BacKGROUND, EXPERIENCE & QUALIFICATIONS
My career spans over 40 years as a Chartered Accountant, banker, entrepreneur, advisor and university professor. I have worked and lived on 3 continents. I began my professional career in public accounting, training with Hill Vellacott, the oldest firm of Chartered Accountants in London. After being admitted to the Institute of Chartered Accountants, I was engaged in audit and consulting engagements with BDO Stoy Hayward in London and KPMG Peat Marwick in Italy.
During my career as a corporate executive I was Chief Financial Officer of Dechert, LLP, an international law firm and a Senior Executive at JPMorgan Chase for 20 year. I served as Chief Financial Officer of the Private Bank, Chase Merchant Services, which became the largest merchant acquiring business in the world, the bank’s Aircraft Finance Group, as well as General Manager of the bank’s equipment leasing subsidiary in Italy. During my career, I built numerous cutting-edge financial management, business intelligence, executive reporting, customer profitability and key performance measurement systems; started and managed new businesses; and turned around or sold ailing business segments. I also directed Business Process Redesign for JPMorgan Chase’s Retail Bank.
As an entrepreneur I started, grew and successfully sold an innovative artisan gelato marketing, sales and distribution company. I was a co-founder at two companies that are solving social and economic problems; an open ocean aquaculture company, Open Blue, www.openblue.com that has developed state of the art technology for the environmentally sustainable commercial production of marine fish, with operations in Panama, and a US based medical device company www.magnetecs.com that has developed a robotic catheter guidance control and imaging system. This has achieved CE Mark and there are installations in overseas hospitals in Europe and Southeast Asia, As an advisor, in addition to many companies in a wide range of industries internationally, I have worked with many sustainable ventures involved in aquaculture, seaweed, water purification technologies,alternative energy, blockchain, electric vehicles, hyperloop transportation technology, and agtech.
I have been a Professor of Managerial Accounting and Financial Decision Making at Stony Brook University Graduate School of Business in New York and a Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship,Managing New Ventures and Global Business at Loyola Marymount, Hilton School of Management in Los Angeles. I am a lifetime Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales, a Graduate of the Harvard Business School Program for Management Development, and a Graduate of the Executive MBA Program at Stony Brook University Graduate School of Business.
