Adam Averite
Private Markets Director
Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana
Adam is currently a Private Markets Director at Teachers' Retirement System of Louisiana (TRSL) overseeing its Alternative Assets portfolios. He brings a wealth of experience from previous roles at TRSL, Edmonson County Attorney’s Office, Louisiana State University and Crowe. He holds a JD in JD/DCL from LSU Law as well as being a CPA and CFA.
Deion Banta
Investment Manager
Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana
Deion is a pension fund manager overseeing investments in private equity, private credit, real assets, and real estate within a $14 billion private markets portfolio. He brings experience from previous roles at ING, Amegy Bank, and EY, and holds a B.S. in Finance from Louisiana State University. His expertise includes financial statement and credit analysis, financial modeling, research, and public speaking.
Brett Barth
Co-CEO
BBR Partners
Brett founded BBR Partners in 2000 and currently serves as Co-CEO, along with Evan Roth. Brett’s focus is establishing and executing the tone, culture and management structure of the Investment Research firm along with setting and achieving BBR’s short and long-term goals. Brett is also a member of BBR’s Executive Committee and serves as the Co-Chair of the Investment Committee. Prior to founding BBR, Brett was in the Equities Division of Goldman Sachs. Previously, he served in Goldman’s Equity Capital Markets groups in New York and Hong Kong. He began his career in Goldman Sachs’ Corporate Finance Department.
Scott Budner
CEO
Seabreeze Partners
Scott brings extensive experience to Seabreeze Partners, where he previously served as CEO through 2013 and has now returned after his role as Manager at SS&C Technologies, the world’s largest hedge fund and private equity administrator. At SS&C, he oversaw alternative investor services and managed hundreds of major client relationships.
Scott has deep expertise in fund operations, complex transactions, capital activity, fund structure and formation, and regulatory compliance. He has also consulted for hedge funds and RIAs on fund structuring, systems migration, and operational efficiency.
A frequent guest speaker, Scott has lectured at Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business—his alma mater—and at industry conferences. He resides in Boca Raton, Florida, with his daughters, Sam and Sydney.
Chip Dunn
Founder & CEO
Monomyth Group
Chip has over 30 years of experience in principal investing, M&A, and strategic advisory. He holds a BA from Yale University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Early in his career, Chip worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs, as well as M&A roles at Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, McDonald & Company Securities, and The Chicago Corporation. In 2015, he launched BDT & Company International in London, where he served as Managing Director and CEO. After retiring from the $12B+ BDT Capital Partners in 2017, Chip founded Monomyth Group to pioneer monomyth capital. Today, Chip is Chairman and lead investor in Anovion, Creditspring, and OpenScholar, as well as Chairman and control investor of Smallhold, and principal owner of STONE London and HAWQ Score. He also serves on the advisory board of the Yale Football Association.
Mara Baumgarten Force
Professor of Practice and Director of the Schwartz Family Center for Experiential Business Learning
A.B. Freeman School of Business Tulane University
Mara is the Director of the Schwartz Family Center for Experiential Business Learning and the Seymour S. Goodman Professor of Business Administration at Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business. She joined Tulane in 2017 and has taught courses including The Aaron Selber Jr. Course on Hedge Funds, Financial Management, Investments in Equities, and Financial Literacy. She also serves on the City of New Orleans Revenue Estimating Committee.
Before joining Tulane, Force spent 18 years at JPMorgan, where she was Managing Director and Head of Private Client Trust, leading 150 officers serving 13,000 clients and overseeing hedge fund investments and equity derivative structures.
She serves on the boards and Executive Committees of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, Jewish Endowment Foundation, ADL, and Touro Infirmary. A Zin Fellow at Ben Gurion University (2015), she was also a Young Leadership Fellow with the National Committee on U.S./China Relations.
Bjorn Forfang
Co-founder and Managing Partner
Erigo Capital Partners
Bjorn has over 25 years of experience in global capital markets, with specific expertise in hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, banking and management consulting. Before launching Erigo, Bjorn was the Deputy CEO with CFA Institute, Managing Director and Global Head of Client Relationships with UBS Investment Bank, and Managing Director and Global Head of Clients at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, and Principal at Greenwich Associates.
