Diana Augustyniak RFP/RFI Team Lead, Marketing & Client Relations

Harris Associates L.P.

Diana Augustyniak is the RFP/RFI Team Lead at Harris Associates LP. She has been with the firm for 16 years and holds her BA from Middle Tennessee State University.

Vicky Berke Executive Director

Morgan Stanley | Investment Management

Vicky is the global head of business development services for Morgan Stanley Investment Management. She joined the firm in 2014 and has 24 years of industry experience. Prior to joining the firm, Vicky was a Principal with Mercer Investments and led the new business proposal team in the US. Previously, she was a marketing manager at Segal, with a focus on new business development. Vicky has a BA in Psychology from the University of Vermont and an MBA from NYU, Stern School of Business.

Jennifer Black Senior Manager, Business Development Services

Sands Capital

Jen serves as Senior Manager, Business Development Services at Sands Capital. Her role involves managing a team focused on addressing inquiries from potential clients, consultants, and investment vehicles. Her primary responsibility is overseeing due diligence processes to assist in new business acquisition and to meet the intricate reporting needs of existing clients and consultants. She joined Sands Capital in 2013 as an Associate Client Service Specialist and has since held various roles within the client relations team, concentrating on RFPs, due diligence reporting, portfolio reporting, and client account servicing. Before Sands, she worked as a Marketing Analyst at GW&K Investment Management in Boston. Jen earned her BSBA with a concentration in management from the University of Richmond.

Lindsay Borg AVP, RFP Team Manager

MFS Investment Management

Lindsay Borg is Assistant Vice President, Manager - RFP at MFS Investment Management® (MFS®). In her role, she is responsible for managing the North American RFP Team, setting strategy for the global team along with the Director – RFP and other Manager - RFP, and leading critical projects intended to enhance the process and efficiency of the MFS Global RFP Team.

Lindsay joined MFS in 2007, previously working in Fund Administration at MFS.

Lindsay studied financial services in Toronto, ON.

Annemarie Burgess, AIF, CRPS Institutional Consultant & RFP Group Manager

Raymond James, Institutional Fiduciary Solutions

Annemarie Burgess, AIF^® CRPS^® is a RFP Author/Analyst, and Institutional Consultant at Raymond James Financial, Inc., a publicly traded company. Raymond James has total client assets of over $1.18 trillion, of which over $155 billion is supported by the Institutional Fiduciary Solutions (IFS) division. In addition to running the RFP desk for IFS, she consults with Financial Advisors on institutional, municipal, and retirement plan business, and has authored a best practice white paper, Navigating the RFP Process for Institutions. She currently serves on the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of Raymond James Global Wealth Solutions, where she promotes mentorship opportunities for minorities, and women.

Annemarie’s career in financial services began after separating from the United States Air Force. She received an honorable discharge, ending her career as an Air Lift Controller at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where she supported Operation Enduring Freedom, otherwise known as the War in Afghanistan. Joining Ameritrade (now TD Ameritrade) in 2003 with very little knowledge of the financial services industry, she immediately grew an intense interest in the financial markets. At Ameritrade she quickly rose to the level of Account Executive, serving a book of High, and Ultra High Net Worth investors in the areas of day trading, complex options, and restricted stock trading.

After working at several Nebraskan brokerage firms in various capacities, she left for Florida, eventually moving to St. Petersburg for an advisory compliance role within Raymond James Asset Management Services (AMS) in 2011. In 2012 Raymond James acquired Morgan Keegan & Co, and its team of Institutional Consulting experts at which point she developed a formal compliance review, and approval process for all institutional deliverables, and RFPs. After working hand in hand with the Institutional Consulting Services (ICS) team for over six years, the team re-organized in 2017 to form the Institutional Fiduciary Solutions division, established to devote more resources to the institutional, municipal, and retirement plan consulting space. Shortly thereafter she took a role within IFS as an Institutional Consultant & RFP Analyst.

As a RFP Analyst, and Author, she consistently promotes identifying, and staying ahead of upcoming trends, and is a strong promoter of implementing

Kristen Carloni, CFA Global Head of Business Proposal Team

Aladdin by BlackRock

Kristen Carloni, CFA, Director, leads the global Business Proposal Team for Aladdin Sales & Marketing at BlackRock. Her responsibilities center around ensuring an impactful RFP & DDQ process for the Aladdin and eFront product lines while making business processes scalable. She has extensive experience implementing innovative technologies such as third-party proposal management tools and AI capabilities in order to create winning proposals.

