Speakers
MARC BRACCO |
Board Chair | SBCERA
Marc Bracco is the lieutenant assigned to the Bureau of Administration of the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner’s Department. He assists with managing the division, which handles the department’s annual budget of $800 million, including purchasing, contracts, grants, position control, fleet, and capital improvement projects. Marc has been in law enforcement for over 22 years. Effective January 1, 2019, he was elected to the San Bernardino County Employees’ Retirement Association as the Safety Member Trustee.
Marc is currently the Region 5 Chairman for the California Narcotic Officers’ Association. Before being elected as the Safety Member Trustee, Marc spent the last eight years with the Sheriff’s Employees’ Benefit Association (SEBA). He ended his time with SEBA as the Vice president but had been the sergeant of arms and elected board member.
Marc graduated with honors, Summa Cum Laude, in February 2017, with his Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Management Degree. Marc possesses a Bachelor of Science in Management Degree, which he graduated with honors, Magna Cum Laude. He enjoys teaching and is a regular instructor at the Sheriff’s Department Advanced Officer Training Center.
JARED NEWCOMER |
Investment Committee Chair | SBCERA
Jared Newcomer is a Captain/Paramedic with the San Bernardino County Fire Department (SBCoFD). He is the elected San Bernardino County Employees Retirement Association (SBCERA) Board of Retirement alternate safety member trustee, effective January 2016.
Prior to his election to the Board of Retirement, Jared served as a Local 935 representative serving the SBCoFD professional firefighters. He earned a Master’s Degree in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of La Verne, and also holds a Bachelor’s Degree (BA) in the same field of study.
DEBBY CHERNEY |
Chief Executive Officer | SBCERA
Debby Cherney is the Chief Executive Officer of the San Bernardino County Employees’ Retirement Association (SBCERA), where she oversees day-to-day administrative operations in accordance with the policies established by the SBCERA Board of Retirement (Board). She advises and assists the Board in long range planning and development; ensuring SBCERA is providing the best service to our Members and secure retirements today and well into the future.
Prior to joining SBCERA in August 2018, Debby served as the Deputy General Manager at the Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD). During her time at EMWD, she was actively engaged on California water issues regarding infrastructure, ratepayer affordability and addressing the issue of failing water systems throughout the state. Prior to EMWD, Debby was the Executive Director of Finance and Administrative Services at Irvine Ranch Water District in Irvine, California and spent the first 15 years of her career in management consulting, working with public agencies and private companies.
Debby formerly served on the Executive Board of Directors of the Government Finance Officers Association of the U.S. and Canada, was the Chair of their advisory Committee on Retirement and Benefits Administration and was the Chair of the Women’s Public Finance Network. She also formerly served as a member of the Board of Public Utilities for the City of Riverside.
Debby is a Certified Public Accountant, licensed in the State of California. She has a Bachelor’s degree from Claremont McKenna College and an MBA from the University of California, Irvine.
Sarah Siwinski |
Vice President, Americas Institutional Business | BlackRock
Sarah Siwinski, CFA, Vice President, is a member of the Client Insight Unit within BlackRock’s Americas Institutional Business, where she focuses on delivering customized portfolio construction services and insights to institutional clients. Prior to joining CIU, Sarah was a member of the Institutional Client Analytics team within BlackRock’s Portfolio Analytics Group. She was responsible for creating and delivering BlackRock’s analytical capabilities to the firm and client businesses, specifically through work with the Financial Institutions Group and Client Businesses.
Sarah graduated magna cum laude from Fairfield University, with dual B.S. degrees in Finance and Marketing.
SAM AUSTIN |
Partner | NEPC
Sam Austin, based in San Francisco, California, manages NEPC’s Western Region public fund consulting activities. For over 35 years, Sam has offered consulting advice to public fund, corporate, multi-employer, endowment and eleemosynary clients. Sam currently serves as Chair of NEPC’s Governing Board. He previously chaired NEPC’s Partner Nominating Committee. Sam also is Chair of NEPC’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Board.
