Board Oversight of Valuation Roundtable
Speaker Bios
Plenary Addresses
David Grim is Deputy Director of the Division of Investment Management at the SEC. The SEC's
Division of Investment Management works to protect investors, promote informed investment
decisions, and facilitate innovation in investment products and services through regulation of
the asset management industry.
Mr. Grim joined the SEC in September 1995 as a Staff Attorney in the division's Office of
Investment Company Regulation. In January 1998, he moved to the division's Office of Chief
Counsel, where he has served in a variety of positions, including since September 2007 as
Assistant Chief Counsel. Mr. Grim received the SEC's Capital Markets Award in 2005, the SEC's
Supervisory Excellence Award in 2007, and the SEC's Law and Policy Award in 2011.
Mr. Grim graduated cum laude with a degree in Political Science from Duke University and
received his law degree from George Washington University, where he was Managing Editor of
the George Washington Journal of International Law and Economics.
Chester Spatt is the Pamela R. and Kenneth B. Dunn Professor of Finance at the Tepper School
of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, where he has taught since 1979. He served as Chief
Economist of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Director of its Office of
Economic Analysis from July 2004 through July 2007. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from
the University of Pennsylvania and received his undergraduate degree from Princeton
University.
Professor Spatt is a well-known scholar studying financial economics with broad interests in
financial markets. He has analyzed extensively market structure, pricing and valuation, and
the impact of information in the marketplace. For example, he has been a leading expert on
the design of security markets in various settings, mortgage valuation, and taxation and
investment strategy. His co-authored 2004 paper in the Journal of Finance on asset location
won TIAA-CREF’s Paul Samuelson Award for the Best Publication on Lifelong Financial Security.
He has served as Executive Editor and one of the founding editors of the Review of Financial
Studies, President and a member of the Founding Committee of the Society for Financial
Studies, President of the Western Finance Association, and is currently an Associate Editor of
several finance journals. He also is currently a member of the Federal Reserve’s Model
Validation Council, member of the Systemic Risk Council, a Research Associate of the National
Bureau of Economic Research, Senior Economic Adviser to Kalorama Partners, a Member of the
Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee as well as the Financial Economists Roundtable and a
Fellow of the TIAA—CREF Institute.
Sponsored by: 1 The Valuation Process
James Thomas is a Partner at Ropes & Gray. James focuses his practice on regulatory and
transactional matters relating to the financial services industry. He counsels investment
advisers, registered investment companies and their trustees, and hedge funds and other
private investment vehicles on all aspects of their operations. James is also an experienced
adviser to public and private companies in the financial services and other industries in a
variety of matters, including debt and equity offerings, mergers and acquisitions and
investment transactions.
He represents the Putnam Funds and their independent Trustees in a wide variety of matters,
including the development of innovative products (such as the Putnam Absolute Return Funds),
fund reorganizations, compliance matters, investment activities, and advisory and other
service provider arrangements. He also represents Blackstone Alternative Asset Management in
connection with the organization and on-going operation of its registered investment
companies, the Blackstone Alternative Alpha Funds and Blackstone Alternative Multi-Manager
Fund.
Steven Buller is a Managing Director of BlackRock, Inc. responsible for the financial aspects of
their 3,500 sponsored investment products. He also oversees the accounting policy and control
functions.
BlackRock is the largest publicly traded investment management firm with over $4.0 trillion of
assets under management at September 30, 2013. BlackRock has employees in more than 60
cities in 30 countries worldwide.
Mr. Buller served as BlackRock’s Chief Financial Officer from 2005-2007, and oversaw the
acquisition of Merrill Lynch Investment Advisors and Quellos Advisors, that doubled the Firm’s
revenues. He serves on the boards of various international subsidiaries, as a member of the
Valuation Oversight Committee (responsible for $14.5 trillion of assets on the proprietary
Aladdin platform), Government Relations Committee, New Products Committee and Bank Trust
Company Management Committee.
Prior thereto, Mr. Buller was a partner with Ernst & Young and the U.S. and Global Director of
Asset Management Services for 17 years. He is a member of the Standing Advisory Group of the
Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and a member of the National Association of
Corporate Directors. He is the former Chair of the AICPA Investment Companies Committee.