Danielle Corey Associate Director, Manager, Institutional Consultant Relations Analysts

MFS Investment Management

Danielle Corey is Associate Director, Manager, Institutional Consultant Relations Analysts MFS®. In her role, she is responsible for managing the Global Consultant Database Team and partnering with the Global Consultant Relations Team Directors. She oversees the consultant database process and implements efficiency processes for the MFS Global Consultant Relations Database Team.

Danielle joined MFS in 2004, previously working at New England Financial.

Danielle graduated from Emerson College with a bachelor’s in science (BS).

Colleen F. Dunne Head of Americas and EMEA RFP & Global Databases

Invesco

As Head of Invesco Americas and EMEA RFP & Global Databases, she leads a 60+ person team with responsibilities for Strategy & Execution, Strategy Delivery, RFP and Global Databases. Prior to joining Invesco in 2018, she was Head of RFP at Voya Investment Management. Previously, Colleen was a Vice President at JPMorgan Asset Management imbedded in the Global Fixed Income team focusing on product marketing. Colleen has also served in marketing communication roles at Cammack Investment Consulting, BlackRock, and Merrill Lynch Investment Management. She began her career with the online brokerage firm, Datek Online, in content management and product development. She

holds a BS in Interpersonal Communications from Ohio University and a MA in Communication Studies from Kent State University.

Michele Giuditta, CFA Co-Institutional Practice Head

Cerulli Associates

Michele is a director of the Institutional practice and leads research for annual reports and strategic consulting engagements. She specializes in environmental, social, and governance investing and outsourced CIO research.

Prior to joining Cerulli Associates, Michele worked at Cambridge Associates as an Associate Director in the Client Relationship Management Group. Additionally, she worked at Manulife Asset Management in the Institutional Investment Sales & Services Group, and held roles in Product Management and Client Relationship Management. She began her career as an analyst in the Investment Policy & Research Group at John Hancock.

Elizabeth Goonan Vice President of Sales

SalesEdge

As Vice President of Sales, Elizabeth Goonan has been instrumental in guiding hundreds of financial services organizations toward success through RFP and document automation since 2001. Elizabeth brings to her clients an understanding of their unique requirements and works directly with the Qvidian Product team and the SalesEdge Customer Service team to deliver solutions to increase productivity.

Steve Grantz Product Manager

Door

Steve Grantz has over 20 years of experience in enterprise software, having worked in a variety of roles spanning the customer lifecycle including development, installation and customization, training, project management, and sales engineering. Before joining Door, Steve worked with RedOwl, an information security vendor providing a behavioural analytics platform, acquired by Northrop-Grumman company Forcepoint in 2017. Steve has served as head of Professional Services as well as Product Management

Kellie Gries Associate Director

Global RFP Services - Principal Asset Management

Kellie Gries is an Associate Director, RFP for Principal Asset Management, overseeing the retention of clients through the completion of due diligence questionnaires. Her team supports the global distribution teams and investment teams across the organization. Her duties include developing and implementing scalable processes and metric tracking, finding solutions to increase efficiency and quality of the proposal and questionnaire output, as well as day-to-day oversight of her team. She worked to implement a new DDQ Automation process utilizing her team’s content management system and continues to work with internal and external partners to explore how the role of automation can further enhance her team’s process. Kellie joined the firm in 2008 and has held positions within the retirement division and Marketing/Product roles within the asset management division. She is a graduate of the University of Iowa.

Kym Harrington President and CEO

SalesEdge

Kym Harrington is the pioneering force behind SalesEdge, leading as President and CEO since its inception in 2007. With a mission to revolutionize RFP & DDQ responses, SalesEdge, a women-owned business, delivers unparalleled guidance and solutions to financial services organizations. Holding an MBA from Boston University, a BA from Southern New Hampshire University, Kym brings a wealth of knowledge to drive continuous growth and innovation.

Alison Hope Senior Manager, RFP & Consultant Reporting

Walter Scott & Partners Limited

Alison Hope is a Senior Manager and leads the RFP & Consultant Reporting team at Walter Scott. Alison joined Walter Scott in 2008 and has worked mainly with RFPs in her 15-year tenure, building a strong and efficient reporting team. Prior to this she worked in the software and technology industry and had various marketing and business management roles in the UK and Japan. Alison holds a BA in Communication Studies.