Prior to joining the Partnership at NEPC in 2017, Sam was a Senior Vice President at FIS Group (now Xponance) for five years, where he advised pension clients on the portion of their asset allocation dedicated to emerging managers. Sam contributed to manager selection decisions as a Voting Member of the Investment Committee at FIS. Previously, Sam worked for 10 years at Virtus Investment Partners where he held the position of Executive Managing Director. As a Member of the Virtus Executive Committee, reporting to the CEO, he was a key participant in the strategic planning and implementation for the spin-out of multiple boutique money management subsidiaries from Phoenix Insurance. Earlier in his career, Sam was a Principal and Team Leader for the Public Fund and Taft-Hartley businesses at Barclays Global Investors (now BlackRock). He also served initially as a Portfolio Strategist for Quantitative Equities and later as Principal and Co-Head of Marketing at Bankers Trust Company (now Deutsche Bank).
Sam is the founder and Board Chair of the Investment Diversity Advisory Council (IDAC), an organization with representation from all stakeholders in the investment business, dedicated to working collaboratively to implement strategies that can transform the equitable representation of all parts of the population throughout our industry. Sam was also the founding President of the New York Chapter of the National Association of Securities Professionals (NASP-NY), where he created the NASP-NY Trustee Education Seminar in 1994. His initiative to launch the NASP Finance and Scholastic Training Track (“FAST Track”) Program in New York has been adopted by other local chapters of NASP around the country and has introduced hundreds of inner-city high school students to careers in banking, finance and asset management. Sam was inducted into the NASP-NY Wall Street Hall of Fame in 2013. Sam earned his M.B.A. degree in Finance from the Questrom School of Business at Boston University and a Bachelor of Science degree from Boston University.
DONALD PIERCE |
Chief Investment Officer | SBCERA
Mr. Pierce serves as the Chief Investment Officer for the San Bernardino County Employees’ Retirement Association (SBCERA), where he has been part of the investment team since 2001. He works directly with the Board on developing policy and investment goals, implementing investment objectives and the selection of investment managers, and is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the investment division.
During his tenure with SBCERA, Mr. Pierce introduced international private equity, emerging market debt, and option strategies into the plan’s mix. Additionally, he has spearheaded a new rebalancing methodology for the fund.
Mr. Pierce earned a Bachelors of Science Degree in Statistics from San Diego State and is a CFA charter holder. He is a member of the CFA Institute and has shared his professional expertise with various professional organizations.
GINA SANCHEZ |
Founder & CEO | Chantico Global
Ms. Sanchez is the Chief Executive Officer of Chantico Global, a global investment consultancy, and Chantico Technology, an investment technology software publisher. She also serves as a member of the Investor Advisory Group to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), a nonprofit corporation established by Congress to oversee the audits of public companies, where she is Chair of the Technology and Innovation Sub-Committee. In addition, she serves a Trustee of the Los Angeles County Employee Retirement Association (LACERA) Board of Retirement where she serves as Chairwoman and a member of the Board of Directors for Cedars Sinai Hospital, where she serves on the Executive Committee. Finally, she serves as an Advisory Board Member to the UCLA Masters of Financial Engineering Program and Applied Real Intelligence (ARI) Venture Debt Opportunities Fund.
Chantico Global was spun out of Roubini Global Economics in 2013. Previously, Ms. Sanchez was the Director of Equity and Asset Allocation for Roubini Global Economics.
Prior to joining RGE, Ms. Sanchez spent four years as an institutional asset manager, serving at the California Endowment, a US$3 billion Los Angeles-based foundation, as managing director of public investments and at the Ford Foundation, a US$10 billion New York-based foundation, as director of public investments. In both roles, she was responsible for making asset allocation and manager selection recommendations for all external public managers, including both total return and absolute return strategies.
Ms. Sanchez spent over eleven years on the asset management and banking side. She was a portfolio manager and strategist for eight years at American Century Investment Management in Mountain View, Calif. where she ran over $6.5 billion in AUM. She also worked in emerging markets research at JPMorgan in New York.