Derek Fossier
President
Equitas Capital Advisors
Derek is an Investment Management Consultant with 16 years of industry experience. A New Orleans native, he earned his Bachelor of Science in Economics from Tulane University before pursuing an MBA at the A.B. Freeman School of Business, where he continues to serve as a professional advisor to the Tulane AI Trading Club. During his studies, he expanded his expertise in international finance through programs in Mexico, Paris, and Beijing.
Fossier began his career at Equitas Capital Advisors in 2008 as an analyst, conducting research in asset allocation, performance reporting, and manager searches and screens. Outside of his professional work, he has redeveloped 30 Louisiana housing units and advised more than a dozen local startups. He lives in downtown New Orleans with his wife and their three pugs.
Tripp Friedler
Founder
FreeGulliver
Tripp Friedler, Free Gulliver: Tripp is the Founder of FreeGulliver where he has helped families find the purpose of their wealth for over 25 years. A born entrepreneur, Tripp enjoys diving into all aspects of public and private markets, legacy and estate planning and any personal advice his clients may seek. He has served on numerous boards including Chairman of Newman School and President of the YLC. He is also the author of “The Tunnel: A Memoir” and “FreeGulliver: Six Swift Lessons in Life Planning”.
Benjamin Gerber
Vice President
HarbourVest
Benjamin joined HarbourVest in 2020 and focuses on analyzing, structuring, and monitoring secondary private equity opportunities, including LP-led and GP-led transactions.
Benjamin joined the Firm from BMO Capital Markets, where he was an investment banking analyst in the Energy Coverage Group focusing on mergers and acquisitions and capital markets transactions.
Benjamin received a BS (cum laude) in Finance from Tulane University in 2019.
Oleg Gredil
Professor
A.B. Freeman School of Business Tulane University
Oleg conducts research on financial intermediaries, focusing primarily on private equity and hedge funds. His work has been published in leading journals including the Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Review of Finance, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Journal of Corporate Finance. His research has also been featured in NBER Digest, The Wall Street Journal, Private Equity Findings, the London Business School Roundtable on Private Equity Fundraising, and the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation.
Canaan Heard
Founder and CEO
Heard Holding Company
Canaan grew up immersed in business, with a family background in manufacturing and real estate spanning generations. He earned his undergraduate degree from LSU before serving in the United States Marine Corps. Following his service, he completed a master’s in physiology at Tulane School of Medicine and conducted medical research while founding a company specializing in military and law enforcement training and security. Building on this experience, Canaan transitioned into sales and operations within his family’s enterprises and later earned an MBA from Tulane. He now leads the family businesses and Heard Holding Company, which focuses on mergers and acquisitions, fundraising, and asset management.
Rankin Hobbs
Senior Associate
LongueVue Capital
Rankin is a Senior Associate at LongueVue Capital, where he is actively involved in deal evaluation, transaction execution, and providing operational and financial support to portfolio companies.
Prior to joining LVC full-time, Rankin worked in KPMG’s Mergers & Acquisition Tax group, where he focused on transaction structuring and corporate reorganizations. He also interned at LongueVue Capital prior to joining full-time. Rankin graduated Cum Laude from Tulane’s A.B. Freeman School of Business with a Master’s in Accounting and a BSM in Finance and Legal Studies, and he is pursuing CPA licensure in Louisiana.
Outside of work, Rankin loves trying new restaurants and listening to live music. As an active member of LVC’s Fun Committee, he enjoys planning (and attending) events with his friends, family, and colleagues. Rankin has a passion for traveling, especially if it involves going to the mountains for hiking or skiing.
Lucy Holland
Assistant Vice President
iCapital
Lucy serves as an Assistant Vice President in Fund Origination at iCapital. Prior to joining iCapital, Lucy worked as an Associate at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. She holds a Master's degree in Finance from the Freeman School of Business at Tulane University and a Bachelor's degree from the University of South Carolina.
Jake Kriegsfeld
Managing Director
Tulane Investment Management Office
Jake oversees public investments, including global equity and hedge fund strategies for the Tulane Investment Management Office. He is a Tulane alum and joined the Endowment in June 2013 after completing an internship the prior summer. He graduated summa cum laude from Tulane's A. B. Freeman School of Business with a BSM in Finance and as a member of the William Wallace Peery Society, which recognizes 15 graduating seniors for academic excellence. He also earned a minor in Spanish and completed an international business program in Madrid, Spain. Jake is a CFA charterholder.