Pat Irish Senior Manager, Americas RFP

T. Rowe Price

Pat Irish, vice president of T. Rowe Price, Associates, Inc., manages the firm’s Americas RFP team, supporting T. Rowe Price’s U.S. and Canadian institutional and intermediary client acquisition and service efforts through RFP/DDQ production. He has worked with T. Rowe Price for over eleven years. Prior to his current role, Pat spent seven years working with individual investors and another two writing investment commentary for the firm’s sector strategies. Before joining T. Rowe Price, Pat was a Teach for America corps member. He taught high school English in Baltimore City. Pat serves on the Board of Directors for Bluebird Education Network, which operates two charter schools in Baltimore.

Alexandria Jenkins Senior Manager, RFP

Invesco

Alexandria Jenkins is a Senior Manager, RFP at Invesco based in Atlanta. In this role, she oversees a team of RFP writers who focus on Requests for Proposals and Due Diligence Questionnaires with the goal of providing accurate and timely responses to all client requests.

Alexandria joined Invesco in 2018. Prior to joining the firm, she served as an RFP Specialist at Virtus Investment Partners, a global investment management firm. While at Virtus, Alexandria covered RFP’s and Database updates for both Fixed Income and Equity asset classes. Prior to Virtus, Alexandria served as Marketing & Client Service Manager at Herndon Capital Management. In that role she worked to support the client sales team.

Alexandria earned a BBA degree from Georgia State University and an MBA from Kennesaw State University.

Ellen Jones Industry Specialist

Ellen Jones has more than 20 years of experience in financial services business development and proposal team management. Most recently, she was a VP and Marketing Content Manager for Nuveen, leading its content management and consultant databases teams to achieve sales goals and client services demands. Other areas of expertise include compliance, database administration, system user support, project management and process improvement. Previous firms include TIAA, Wells Fargo, Evergreen Investments and Wachovia. Prior to this career, she was a certified high school English teacher and is always glad to pull out a red pen when required.

Joe Kringdon Head of North America

Door

Joe Kringdon’s career has spanned 4 decades making him a knowledgeable asset to Door. Before joining Door, Joe has served in several senior roles in both Wealth and Asset Management.  He started with Merrill Lynch as an advisor in Boston, moving onto becoming a Branch Manager for Smith Barney (a Morgan Stanley predecessor firm) in several markets including Boston, NYC and Upstate NY.  After 18 years in Wealth Management, Joe moved to Asset Management first with Putnam Investments, eventually becoming Head of US Distribution both at Pioneer Investments and Columbia Threadneedle Investments.

Jeff Lekarczyk, CIMA Senior Manager of RFPs and Consultant Reporting

Raymond James Investment Management

• Joined affiliate Eagle Asset Management in 2002
• Over 20 years of investment industry experience in RFPs, client reporting, and consultant relations
• B.A., cum laude, Economics and History, Rhodes College (1997)
• M.Sc., with merit, in Economic History, London School of Economics (2001)
• Holds the Certified Investment Management Analyst certification

Laura Levesque, CFA Director Institutional

Cerulli Associates

Laura has over 15 years of institutional investment management industry experience. She is a member of the Institutional practice, where she leads research for two annual reports. Her focuses are institutional investment solutions including OCIO, and sales and services models. Her experience and knowledge of the institutional asset management space provide a directional framework to ongoing consulting projects. She also regularly contributes to The Cerulli Edge series.

Prior to joining Cerulli Associates, Laura held equity research, product, and analytics roles at Columbia Threadneedle and MFS Investment Management. She is a CFA® charterholder and member of the CFA Society Boston.

Elizabeth Loucks Manager, Customer Success

SalesEdge

Beth Loucks joined SalesEdge in 2023 after dedicating 13 years to Barrow Hanley Global Investors. Her tenure at Barrow Hanley culminated in her role as the Director of Business Development Support, where she managed a team responsible for RFP responses, consultant database reporting, and the creation of presentations and marketing materials in support of the Distribution team. Prior to her tenure at Barrow Hanley, Beth gained valuable experience at Bernstein Global Wealth Management, where she provided essential support to a team of Financial Advisors. A distinguished alumna of Austin College, she graduated magna cum laude with a BA in both Political Science and Economics, earning honors and membership in Phi Beta Kappa.