She is a contributor for CNBC and was a recipient of Institutional Investor’s 2009 Foundations and Endowments Rising Stars Award. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard University and a master’s in international policy studies from Stanford University.
ALEX KESSEL |
Partner, Co-Investments | Adams Street Partners
Alex is a member of the Co-Investments Team with a specific focus on leveraged buyout co-investments. In this role he sources, screens, executes, monitors, and coordinates the exit of leveraged buyout coinvestments. Prior to joining Adams Street, he was a Principal at Baird Capital, a global private equity firm, where his responsibilities included investment thesis development, growth and later-stage investment sourcing, execution, portfolio management, and exiting investments.
Prior to Baird Capital, he held positions with Willis Stein & Partners and Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. Alex is a member of Adams Street’s Co-Investment Committee, Impact Investment Committee* and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee. He is also a board member of the Illinois Venture Capital Association
MIKE TAYLOR |
Partner, Co-Investments | Adams Street Partners
Mike is a member of the Co-Investment Team. In this role he sources, screens, executes, monitors, and coordinates the exit of co-investments. He joined the Adams Street Co-Investment Team in 2020 after spending eight years as a member of the Adams Street Primary Investment Team.
Prior to joining the firm, he worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch as an Investment Banking Analyst within their Global Industrials Group. His work focused on the automotive sector. Mike is a member of Adams Street’s Co-Investment Committee.
Mike holds a Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College and MBA, with honors, from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
KATHY SUTHERLAND |
Partner & CEO | GoldenTree Asset Management
Kathy Sutherland is a Partner and the Chief Executive Officer of GoldenTree Asset Management. In addition, Ms. Sutherland is a member of GoldenTree’s Executive Committee. Ms. Sutherland oversees the firm’s global strategy, product and business development, and long-term planning.
Prior to joining GoldenTree, Ms. Sutherland was a Managing Director at J.P. Morgan where she was responsible for Fund and Structured Credit Distribution across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia from 2005 to 2008. During that period, J.P. Morgan became recognized as a leading Fund and Structured Credit franchise, advising many of the most important asset managers and investors globally.
In her 12 years at J.P. Morgan, Ms. Sutherland held several management positions across Portfolio Management, Structured Credit and High Yield including Senior US CLO Structurer, Co-Head of European Secondary Loan Trading, Head of High Yield Credit Derivatives Marketing, and Global Head of Structured Syndicate. Ms. Sutherland graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Chemistry and specialization in Biochemistry. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
LEE KRUTER |
Partner & Head of Performing Credit | GoldenTree Asset Management
Lee Kruter is a Partner and Head of Performing Credit at GoldenTree Asset Management. Mr. Kruter is the Lead Portfolio Manager for the Multi-Sector strategy, GoldenTree Loan Management and the firm’s Corporate Credit and fixed income oriented Structured Credit strategies. Mr. Kruter is a member of GoldenTree Asset Management’s Executive Committee, and GoldenTree’s Private Credit Committee.
Mr. Kruter’s leadership has been instrumental in the performance and growth of the firm’s fixed income offerings. Prior to joining GoldenTree, Mr. Kruter was a Vice President at Credit Suisse and spent seven years in the Leveraged Finance Research group, where he was responsible for the healthcare and services sectors. During his time at Credit Suisse, Mr. Kruter also covered various other sectors including metals & mining and wireless & wireline telecommunications. Mr. Kruter holds a B.S. in Finance and Management Information Systems from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. Mr. Kruter is also a CFA charterholder.
AMIT THANKI |
Senior Investment Officer | SBCERA
Mr. Thanki is a Senior Investment Officer with the San Bernardino County Employees’ Retirement Association (SBCERA). As a member of the investment team, he oversees the deployment of $3 billion in pension assets across investment strategies in diversified credit, private equity, and venture capital. In addition, Mr. Thanki is responsible for developing and implementing SBCERA’s asset allocation policy, structuring manager relationship, identifying investment opportunities, and monitoring portfolio liquidity.