Mr. Buller is a C.P.A., and has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Northwestern University and a
Master of Business Administration degree from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management,
Northwestern University. He serves on the board and as chair of the audit committee of a
community-based non-profit organization.
Sponsored by: 2 Elizabeth Duggan is Managing Director of Global Evaluations at the Interactive Data
Corporation. Duggan joined Interactive Data in 1999 following the acquisition of Muller Data, a
municipal bond pricing specialist business. Since then, Duggan has worked in several roles
within the Company. From 2003 until December 2008, Duggan was vice president, market
specialists, a role in which she cultivated client relationships and made valuable contributions
to the growth of the Company's Institutional Business. Duggan was promoted to chief operating
officer of the Evaluations organization in January 2009. She is a graduate of Pace University.
Board Oversight of Valuation
David Sullivan is a Partner at Ropes & Gray. David focuses his practice on the representation of
financial services firms, including open- and close-end registered investment companies,
private investment pools, registered investment advisers and broker-dealers. He represents a
number of non-U.S. investment advisory firms.
He represents Allianz Global Investors of America and several of its subsidiaries in a variety of
corporate, regulatory and compliance matters. He has also served as lead partner in the
organization and initial public offerings of more than 20 closed-end funds sponsored by
Allianz/PIMCO and numerous open-end funds in the Allianz family, and in the day-to-day
representation of the funds. In addition, he serves as counsel to the MFS Funds and their
Independent Trustees and has represented a number of non-U.S. investment advisers in
connection with U.S. registration and regulation and establishment of registered and
unregistered products and offerings in the U.S.
Carol Kosel serves as an independent Trustee on the Boards of Nationwide Mutual Funds and
Nationwide Variable Insurance Trust. She currently sits on the Boards' Valuation and
Operations Committee and Nominating and Fund Governance Committee. Prior to beginning
her service on the Nationwide Boards, Ms. Kosel was an independent Trustee for Sun Capital
Advisers Trust and the Evergreen Funds.
Ms. Kosel has more than 20 years of experience in the investment management industry. Prior
to becoming a board member she worked as an independent consultant to the Evergreen Funds'
Board of Trustees and previously served as Treasurer for the Evergreen Funds while managing
the firm's Fund Administration division. She began her career at KPMG and worked 11 years in
the financial services practice where she focused on mutual fund regulation and investment
management.
Ms. Kosel earned a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Minnesota State University Moorhead and is a Certified Public Accountant.
Sponsored by: 3 Paul Kraft is a Partner at Deloitte & Touche. Paul serves as lead client service partner on a
number of Deloitte's investment adviser, insurance and banking clients. He has more than 20
years of experience helping clients develop solutions to accounting, financial reporting,
operational, international, and regulatory compliance matters.
Prior to joining Deloitte, Paul was Assistant Chief Accountant in the Securities and Exchange
Commission's (SEC) Division of Investment Management in Washington, D.C. In that role, Paul’s
responsibilities included assisting in the development and communication of the SEC’s positions
and regulatory requirements related to advisers and investment companies. He provided
advisers, investment companies, and their service providers with technical guidance and
interpretation of the Advisers and Investment Company Acts and also participated in the SEC’s
adviser and investment companies’ inspection programs.
Paul is a former Chairperson of the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants
(MSCPA) Investment Company Committee. He is on the Advisory Board of the Mutual Funds
Directors Forum as well as the Boards of the Boston Public Library Foundation, and Junior
Achievement of New England.
James MacLeod is a Trustee at Allianz Funds, where he serves on the Performance Committee
and is Chairman of the Valuation Committee and Governance Committee. Mr. MacLeod is also Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of CoastalStates Bank. He is also one of
CoastalSouth’s founders. He currently serves as the President and Chief Operating Officer of
the Bank and as the Senior Managing Director of Homeowners Mortgage since its acquisition in
2007. Mr. MacLeod previously served as Executive Vice President of Mortgage Guaranty
Insurance Corporation (MGIC) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Mr. MacLeod is a Director of Sykes Enterprises, Inc., where he serves on the Audit, Finance and
Compensation Committees. Additionally, Mr. MacLeod is a trustee of the Hilton Head
Preparatory School. Mr. MacLeod holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University
of Tampa, a Masters in City Planning from Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master of
Science in Real Estate and Urban Affairs from Georgia State University.
Sponsored by: 4