Partner, KPMG LLP
Former Global Head/CEO, Cumberland
Edward Brice is the Director of Education Strategy and Operations at Allstate Insurance Company. He oversees the onboarding and continuing education for all producer models as well as employees within the Agency Sales Organization. His team is not only responsible for the strategic design of content and curriculums, but also the centralized delivery to a population of over forty thousand learners.
Edward began his career as a high school math teacher with Teach For America in Chicago. Next, he joined Sears Holdings Corporation (SHC), where he spent ten years in various roles- including Marketing Operations, Procurement and Integrated Learning and Performance. Prior to joining Allstate, Edward led the centralized learning function at SHC.
He holds a Bachelor of Science from Morehouse College with a dual concentration in Mathematics and Economics, a Master of Arts in Teaching in Secondary Education from Dominican University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago- Booth School of Business.
Edward resides in Chicago, IL with his wife and two daughters. His personal interests include investing, reading and sports.
Matt Chlystek is a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley. Previously at Moelis & Company, he specialized in advising consumer food and agribusiness companies. Matt has over 20 years of investment banking experience, leading and executing numerous domestic and cross border M&A transactions, equity, and debt underwritings for companies across the food production value chain..
Prior to joining Moelis & Company, Matt spent 12 years at J.P. Morgan in the Global Consumer & Retail Investment Banking group, most recently as a Managing Director. Before that, he was a member of Bank of America’s Consumer Investment Banking group. Matt began his career as a management consultant at Andersen Consulting in Chicago and London.
Matt holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA in Finance and Accounting from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Ricardo is a global consumer goods strategist with experience in management consulting, corporate and BU-level strategy and consumer insights. He is currently VP, Consumer and Marketplace Insights at Nestle. Previously, he served as VP, Strategic Initiatives at Ventas, Inc. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Marketing & Brand Strategy at McDonald’s, responsible for Latin America strategic marketing initiatives. Before McDonald’s, he was Sr. Director of Global Consumer Insights at PepsiCo, where he implemented company-wide initiatives including marketing mix models, demand segmentation and advanced analytics. At PepsiCo he also led strategy for Pepsi Beverages in North America, focusing on strategic planning and marketing and commercialization projects. Additionally, Ricardo worked 3 years at PepsiCo’s Corporate Strategy team, supporting C-level executives by driving growth initiatives and business development. Prior to PepsiCo, Ricardo spent 7 years as a consultant with A.T. Kearney in the Consumer Goods & Retail practice. He started his career in marketing at General Motors.
Born in Brazil, he studied in Austria as exchange student, backpacked for six months in Southeast Asia and China and worked in several international markets including Japan, Thailand, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Europe (UK, Netherlands, Russia, Turkey), Saudi Arabia and Canada. MBA graduate from Kellogg School of Management.
Jerry lives in Chicago with his wife and two children. He is originally from Ghana but was raised in Botswana and is a die-hard supporter of Liverpool FC.
Pete Domanko has spent 14 years with PwC. He is a Partner at PwC and focused on helping companies in the Energy and Industrials sectors achieve their business objectives through transforming their supply chains and operations. He began his career in the Cleveland office, before spending two years on global assignment in London, and then moving to Chicago in 2013.
Pete graduated from the University of Dayton with a degree in Business – Operations and Supply Chain Management. He has served on the Advisory Council for the Operations and Supply Chain Management department at UD since 2014. He is also a Certified Supply Chain Management Professional (CSCP) from APICS.
Paul is a partner at KPMG LLP, a global network of professional firms providing Audit, Tax & Advisory services. Paul has more than 20 years of experience providing audit services to public and private entities. He began his career with KPMG in the Beirut, Lebanon office and transferred to KPMG Chicago in 2004. He recently completed a 3 year rotation to KPMG’s National Office based in New York as a member of the Audit Quality and Professional Practice Group where he served as a firm resource on various auditing and accounting topics including revenue recognition, business combinations, income taxes, and SEC reporting.
Paul is a frequent facilitator and trainer of audit, regulatory, and accounting matters for co-workers and the public, and is a member of the KPMG Culture Champions Network, an internal group of KPMG professionals who are passionate about and committed to making KPMG an even better place to work for and with.
As a first-generation college graduate, Paul holds a B.S. in Accounting and a M.S. in Finance from Saint Joseph University in Beirut and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in Illinois, New York, and Delaware. Paul is fluent in English, French, and Arabic.
Paul resides in Downers Grove with his wife Mirna, and his three children, Gianna, Naiya, and George. He enjoys playing sports with his kids in his spare time.
Bill is responsible for the oversight of Green Courte’s acquisition team and its investment activities in the parking and specialty housing sectors. Bill joined Green Courte in 2012.
Bill joined Green Courte after spending twelve years with Hometown America, LLC in various positions, most recently Vice President of Acquisitions. Bill joined Hometown early in its evolution, helping it grow into one of the nation’s largest private owners of land-lease communities. He was responsible for the acquisition of over $620 million of land-lease communities during his tenure at Hometown and was involved in some of the most notable portfolio transactions in the industry, including Hometown’s acquisition of Chateau Communities. Bill’s duties spanned the entire spectrum of the transaction process, including: sourcing acquisitions, valuations, contract negotiations, conducting due diligence, financing and closing deals.