Prior to joining SBCERA in April 2012, Mr. Thanki was an Investment Analyst at Orange County Employees’ Retirement System (OCERS) where he was responsible for the oversight of the hedge fund, public equity, and public fixed income portfolios. He started his investment career at PIMCO and as a member of the marketing and business development group focusing on fixed income strategies in emerging markets, high yield and structured credit.
Mr. Thanki has over sixteen years of experience in the investment management industry and received the Money Management Intelligence 2013 Rising Star of Public Funds award. He earned his MBA from the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine and has a BS in Business Management from Oklahoma State University. Additionally, Mr. Thanki is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) charter holder and a member of the CAIA Association.
JAKE ABBOTT |
Senior Investment Officer | SBCERA
Jared has served the citizens of San Bernardino County as a public servant for the past 20 years, and looks forward to continuing this sense of duty through his position on the Retirement Board. He lives in Apple Valley with his wife and two daughters. As a family they love being active outdoors, camping and traveling any chance they get.
Mr. Abbott is an Investment Officer with the San Bernardino County Employees’ Retirement Association (SBCERA). As a member of the investment team, Mr. Abbott is responsible for the development of investment goals, underwriting investment opportunities, manager selection, and investment operations.
Prior to joining SBCERA in September 2015, Mr. Abbott was an Investment Strategist for the Chamberlain Group, a private client investment advisor. He was responsible for leading investment due diligence, portfolio design, and investment communication. Previously, he worked as an Associate Portfolio Manager, Equity Derivatives at Russell Investments where he was responsible for management of Global cash equitization programs and trade execution. He began his investment career as a US Equity Manager Research Analyst at Russell.
Mr. Abbott earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics/Operations Research from Columbia University and is a CFA charterholder. He is a member of the CFA Institute and volunteers with the CFAOC’s Student Managed Investment Fund.
THOMAS KIM |
Senior Investment Officer | SBCERA
Mr. Kim is an Investment Officer with the San Bernardino County Employees’ Retirement Association (SBCERA). As a member of the investment team, Mr. Kim is responsible for the development and implementation of investment policy, selection of managers, and evaluation of investment opportunities.
Prior to joining SBCERA in 2020, Mr. Kim was a consultant for the investment chair of a hospital endowment and pension, where he assisted with asset allocation and manager research. Earlier in his career, he worked at multiple hedge funds, investing in equities across various sectors and strategies. Mr. Kim started his career in investment banking, with a focus on mergers and acquisitions in the technology sector.
Mr. Kim earned his MBA in Finance from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and holds a BA in Economics from Yale University.
JARVIS HOLLINGSWORTH |
Vice Chairman | Irradiant Partners &
Former Board Chair | Teacher Retirement System of Texas
Jarvis V. Hollingsworth is Vice Chairman and serves as a member of the Management Committee of Irradiant Partners, LP, an alternatives investment advisor founded in October 2021 that focuses on investments in renewable energy private equity and credit, liquid credit and opportunistic credit. Irradiant has over $12 billion in assets under management and is 100% owned by its founders and employees.
Mr. Hollingsworth previously served as General Counsel/Corporate Secretary and was on the Board of Directors and the five-member Executive Committee of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, L.P., a leading alternatives investment management firm with approximately $30 billion in assets based in Los Angeles. As General Counsel/Corporate Secretary, he advised the firm on all legal matters, including private fund formation/management and securities regulatory/compliance. Mr. Hollingsworth is a former Partner of the law firm Bracewell LLP in Houston, Texas where he served as Chair of the Board Fiduciary practice group and was elected by the partnership to the firm’s Management Committee and Finance Committee.
Mr. Hollingsworth previously served as a gubernatorial appointee to the Board of Trustees of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS), a Texas state agency which manages a $200 billion-plus pension trust fund and administers an array of benefits for retirees and active employees of education-related institutions. He served two terms on TRS’ Board of Trustees, 2002-2008 and 2017-2024, serving as Board Chair during both terms. Under his leadership, TRS underwent many transformative changes, including reallocating the alternative assets portfolio from 4 percent to 35 percent, doubling the portfolio’s hedge fund allocation, and revamping the investment governance structure to become a leader amongst its large institutional peers. TRS also added a leverage allocation to its investment portfolio under his leadership, one of the few public pension plans in the country to have such an allocation. As a result, the fund is less vulnerable to dramatic downturns in the capital markets and is better able to capitalize on the strong returns of less traditional asset classes. Mr. Hollingsworth is a frequent speaker on the changes made at TRS under his leadership.
