The DISCERN 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 lent his expertise to the National Academy of Sciences where he was 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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  Patricia Bank
  Managing Director, Specialty Pharmaceuticals

  
  

  Patti Bank's highly respected analytical expertise and strong health care industry relationships stem from more than 25 years working in the life sciences area, including 20 years as a sell-side research analyst covering the specialty pharmaceutical and pharmaceutical sectors and more than five years of industry experience as a pharmaceuticals salesperson working for Carter-Wallace Inc. Patti has been recognized in the Wall Street Journal's Annual Analyst Survey. She most recently was at Pacific Growth Equities and prior to that Vector Securities Inc., both research and advisory firms focusing on small-to-mid capitalization life sciences companies. Patti earned an M.B.A. from Drexel University and a B.A. in Neurobiology and Economics from Rutgers University.
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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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  Tony Budd
  Managing Director, Sales

  
  

  Tony Budd has spent the better part of two decades perfecting the art of identifying - and guiding appropriate responses to - specific client information needs. Tony brings to DISCERN substantial institutional securities and research sales experience, including roles as a senior manager of expert network services provider, Vista Research, and as a Senior Salesperson at Gartner Invest, the investment research arm of technology research leader Gartner, Inc. Earlier in his career, Tony held senior sales positions at several other equity firms, including Cowen & Company where he focused on the healthcare and technology industries. Tony earned a B.A. from Hobart College.
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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.

  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, Product Development

  
  

  Dana Guido brings business knowledge acquired over seven years as a sell-side equity research analyst and technical experience gained as a database analyst to the Product Development role. Prior to joining DISCERN Dana was a Senior Research Analyst at Barclays Capital (Lehman Brothers) covering steel equities. Before attending business school she spent four years as a database analyst serving as a liaison between programmers and analysts to coordinate the automation of updates and reports. 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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  Dennis Higgins
  Managing Director, Energy

  
  

  Dennis Higgins' deep insight into the oil and gas sector reflects 20 years experience on Wall Street including 14 years exclusively covering energy. Before becoming a buy-side energy analyst and portfolio manager, Dennis spent five years covering the natural gas industry at Morgan Stanley where he was recognized as one of the top three analysts in the sector by Institutional Investor and as the top sector analyst in independent surveys by both the Wall Street Journal and Reuters. Dennis also earned recognition three times in the Wall Street Journal's annual stock recommendation survey, in addition to ranking in the top quartile of all Morgan Stanley analysts for stock recommendations based on an internal relative performance system. Over the past 7 years, Dennis has successfully managed long-short energy portfolios for both George Weiss & Associates and Level Global Investors LLC. Dennis earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
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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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  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.
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  David Wigginton
  Director, Real Estate Investment Trusts

  
  

  David Wigginton has demonstrated a consistent ability to provide differentiated coverage of the real estate investment trust sector both as a Senior Analyst at Macquarie Capital and in the equity research department of Merrill Lynch. Prior to commencing his career in research, David worked as a Senior Consultant in the Financial Services Advisory area at Ernst & Young. David has successfully proceeded through Level II of the CFA qualification process and was previously an active CPA holder. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where he earned an M.S. in Accountancy, and Brigham Young University, where he earned a B.S. in Business Management with a finance emphasis.