Scott Starbird Chief Financial and Operating Officer
Henry “Chip” Dickson, CFA Director of Research and Strategist
Paul Saffo Managing Director, Foresight
Dave Bubas Managing Director, Marketing
Kerner Smith Managing Director, Sales
Harry Blount, CFAChairman and Chief Executive OfficerInvestment 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.
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.
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.
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 was a member of 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.
Dave Bubas
Managing Director, 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.
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.