Module Seven Bios

United States Insurance Industry Status

Howard Sharfman
FinFit Life
howard.sharfman@finfitlife.com

Howard Sharfman, CEO of FinFit Life and Senior Managing Director of NFP Insurance Solutions, has been recognized as an innovative leader in the insurance business for over two decades. In addition to serving as founder and CEO of FinFit Life, He manages one of the premier and largest wealth transfer consulting and planning firms in the country. Mr. Sharfman’s practice is highly focused on servicing families with multigenerational wealth, family offices, private equity managers and ultra-high net worth advisors. His firm has additional expertise in executive benefits, corporate benefits, general insurance and risk management.

Mr. Sharfman’s ideas and concepts have been shared with peers and advisors around the country through many speeches, presentations, and publications. He has been a leading presenter for insurance industry conferences. He has been a keynote speaker at the Canadian Association of Life Underwriting meeting, a featured guest speaker at the Discovery Financial Summit in Johannesburg South Africa, and guest speaker on two episodes of CNBC Financial Planning Show. In addition, he has been a featured speaker at the Chicago Estate Planning Council, Heart of America Tax Conference and scores of other industry and estate planning council meetings. In 2018, Howard was a key speaker at TOT, MDRT, Forum 400, AALU and NAIFA.

He has shown industry leadership by serving as Treasurer, Program Planning chair, Executive Committee member, President and Chairman of the Forum 400. He has chaired AALU’s Business Insurance and Estate Planning Committee and serves as President of the MSG, a leading insurance based study group. Also, he has served on the advisory board of multiple insurance carriers that include MetLife, ING, John Hancock and Pacific Life. Currently, he is a board member of Life Happens and a former advisory board of PartnersFinancial, one of the largest insurance producer distribution channels in the industry. Finally, he was honored to co-author the industry’s response to The Honorable Timothy F. Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, regarding The Administration’s FY 2013 Estate and Gift Tax Proposals.

Mr. Sharfman and his team have had the honor and pleasure to serve some of the most financially influential families in the country as a trusted professional insurance advisor and consultant. He has placed or consulted in the placement of over $17 billion of life insurance coverage in the last decade.

He has also developed professional strategic alliances with several major private banks, law firms, and CPA firms. These alliances focus on a belief that the insurance professional should be a trusted advisor on a professional advisory team. This allows NFP Insurance Solutions to serve clients in the best multi-discipline approach possible.

Mr. Sharfman has been a lifelong numismatist collecting early half dollars since the age of 8.

Why Fixed Income in a Low Interest Rate Environment?

David Siegel, CFA
Fixed Income Portfolio Manager
Sawgrass Asset Management
siegeld@saw-grass.com

Mr. Siegel is a Fixed Income Portfolio Manager at Sawgrass, responsible for portfolio construction, credit analysis, trading, and portfolio analytics. He serves on the firm’s fixed income investment committee.  Prior to Sawgrass, he worked with Pioneer Alternative Investments as a fixed income research analyst, where he selected sub-advisor funds for inclusion in a $3 billion fund of hedge funds, and with Morgan Stanley as a fixed income sales analyst servicing advisors on various fixed income investments.

His educational accomplishments include a B.S. in Financial Economics from Binghamton University and earning a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation from The CFA Institute (formerly AIMR), of which he is a member. He is also the Treasurer of the CFA Society Jacksonville.

 

Paul Lundmark, CFA
Managing Director, Portfolio Manager
Richmond Capital Management
plundmark@richmondcap.com

Paul is a portfolio manager at Richmond Capital Management. With over 34 years of fixed income experience, Paul joined Richmond Capital Management in 2003.  As a generalist in fixed income, Paul focuses on a broad spectrum of the market, in particular, credit and mortgage-backed securities.  He began his career at Washington Square Capital as a fixed income analyst. He then went to Home Life Insurance as a fixed income analyst.  Paul then went to USAA as a fixed income analyst and was promoted to a portfolio manager.

Paul received his BSB and MBA from the University of Minnesota.  He is a member of the Richmond Society of Financial Analysts and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.  He is a regular speaker on fixed income at the Florida Public Pension Trustees Association and is a Certified Public Pension Trustee (CPPT).

 

Patrick K. Kelly, CFA
Managing Director, Portfolio Manager
Agincourt Capital Management, LLC
plundmark@richmondcap.com

Pat is a member of Agincourt’s investment team and is a portfolio manager with over 30 years of investment experience. He is a generalist who has broad responsibilities for managing Agincourt’s client portfolios. He focuses on economic/business cycle analysis, developing duration and yield curve strategies. Pat has credit and MBS/ABS research duties as well, and he authors all of the firm’s client communications. He has significant client service duties, and is a shareholder of the firm.

Pat was previously a portfolio manager with First Union. He subsequently joined Wheat First Securities as a bond trader before moving to Smith Barney as an Institutional Fixed Income Specialist. He joined Sovran Capital in 1989, rising to the position of Senior Vice President in 1994. Pat has earned the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. He received a BS Economics and an MBA from Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Risk & Enhanced Return

John Rochford
Portfolio Manager
Tocqueville Asset Management
jrochford@tocqueville.com

John Rochford is a Portfolio Manager at Tocqueville Asset Management L.P. Mr. Rochford joined Tocqueville in April 2019 and is a member of the fixed income team. Prior to joining Tocqueville, Mr. Rochford spent seven years as a Senior Portfolio Manager for Inverness Counsel LLC, where he was responsible for strategy, managing and trading the firm’s fixed income assets. Prior to Inverness, Mr. Rochford spent five years at U.S. Trust Private Bank and 23 years at JPMorgan and its predecessor banks as a Senior Portfolio Manager managing fixed income. Mr. Rochford earned an M.B.A. in MIS from Saint Peter’s University and a B.S. in Business Administration from New Jersey City University.

David Weeks
Managing Director, Chief Investment Officer – Relative Value Credit Strategy
LMCG Investments
dweeks@lmcg.com

David Weeks is the Chief Investment Officer for the Serenitas Credit Strategy team. Mr. Weeks joined LMCG in May 2015 by virtue of LMCG’s acquisition of certain assets of Serenitas Capital. Prior to joining LMCG, Mr. Weeks was Chief Investment Officer of Serenitas Capital, a firm he co-founded in 2012. Mr. Weeks held previous positions as Managing Director at Merrill Lynch, where he was responsible for the proprietary trading of Non-Agency Residential Mortgage Backed Securities from 2006 to 2011. He spent seven years managing the Merrill Lynch CLO Trading desk, where he traded CLOs, CBOs and TruPS CDOs. Prior to that, Mr. Weeks worked for six years as a structured products analyst at Moody’s Investors Service. Earlier in his career, Mr. Weeks traded equity options for ten years as a market maker on the floor of Philadelphia Stock Exchange, after working for two years as a specialist clerk on the American Stock Exchange. Mr. Weeks received a B.S. in Finance from Lehigh University.

Nick Losey, CFA
Managing Director, Fixed Income Portfolio Manager / Analyst
Barrow, Hanley, Mewhinney & Strauss, LLC
nlosey@barrowhanley.com

Mr. Losey joined Barrow Hanley in 2018. He serves as a portfolio manager, focusing on bank loans and high yield bonds. Mr. Losey was previously a portfolio manager at Whitebox Advisors, LLC and White Oak Global Advisors, LLC, where he focused on bank loans, high yield bonds, structured product CLO tranches, and equities. His investment career also includes serving as a portfolio manager at Highland Capital Management, LP. Mr. Losey earned a BBA from the University of Oklahoma and an MBA from Southern Methodist University, graduating magna cum laude.