Howard Nifoussi
Partner, U.S. Wealth Management
Apollo Global Management
Howard is a Partner and Head of U.S. Wealth Management on Apollo's Client & Product Solutions team, joining the firm in 2021. He is responsible for expanding the firm's Global Wealth distribution platform in the United States, managing relationships with U.S. Wirehouses and Private Banks to provide individual investors with access to Apollo's various investment strategies. With a career in financial services spanning over two decades, he previously served as a Managing Director in the Americas Client Business at Goldman Sachs Asset Management from 2009 to 2021 and a Director at Citi Alternative Investments from 2000 to 2009. Nifoussi holds a B.A. from the University of Delaware and is a board member of the Boys & Girls Club of Monmouth County (NJ).
Peter Ricchiuti
Senior Professor of Practice and William B. Burkenroad Jr. Clinical Professorship in Equity Research
A.B. Freeman School of Business Tulane University
Peter Ricchiuti is the business professor you wished you had back in college!
His humor and insight have earned him numerous teaching awards at Tulane University, where he created and runs the nationally acclaimed Burkenroad Reports student stock research program.
A native of Boston, Peter graduated from Babson College and began his career with the investment firm of Kidder Peabody. He later managed Louisiana’s $3 billion investment portfolio while serving as the assistant state treasurer.
A nationally recognized speaker, Peter has addressed more than 1,400 groups in 47 states and several countries. He has been featured in Barron’s, Kiplinger’s, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He also hosts a popular weekly business show on National Public Radio in New Orleans called “Out To Lunch.”
Peter is a husband, a dad and a huge baseball fan who has attended games at all 30 current major league ballparks (including many at Fenway Park, home of his beloved Red Sox). He also practices each Saturday morning on Tulane’s campus (the “Field of Dreams”) with the “old guys” baseball team. How old? Their second baseman is 85! He is also a fan of Americana/Blues music and enjoys traveling to otherworldly places such as the Mississippi Delta, the Salton Sea and Plaquemines Parish here in Louisiana.
Jacques Soenens
Founder and Chief Investment Officer
Great Gable Investments
Jacques is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Great Gable Investments, LLC. With over 25 years of experience researching and investing across public and private markets, he has managed capital for institutional, family office, and high-net-worth investors through multiple economic cycles. Before founding Great Gable in 2005, Jacques co-founded Osmium Partners, LLC in San Francisco and previously worked as a research analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) and Prudential Securities in New York.
David Thomas
Founder & CEO
Equitas Capital Advisors and Equitas Partners
David is the founder and CEO of Equitas Capital Advisors, LLC, and Equitas Partners, LLC, serving as an outside Chief Investment Officer for family offices, foundations, universities, hospitals, and corporations.
Active in investment consulting since 1979, David founded the Louisiana consulting group for UBS PaineWebber and later the Senior Financial Consulting Group at Prudential Securities before launching Equitas Capital Advisors in 2002. He also created the award-winning Equitas Evergreen Fund (Bloomberg: EQUEVGR US Equity).
A contributing writer for Forbes Online, David’s work has appeared in Pension World, Directors and Boards, and other publications. He holds the CIMA designation from IMCA and a BBA from Belmont University.
David lectures at Tulane University and lives in Metairie with his wife, Lucy.
Nicola Volpi
Partner
Permira
Nic Volpi joined Permira’s New York office in 2004 and relocated to Menlo Park in 2011. A member of the Financing Group, he focuses on investment opportunities in the Services and Technology sectors and has worked on transactions including Ancestry, Curriculum Associates, Duff & Phelps / Kroll, Intelsat, Magento, Renaissance Learning, Sushiro, TeamViewer, and Tricor. Nic also serves as Investment Lead for Permira’s social impact partnership with Food for Soul, a charity partner of the Permira Foundation. Prior to Permira, he spent four years at Brera Capital Partners on middle-market buyouts and gained additional experience at Index Securities in Geneva and in Merrill Lynch’s Financial Institutions Group in New York. Nic holds a degree in Business Administration from Georgetown University and an MBA from Stanford University.
Dillon Weisberg
Private Equity Senior Investment Analyst
Abbot Capital Management
Dillon Weisberg joined Abbott Capital Management in 2023 and focuses on the analysis and due diligence of prospective private equity investments. He is currently a Senior Analyst on the investment team, and has experience in analyzing primary, secondary, and co-investment opportunities. Dillon joined the Firm following his graduation from Tulane University, where he received a B.S.M. in Finance.