Sari Mayer, CAIA Director of Marketing and Investor Relations

Global Credit Advisers, LLC

Sari J. Mayer, CAIA, is Director of Marketing and Investor Relations at Global Credit Advisers, LLC ("GCA"), a manager of long/short credit funds specializing in research, trading, and portfolio management in primarily high yield corporate credit. The firm AUM was approximately $830 million as of March 1, 2024.

Before joining GCA, Sari was Director of Marketing at Boone Capital, manager of an event driven hedge fund. Before entering the hedge fund space, she was a sell-side Latin America Telecommunications equity analyst at Salomon Smith Barney for which she received several industry awards including high rankings as determined by Institutional Investor, and was the Latin America telecommunications investment banking Director at Credit Suisse in New York. Sari earned her BA cum laude in Mathematics and Spanish from Amherst College, and received her MBA in International Finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business, and was selected to and participated in the International Management Program at ESADE in Barcelona, Spain.

Sari is a member emerita and past Vice President of the Horace Mann School Alumni Council, a founding member of the Alumnae Council of New York University Stern School of Business, and an active member of 100 Women in Finance and Financial Women’s Association. Sari lives in New York City with her husband and three daughters.

Diane Nestor RFP Manager

Polen Capital Management, LLC

Diane Nestor joined Polen Capital Management in 2017. Before joining Polen Capital, Ms. Nestor spent most of her career working as an RFP Specialist/Coordinator at Hansberger Global Investors and most recently at Franklin Templeton Investments.  She was responsible for the completion process of RFPs and due diligence requests for consultants and current clients. She began her career at Franklin Templeton Investments working in various positions including a Portfolio Accountant, Product Specialist and Consultant Liaison. She attended University of Florida.

Monica Patterson Solutions Consultant, Enterprise Accounts

Responsive

With a career in sales support and marketing spanning nearly 30 years, Monica’s expert skills teamed with her business intelligence and analytical acumen equip her to consistently execute on sales support and marketing strategies.

Brian P. Rafferty Counsel, Investment Management Practice Group

Akin

Brian P. Rafferty is a counsel in the investment management practice group at Akin.  Brian advises investment managers on a variety of regulatory, compliance and operational matters with a focus on investment managers in the private funds space and has experience assisting clients in navigating their regulatory compliance duties under the rules and regulations of the SEC. Additionally, he counsels clients on the formation and operation of domestic and offshore private investment funds, including hedge, growth equity, credit, real estate and private equity funds. Brian earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and his B.A. with honors from Johns Hopkins University.

Dan Rollins Industry Expert

Dan Rollins has over 30 years of experience in financial services, most recently, managing the Global RFP team at MFS Investments. Prior to MFS, Dan was the Director of Creative Services at John Hancock Investments where he led the corporate branding efforts, a team of designers, marketing operations, video, account services, regulatory publishing and the in-house print operation. He holds a degree in Graphic Design and is also an artist and woodworker. Dan resides in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

Dominic Rosano VP/Head of RFP

MetLife Investment Management

Dominic Rosano is Vice President and Head of RFP for MetLife Investment Management (MIM). In this role, Dominic leads the RFP and Distribution Support Group which is responsible for generating new business opportunities via request for proposal (RFP) solicitations and supporting product approvals via the completion of requests for information (RFI) and due diligence questionnaires (DDQs). He also oversees all institutional and consultant database populations across MIM’s platform to ensure the firm and its investment capabilities are in good standing with MIM’s strategic consultant partnerships. Previously, he spent three years as Head of RFP for Logan Circle Partners, L.P. which was acquired by MetLife, Inc. in 2017. He began his career in 2005 with Penn Capital Management where he held several positions including RFP project management, new business development, consultant relations, marketing collateral development and client reporting over his nine year tenure with the firm. Dominic earned his B.S. degree in Finance from Rutgers University and he holds the FINRA Series 7 license.

Tiffany Rosen Vice President, Manager, Due Diligence Services Team Lead

Nuveen

Tiffany is a vice president and manager of the due diligence services (DDS) team at Nuveen. She is responsible for the oversight of the retention related work within the New Business & Due Diligence Services team.   Her team is globally distributed and is responsible for the completion of recurring requests such as DDQs and RFIs, supporting Nuveen’s distribution partners and retaining existing business across the organization. The team completes approximately 4,500 requests annually.

Tiffany has more than 20 years in industry experience and began her career at Nuveen. She has held an assortment of roles across the firm and has worked in various departments such as trading, client services, marketing, and retail sales during her tenure.

