Foresight
Financial Services
Homebuilders
REITs
Technology
Medical Devices
Specialty Pharmaceuticals
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.
David Bugajski
Managing 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.
Brett Kornfeld, CFA
Director, Applied Strategy, Residential Real Estate
Brett Kornfeld joined DISCERN after working on the proprietary trading desks at Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers as a long/short equities analyst. Brett has significant experience in algorithm development for physical research science and quantitative finance. He began his career in the field of Research Science at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Electrophysics Corporation 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.
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.
Barry Oxford, CFA
Director, Real Estate Investment Trusts
Barry’s seasoned approach to commercial real estate analysis is guided in part by deep relationships within the universe of REITS he covers. He knows their strengths, their weaknesses, and many of their top executives. As a fundamentals-based analyst, he has consistently outperformed the RMS index by 250-350 basis points while maintaining lower overall risk, drawing on proprietary models and the sound judgment at the foundation of his estimable reputation. Barry began his career in real estate investment analysis at Alex Brown & Sons before becoming a REIT analyst at Invesco and, later, a senior REIT analyst at UBS. Building on his experience, he shifted seamlessly into senior portfolio management at Colonial First State before moving on to AIMS Financial Group AU, where he set up the company’s business operations in the U.S. Barry earned an M.B.A. from the Crummer Graduate School at Rollins College and double-majored in Economics and English at Denison University.
Cindy Shaw, CFA
Managing Director, Technology
Cindy’s unique insights into the technology industry draw upon more than a decade of broad operational experience in technology companies ranging from startups to Dell and Hewlett-Packard. In 1998 she brought her industry expertise to the investment profession and developed a reputation for prescient, non-consensus perspectives and unique, high-quality research. Cindy covered a variety of technology sectors as a research analyst at Bank of America Securities, Salomon Smith Barney and SoundView Technology Group before becoming a global strategist at Mellon Capital Management. She has been a frequent guest on CNBC, widely quoted in The Wall Street Journal and other business media and a well-received speaker and panelist at technology and investment conferences. Cindy earned an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. She is an inventor on one U.S. patent and a CFA charterholder.
Daniel Owczarski
Managing Director, Medical Devices
Dan has built a solid reputation on his dogged drive to track down valuable information you may never hear anywhere else on medical devices, products, and equipment. In addition to monitoring and analyzing massive amounts of data coming from the FDA, CMS, private payers, clinical trials, and published scientific studies, he regularly connects with a strong repertoire of contacts in the trenches to develop his theses. With nearly 20 years in the industry under his belt, Dan began his career as a healthcare and financial strategy consultant for KPMG before taking his skillset to healthcare alliance Premier, Inc., Soleil Securities, and Avondale Partners. Dan holds an MBA from University of Illinois at Chicago, with specialties in Finance and Health Management, and a BS in Economics from University of Illinois at Champaign.
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.