Prior to his association with Hometown America, LLC, Bill worked as a Research Analyst in the Corporate Finance group at Duff & Phelps Credit Rating Company. In this role he was responsible for research and assessment of economic risk and industry trends in the consumer products, chemical and healthcare industries.
Bill holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Pranay is a Partner at McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm. Pranay is the leader of McKinsey’s healthcare operations work, focusing primarily on healthcare payers, and health-services organizations. His areas of expertise include multi-lever performance transformation, service-operations strategy, customer experience and engagement, clinical operations, and technology.
Pranay has received a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Mumbai University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Before joining McKinsey, Pranay worked as a computer engineer in enterprise application development. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Annie, and daughter, Maggie.
Jason Leung has over twenty years of experience in traditional financial markets, with most of his career focused on foreign exchange options. He is most recently the Global Head/CEO of Cumberland (a DRW Company), the largest OTC market maker for crypto currencies.
Jason joined DRW in 2013, where he successfully built and managed the global FX options team before joining Cumberland.
He started his career on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and has worked for Wall Street banks in Chicago, Stanford, London and Singapore over the course of his FX career.
Jason earned a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Carl-Martin Lindahl is the CEO of SVP Worldwide. The company is the world’s largest consumer sewing machine company and sells under the SINGER®, HUSQVARNA VIKING® and PFAFF® sewing machine brands, each of which has been in the industry for over 145 years. As a global leader doing business in over 190 countries, SVP Worldwide specializes in the design, manufacture and distribution of innovative consumer and artisan sewing, quilting and embroidery machines, accessories, embroidery designs and software. The company has design, engineering/R&D and manufacturing operations in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Before assuming his current role, Carl-Martin held the position as Business Unit CEO for KitchenAid Small Appliances, a wholly owned, independently run, subsidiary of the Whirlpool Corporation. KitchenAid is a leading kitchen appliance, cookware, cutlery and kitchen tool brand sold in more than 150 countries that manufactures a majority of its products in the U.S. Before his current role, Carl-Martin was the Vice President of Products, Brands and Engineering for Whirlpool in Europe, Middle East & Africa, overseeing a $4B major domestic appliance business. He joined Whirlpool as the Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Business Development & Innovation in 2012 and led acquisitions in Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Prior to joining Whirlpool, Carl-Martin was a Partner with McKinsey & Company where he worked for 12 years. He served clients primarily in the Consumer Goods/Retail industries, and he led the Organization practice for the Consumer sector in the Americas. He was based out of the Gothenburg and Stockholm offices in Europe and the Chicago office in North America.
Carl-Martin started out his career with Nestle in their global manufacturing group at the global headquarters in Switzerland. He holds a M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering & Management from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and completed a portion of his degree at Haas Business School at UC Berkeley.
Guillermo joined Campbell Lutyens in 2018 to take responsibility for the firm’s North American real assets practice. Prior to joining Campbell Lutyens, Guillermo was a Managing Director with Macquarie Infrastructure & Real Assets in Chicago, where he was responsible for institutional investor coverage in the Americas, product development and project management. Prior to Macquarie, he worked in debt capital markets with Lehman Brothers, JPMorgan and Bank of New York. Guillermo earned his MBA from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Columbia College at Columbia University. He lives in Lakeview with his wife, Pamela, and son, Sebastian.
Karen was most recently Senior Vice President and Treasurer of McDonald’s Corporation, responsible for global Treasury, Tax and Insurance matters along with the Global Business Services unit.
Each department in Karen’s span of responsibility was comprised of high-performing teams that provided value to the McDonald’s System through strategic advisory services that enabled corporate and operational strategies, by managing key risks, protecting financial assets, ensuring fiduciary excellence and connecting internal customers with services and solutions. As a senior finance executive, Karen provided insights and advice to executive management and the Board of Directors on key financial strategies, including the Corporation’s global debt portfolio, shareholder return strategies and liquidity planning.
In addition to these management responsibilities Karen Chaired the Committee that has oversight of McDonald’s 401k Plan, was a member of the Company’s Diversity Equity & Inclusion Global Advisory Council and took pride in mentoring others, including those in her Global Women’s Leadership Network Circle.
Prior to joining McDonald’s in 2003, Karen spent over eight years in the professional services industry, first with Arthur Andersen and then with Deloitte, specializing in international tax planning and consulting for large multinational companies. Prior to her public accounting experience, Karen worked in corporate tax in the financial services industry for five years.
She holds a BS in Accounting from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a MS in Taxation from DePaul University. Karen served on the Board of Directors of the Elmhurst Art Museum for nearly 10 years and held the Treasurer and President roles with the organization. Karen is a first-generation college graduate.