Tiffany graduated with a B.S. in Political Science from the University of Southern California. She is finalizing her master’s in business administration (MBA) from the University of South Carolina. She holds the Series 7, 66 and 24 securities registrations.

When not studying, Tiffany enjoys spending time with her husband and two young children. In addition, she enjoys traveling, exploring new restaurants and getting lost in a paranormal fiction novel.  

Jared Spann Associate Director

Global RFP Services- Principal Asset Management

Jared Spann is an Associate Director, RFP for Principal Asset Management, overseeing new client business initiatives through the completion of proposal requests. His team supports the global distribution and sales teams, as well as the individual investment teams throughout the organization. His duties include developing and implementing scalable processes and metric tracking, finding solutions to increase the efficiency and quality of proposals, as well as the training and development and day-to-day oversight of his team. Jared joined the firm in 2018 as a Proposal Content Editor, covering the firm’s fixed income boutiques, before taking over management responsibilities for the RFP team. Prior to joining Principal Asset Management, Jared worked as a Registered Client Associate with RBC Wealth Management for 6 years. He is a graduate of Iowa State University with majors in Finance and Marketing and currently holds his FINRA series 7 and 66 licenses. 

John Trammell Trustee

Episcopal Diocese of NY Investment Trust

20 years of financial industry experience and 15 years of leadership experience, I am a highly motivated and dedicated leader who excels at managing high performing teams. With my sharp attention to detail and demonstrated ability to coach and motivate diverse teams to complete multiple tasks and priorities, Experience working with on and off shore teams.

Nancy Vailakis Principal

Ancram IRBD

Nancy Vailakis has 19 years of alternative asset management industry experience as a business development, marketing and investor relations professional, and over 20 years of experience in financial services overall.

Previously, Ms. Vailakis was a Business Development Director at IQ-EQ, a Vice President of Investor Relations at Cerberus Capital and a Sales + Client Relations Specialist at BlueMountain Capital, among other roles.

She earned her MBA from the New York University Stern School of Business and her BA in English Literature from Binghamton University. Ms. Vailakis continues to serve the Stern community as an Alumni Advisory Board Member of the Stern Private Equity / Venture Capital Club.

Ms. Vailakis is engaged with many non-profit and professional organizations in New York, including, but not limited to Women in Funds, Portfolios With Purpose, 100 Women in Finance, and Binghamton Women in Business. 

She is a regular speaker at alternative asset management industry events and a Contributing Writer to industry publications including Alternatives Watch, Worth, and Emerging Manager Monthly.

Ms. Vailakis won the prestigious Worthy 100 award 2022, for her support of women in the alternative asset management industry.

Louise Verga, CAIA Managing Director, Head of Americas

Dasseti

Louise is an investment sector professional, with over 15 years’ experience gained across the buy and sell side technology space. As Managing Director of Dasseti, an innovative digital due diligence platform, Louise works closely with clients in banks, family offices, hedge funds, asset managers, pensions and insurance companies to help them streamline and automate due diligence and monitoring data collection and analysis.

Working internationally in the UK, Italy, Switzerland and the US gave Louise a solid view of the global fintech space and the criticality of sound data to maintain compliance and inform investment decision making.

Ellen Voda Head of Client Response Center

AllianceBernstein

Seasoned financial services marketing professional with extensive and diverse experience in fixed income and equity asset management, including hedge funds. Experienced in all aspects of marketing fixed income, equity, and hedge strategies to institutional plan sponsors and consultants as well as retail intermediaries. Specialize in product analysis and positioning, marketing strategy, and the development of targeted materials that win business, including RFPs, presentations, white papers, website content, and database entries. Strong combination of investment expertise and marketing acumen can deliver quantifiable results to asset management companies. Proven expertise in four critical areas --strategic marketing and relationship-building, technical investment knowledge, superior writing and editing skills, and ability to develop and lead high-functioning teams -- can deliver quantifiable results to asset managers and other financial services companies.

Specialties: Marketing strategy, product management and competitor analysis, RFPs, custom presentations, white papers.

Marvin Zuniga, CAIA, FDP AVP, Consultant Databases, Global Client Services

Nuveen

Marvin is a member of the Global Client Services team and is responsible for Consultant Database reporting. Marvin joined Nuveen in 2016. He received a BA in Business Economics from the University of California, Riverside and holds the CAIA and FDP designations.