Founding Management Team

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  Harry Blount, CFA
  Chief Executive Officer

  
  

  Investment research industry veteran Harry Blount formed the DISCERN founding team, building on more than 20 years of executive and financial experience on Wall Street, including senior roles at Lehman Brothers, Credit Suisse First Boston, Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, and CIBC Oppenheimer. Harry has been named an Institutional Investor All-American in both Information Technology Hardware and Internet Infrastructure Services, and The Wall Street Journal has recognized him as an All-Star covering the Computer Hardware sector. Harry also lends his expertise to the National Academy of Sciences where he is a member of the Committee for Forecasting Future Disruptive Technologies. In addition, he is Chairman of the Futures Committee for The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California. Harry graduated from the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse in 1986 with a B.S. in Finance.
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  Dave Bubas
  Managing Director, Sales and Marketing

  
  

  Dave Bubas has spent over two decades refining his understanding of the kind of guidance and information institutional asset managers seek. He brings this rich expertise to DISCERN in his leadership role in sales and marketing. A consistently successful senior-level performer at firms like Dain Rauscher and Stephens Inc., Dave has thoughtfully and energetically covered many of the largest professional fund managers in the Southwestern U.S. He has enjoyed frequent recognition for top-tier sales performance and a reputation among clients for being steadfastly aligned with their interests. Adding to the diversity of his experience base, Dave successfully founded and operated a long/short equity hedge fund, overseeing all facets of the business. Dave earned a B.A. in Business Administration from Indiana University.
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  David Bugajski
  Director, Financial Services

  
  

  Since 1995, David Bugajski has consistently demonstrated a keen ability to provide performance-enhancing insight as an investment research analyst for well-regarded firms including Fidelity, Credit Suisse, Fred Alger, Invesco, and HSBC. David has a distinguished record of superior investment performance focused on the financial services sector. As Head of Research for Invesco in Atlanta, he supervised the establishment of original fundamental research operations within its $19 billion Atlanta-based value-fund portfolios. After working at Invesco, David became Senior Equity Research Analyst at Fred Alger & Company, where he covered all financial services stocks in support of the Alger Family of Funds. Subsequently he was responsible for large cap U.S. financial services equity investments at HSBC Holding, PLC. David has been featured on Bloomberg Radio and quoted in The Wall Street Journal. He holds a B.A. in business administration from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh.
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  Henry “Chip” Dickson, CFA
  Director of Research and Strategist

  
  

  Before co-founding DISCERN, Chip was Chief Equity Strategist and Associate Director of Research at Lehman Brothers. Prior to that, Chip was one of Wall Street's leading bank analysts. A nine-time Institutional Investor All-American analyst, he is also co-author of the book, The Great Deleveraging scheduled for release this summer.

  Chip was also a Bank Analyst at Salomon Smith Barney, Kemper Securities, and McDonald & Company. Before that he was a commercial banker in Cleveland. Chip is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

  Chip serves on the Cutler Center Advisory Board at Babson College, where he earned a B.S.B.A. and an M.B.A., and was an Adjunct Professor at Seton Hall University.
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  Dana Guido, CFA
  Director, Metals and Mining

  
  

  Dana Guido's expertise focuses on the natural resources sector. Prior to joining DISCERN, Dana was a Senior Research Analyst at Barclays Capital, where she played a key role in covering the steel sub-sector and was responsible for the global supply/demand outlook and steel price forecast. Dana coordinated global coverage of emerging steel markets–including Russia, Turkey, China, and Taiwan, in addition to assisting with the coverage of coal, copper, gold, aluminum, and diversified mining companies. Prior to the acquisition of Lehman's research operations, Dana was an analyst at Lehman Brothers, where she worked for six years. Dana earned a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from UCLA and an M.B.A. in Finance from the NYU Stern School of Business.
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  Brett Kornfeld, CFA
  Director, Applied Strategy

  
  

