributors, service firms, and plan sponsors of employee benefit plans. She helps clients analyze financial statements and consults on ways to improve business operations. She assists with year-end planning, including the research, interpretation and understanding of accounting rules and regulatory guidelines. Melissa serves as a coach and trainer for audit in-charge personnel, providing guidance on how to manage the overall audit process, interact with clients and review the work performed by audit staff.
Melissa reviews the audits of the financial statements of employee benefit plans, assists with the coordination of audit documents and records between the client and third-party administrator, and provides consulting services relating to compliance with U.S. Department of Labor and IRS regulations. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Colorado Society of Certified Public Accountants and the Western Pension Benefits Conference, and has served as a firm representative at the AICPA National Conference on Employee Benefit Plans. She is a participant in the 2011 Downtown Denver Leadership Program. Melissa is a graduate of Manchester College, Indiana, with a B.S. degree in accounting in 2001 and a master’s degree in accounting in 2002. |
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Sam Wardwell
Pioneer Investments |
Sam Wardwell and the Investment Strategy Specialist team are responsible for explaining the investment philosophy, process, and performance of investment products and providing updates on overall financial market performance, economic trends and the firm’s economic outlook to clients and their advisors.
Sam’s career has given him direct experience with many of the most important economic developments of the past thirty years. He began his career with Bank of Boston as a commercial lender specializing in transportation companies during the Carter administration’s deregulation of the transportation sector and imposition of credit controls in an attempt to slow inflation. He moved to the bank’s investments division as a fixed income position trader during the years when the Volcker Federal Reserve raised interest rates to unprecedented levels in its successful attack on inflation. In 1984, Sam joined Fidelity Investments on the fixed income investment side of the business, moving to the equity side and then into a role as a spokesman for Fidelity’s portfolio managers to institutional clients and consultants. Sam joined Wellington Management Company in 1988. Over the next twelve years, he helped lead the growth of its institutional business, leading product management and institutional client relationship management teams. He also conducted original capital markets research and wrote white papers on topics such as the drivers of equity size and style cycles and the influence of the dot.com stocks on market index returns. Sam joined Pioneer Investments in 2003 from State Street Research where he was head of equity product management. Sam graduated from Williams College (with honors) in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in Economics and English. He received his Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 1991 |