Mr. Hollingsworth is currently an Independent Director of Vital Energy, Inc. (NYSE: VTLE), a diversified energy company, where he has provided oversight for multiple acquisitions over the last 12 months as a member of the Audit Committee and as Chair of the Nominations/Governance committee. He is a Director of the Memorial Hermann Health System and the National Association of Corporate Directors, TriCities Chapter. Mr. Hollingsworth is also a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Financial Sector Advisory Council.
Mr. Hollingsworth is a former director of the following companies: Frost Bank, and its holding company, Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. (NYSE:CFR), where he served on the Audit and Nominations/Governance committees; Blockcap Inc., an independent digital currency and Blockchain mining operator which was acquired by Core Scientific; and Infogroup, Inc., a private equity-backed digital marketing company. He previously served from 2009-2015 as a gubernatorial appointee to the Board of Regents of the University of Houston System where he served as Chair of the Board and Chair of the Audit, Endowment, Finance, Executive and Compensation committees during his 6-year tenure.
Mr. Hollingsworth was a member of the 2023 National Association of Corporate Directors Blue Ribbon Commission on Governance, and was also named to the 2023 NACD Directorship 100, an annual recognition of the top 100 most influential Directors who impact boardroom practices and performance. He received his B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point where he was a four-year letterman on the Army football team. Mr. Hollingsworth served for several years on active and reserve duty in the U.S. Army upon graduation, retiring as a Captain. He received his J.D. from the University of Houston.
Mr. Hollingsworth is a native of Fayette, Alabama. He has been married to his wife, Andrea, for over 35 years and they have three adult children: son (Jordan) and daughters (Courtney, Kendall).
THOMAS BOYD |
Portfolio Manager, Overlay Services | Russell Investments
Thomas Boyd is a portfolio manager on the Overlay Services team for Russell Investments.
He works with Pensions, Endowments and Foundations to deploy a wide range of futures, options, swaps and other OTC instruments to manage plan overlays, risk exposures and other customized implementation strategies. In addition to his daily portfolio management responsibilities, Thomas leverages programming fluency to fine tune Overlay Services’ quantitative frameworks.
Thomas joined Overlay Services with eight years capital markets experience, of which a majority was spent on Trading desks. His buy-side trading experience spans a diverse panel of derivative instruments, managing both exposure and execution risk. Thomas joined Overlay Services from the derivatives trading desk at Russell Investments, and prior to that, traded mortgage instruments for a regional bank. Executed instruments on the bank desk included MBS, CMBS, To-Be-Announced MBS forwards, interest rate swaps, Eurodollar futures and swaptions.
JOHN KENNEDY |
Partner & Attorney | Nossaman
John Kennedy specializes in complex business litigation with an emphasis in employment law. He also specializes in administrative law representing individuals and entities before quasi-judicial administrative tribunals, e.g., the State Personnel Board, and the Office of Administrative Hearings. John represents public and private entities in state and federal courts, administrative tribunals, and through alternative dispute resolution mechanisms such as binding arbitration and mediation.
In addition to his litigation experience, John counsels and advises both public and private employers regarding a broad array of matters including public disclosure of information, the Brown Act, and employment matters. Among others, he provides these services to the California Office of the Legislative Counsel, the California Assembly Rules Committee, and the Sacramento County Employees’ Retirement System. Employment advice and consultation is given in areas including personnel policies and procedures, discipline and termination, the Americans with Disabilities Act and California’s counterpart, wage and hour issues, leave issues, privacy issues, trade secret protection, discrimination, harassment and retaliation, and workplace violence issues.
John also provides sexual harassment prevention and other training seminars to employers, their supervisors, and staff. He is AV Preeminent® Peer Review Rated by Martindale-Hubbell.