  Brett Kornfeld joined DISCERN after working on the proprietary trading desks at Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers as a long/short equities analyst. He began his career in the field of Research Science before transitioning to Finance at Lehman where he worked closely with DISCERN co-founder Chip Dickson, developing quantitative and fundamental equity strategy research offerings. Brett graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in Physics and earned his M.S. degree in Physics from the California Institute of Technology. He also earned an M.B.A. from the University of North Carolina and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
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  Maroo Lieuw
  Head of Product Management and Technology

  
  

  Maroo Lieuw is a seasoned technology manager and entrepreneur with 15 years experience leading teams in successfully transforming business ideas into viable products and features. He has initiated and managed numerous high-profile technology projects for leading firms, including Yahoo!, Amazon, and Morgan Stanley. Among his accomplishments as a Senior Manager at Yahoo!, Maroo launched the company’s re-designed TV and Movies site, optimizing hardware utilization, maximizing Web traffic, and increasing ad revenue by 20%. While a Senior Technical Product/Program Manager in the Search and Navigation realm at Amazon, he defined requirements for a high-value category of ads on the site, offering advertisers precise ad targeting with high relevance on product detail pages. Prior to his time at Amazon, Maroo was a Vice President/Senior Manager of Strategic Implementation at Morgan Stanley. There his responsibilities included, among numerous other technology leadership roles, overseeing quarterly releases of the Wealth Management Platform used by 10,000-plus brokers, as well as institutional clients nationwide. Maroo is a UC, Berkeley graduate with a B.A. in Cognitive Science.
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  Jim Miller
  Managing Director, Sales and Business Development

  
  

  Jim Miller brings to DISCERN more than 20 years of sales leadership experience in the institutional equity and medical technology industries. His expertise in identifying and serving the needs of sophisticated clients is built on a decade in senior sales roles at Barclays Capital, Lehman Brothers, and Bank of America. Prior to entering the institutional equity sales arena, he sold sophisticated medical imaging systems with Acuson and ATL. During this time, Jim consistently exceeded targets and successfully led national account teams in securing multi-million dollar contracts with major health services enterprises. His track record of out-pacing historical sales figures earned him Acuson’s Top Sales Award. Jim earned a B.A. in International Relations from Georgetown University.
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  Paul Saffo
  Managing Director, Foresight

  
  

  Paul Saffo is a forecaster with more than 20 years of experience helping corporate and government clients understand and respond to the dynamics of large-scale, long-term change. Paul teaches at Stanford, where he is a Consulting Associate Professor in the Engineering School and a Visiting Scholar in the Media-X Program. He is a member of the World Economic Forum Council on Strategic Foresight and the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Forecasting Future Disruptive Technologies. His essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Harvard Business Review, Foreign Policy, Fortune, Wired, the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Paul holds degrees from Harvard College, Cambridge University, and Stanford Law School.
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  Kerner Smith
  Managing Director, Sales

  
  

  Prior to joining DISCERN, Kerner Smith demonstrated his ample ability to identify and meet the needs of institutional fund managers over the course of ten years in equity sales at KeyBanc Capital Markets. At Key, Kerner was promoted rapidly, becoming the youngest Director in the firm's history and a Managing Director in early 2010. His client relationship and servicing skills earned him recognition at KeyBanc as the salesperson of the year for 2009. Kerner earned a B.S. in Applied Economics, Management and Marketing at Cornell University.
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  Scott Starbird
  Chief Financial and Operating Officer

  
  

  Scott Starbird spent 17 years in investment banking, during which time he headed the West Coast telecom banking practices at Bear Stearns and CIBC Oppenheimer. Scott also founded and ran Quantrascend, a quant/global macro hedge fund focused on currency and commodities markets. During his tenure at Quantrascend, Scott beat relevant benchmarks in the majority of the fund's eight years and achieved positive results during the turmoil of 2008, beating benchmarks that year by more than 20%. Early in his career, Scott designed executive incentive compensation plans at a major consulting firm and conducted cost forecasting at NASA for major space shuttle sub-systems. Scott earned a B.A. in Economics at Harvard, an M.B.A. at Stanford, and a J.D. at UC Berkeley, where he was a member of the California Law Review. Scott is a member of the California and District of Columbia Bar Associations.