Mr. Ruffat is a Managing Director at global investment bank BTIG LLC and has more than 25 years in the financial industry, having spent the bulk of his career as a Director at Citigroup Global Markets. His previous experience includes senior sales roles at Macquarie, ABN AMRO and Mizuho Securities USA. Mr. Ruffat started his career at Kemper Securities (now Wells Fargo) in emerging markets fixed income trading before transitioning to the futures industry as a Managing Director at Sakura Dellsher (now Sumitomo Bank) in 1995. Mr. Ruffat speaks four languages (English, Spanish, French and Portuguese), is a graduate of The Pennsylvania State University, and holds several industry certifications.
As a Hispanic-American, Mr. Ruffat has always strived to help the community using his international experience to bridge the gap between cultures, languages, and traditions to achieve common goals. As America Needs You has a very noble and important goal to empower first-generation college students, he is excited to join the Illinois board and advance its mission.
Tim Sanders has been employed at Ventas Inc. since 2015 as a Senior Investment Officer. Ventas is a $20B publicly traded REIT, specializing in healthcare investments. Tim is responsible for originating life science real estate acquisitions in the eastern half of the United States and Canada. He also works on ground up development of office and lab space in conjunction with Ventas’ development partner, Wexford Science and Technology. The projects are mixed use developments including office, hotel and residential. They are located on or adjacent to university campuses, including Brown, Washington University, Penn and University of Maryland. Tim is currently responsible for over 1M sf of development projects expected to deliver in 2020 and 2021. In addition to the life science platform, Tim leads Ventas’ business development efforts in the senior housing sector. He has more than 15 years of seniors housing finance experience and has held various positions with GE Capital Healthcare Financial Services. Additionally, Tim started and led the senior housing group at Marathon Asset Management originating over $1B in financings during his tenure. He was also the President of the bridge lending business at Capital Funding Group (“CFG”). CFG is a Baltimore based HUD lender specializing in senior housing transactions. His career also includes 15 years of commercial banking and corporate finance work, including stints with Crestar Bank (SunTrust) and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
Mr. Sanders received his B.B.A. from Howard University and an M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh. He is a board member of Prince George’s County Economic Development Incentive Fund, Forest Hills of DC (one of the oldest nursing homes in Washington, DC) and the American Senior Housing Association. He’s an advisory board member of Dynis, Inc. and provides mentorship to several young real estate professionals in Washington, DC and Chicago, IL.
Tim resides in Bowie, MD with his wife and daughter. His personal interests include golf, reading and sports. He’s a native of Pittsburgh and avid Steeler fan.
Anna May Trala is a Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer at GTCR, a leading private equity firm with assets under management exceeding $20 billion. Anna May leads the finance, treasury, portfolio valuation, portfolio on-boarding and performance monitoring, accounting, tax, investor reporting and technology functions.
Prior to joining GTCR, Anna May was a Partner at Ernst & Young, in the Transaction Advisory Services (TAS) practice advising the private equity industry in the merger, acquisition and divestiture process primarily in the healthcare, TMT, financial services and growth business services sectors. During her time at EY, Anna May was involved in over 100 transactions. Anna May also led the TAS human capital initiatives for the Midwest region.
Anna May serves as a Board Director of Paya, and is a member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee.
Anna May is a Certified Public Accountant, holds a B.S. in Accounting from Goldey Beacom College, and is also a first-generation college graduate.
Outside of GTCR, Anna May is passionate about education and empowering women. In addition to sitting on the ANY-IL Advisory Board, serving on its Governance Committee, she sits on the board of the Chicago Foundation for Education, also serving on its Governance Committee, as well as the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago, where she chairs the M&A Committee and is a member of the Executive Committee. Anna May also spent several years on the board of Rogers Park Montessori School as its Board Treasurer, member of the Executive and Growth Committees, and Chairing the Business Finance and Audit Committee.
Taylor is a private equity, and mergers & acquisitions attorney at Paul Hastings LLP. Prior to this position he was an attorney at Latham & Watkins LLP, where he represented private funds and emerging growth companies in the additive manufacturing, software and health care industries. He has extensive experience representing public companies, emerging companies and private institutions across a wide variety of corporate matters, including debt and equity financings, business entity formation, SBIC certification, corporate governance, fund formation, fundraising, asset-valuation and buy/sell-side acquisitions.
Taylor is the co-founder of Kushkart, one of Massachusetts’ first wholesale cannabis delivery operators. Prior to Kushkart, he founded the Urban Energy Garden, which places college students in STEM-based public and private sector internships. Taylor is an Adjunct Professor at Boston University Law School, where he teaches 1) Business Fundamentals and 2) Deals 999; and he also serves as a board member of Atamos, LLC (d/b/a TrainMoment), an Illinois-based strength forward fitness club that focuses on safely pushing individuals outside of their comfort zone through HIIT training.
Awards and Recognition:
Taylor received his B.A. from Southern Methodist University in international studies and Japanese, and holds a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center. He is also pursuing his MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Sona Patadia-Rao is an Expert Design Director with McKinsey Design in Chicago, IL with over 18 years of experience in the design industry. Sona focuses on building empathy to inform and create user-centered products, experiences and strategic business opportunities.
