Mark Flaherty was elected Controller of Allegheny County, serving from 2003 to 2011. In that capacity, he managed annual expenditures of more than $1.4 billion and was responsible for auditing county departments, associated entities, and contracted agents. He set a precedent by implementing performance auditing in Allegheny County. Mr. Flaherty began his career at Merrill Lynch and accumulated 17 years of experience in the investment field, specializing in pensions and investments. He has held NASD Series 7, 24, and 63 licenses as well as insurance licenses in life, accident, and health. While County Controller, Mr. Flaherty initiated audits in conjunction with several government entities to investigate potential fraudulence in agencies under contract with Allegheny County. His office identified millions of dollars in disallowances and instances of absent internal controls resulting in the loss of millions of dollars due to vendor misuse of funds. Mr. Flaherty is currently a practicing tax and investment attorney. He also serves on the governing board of the Allegheny County Retirement System and on the Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board, and is an officer on the Executive Committee of the Pennsylvania State Association of County Controllers. His office’s assessment of healthcare costs for Allegheny County Jail inmates led to significant inmate healthcare cost savings. He has also led studies of the Allegheny County Port Authority Transit System and 911 Emergency Services, each time leading to significantly more efficient cost-saving processes and controls. Former Controller Flaherty was awarded the 2008 Carl E. Nelson Best Practices Award by AIIM, recognizing excellence in Enterprise Content Management. He speaks to industry groups around the country about pension benefits, fiduciary responsibility and prudent investment practices, unifying local government plans to a single statewide pension system, and domestic and international securities lending and reporting. Mr. Flaherty has a degree in economics from Duke University and earned a Juris Doctorate from Duquesne University School of Law.

Darwin Bayston

Executive Director - LISA

Darwin Bayston is the Executive Director of the Life Insurance Settlement Association (LISA). His charge is to extend the outreach of the Association to all participants of the life settlement industry, from consumers to capital providers including producers, brokers, providers, and service providers who are part of the life settlement market. He was previously Managing Director of Life Settlement Consulting and Management (LSCM), founded in 2004, and he specialized in life settlement policy and portfolio valuations as well as life expectancy analysis. He has published several articles and has been a speaker at a number of life settlement conferences. Prior to that, he operated an investment advisory firm. From 1980 to 1993, Mr. Bayston served in several capacities, including President and CEO of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute and its predecessor organizations. While at CFA, he founded the continuing education program, was editor of the CFA Digest, and supervised research projects funded by the Research Foundation of the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts (ICFA). He began his career as an investment analyst with a Midwest Life Insurance Company. Mr. Bayston has served as Chairman of the Martha Jefferson Hospital Foundation, a member of the Hospital’s Finance Committee, and a past member of the Board of the Institute for Quantitative Research and Finance (Q Group).

Craig Seitel

President and CEO
Maple Life Financial

Nate Evans is the Chief Executive Officer and President of Maple Life Financial, Inc. and MLF LexServ, LLC. Under his leadership, Maple and LexServ have grown from a small, vertically integrated company to one of the largest and most respected enterprises in the settlement industry. Mr. Evans has more than 25 years of management experience in the life insurance industry, beginning his career at Allstate Financial, where he held a variety of leadership positions for more than 14 years. Immediately prior to joining Maple Life, Mr. Evans served as Vice President of ZeBU/Integrated Insurance Technologies, where he led the delivery of sales, marketing, and consulting services to the largest U.S. life insurance companies. He now serves as the President of the Board of Directors at the Life Insurance Settlement Association (LISA) and sits on the board of the Life Settlement Institute (LSI). Mr. Evans is a graduate of Trinity College
 

Alan Buerger

Laurence A. Hansen
Partner
Locke Lord LLP

Larry Hansen has more than 30 years of experience in the area of taxation, with emphasis on employee benefits and executive compensation. He has represented national clients in many complex corporate and employee benefits transactions, including plan mergers and terminations. Mr. Hansen also advises the firm’s litigators on ERISA fiduciary duty and prohibited transaction matters. In addition to representing corporate clients in connection with employee benefits and executive compensation, he regularly represents individual executives in connection with their employment, change of control, and severance agreements. Mr. Hansen also serves as counsel to retirement and medical plans covering thousands of employees of church organizations throughout the U.S.

Prior to joining Vida Capital, Inc., Scott Crohn was a Director at the WestLB AG New York branch, where he was responsible for the U.S. longevity and mortality business within the Corporate and Structured Finance Products Division. Mr. Crohn originated, structured, and managed multiple debt facilities and products for the aggregation and distribution of longevity and mortality assets. He also served as a Director on the board of the Institutional Life Markets Association (ILMA), a not-for-profit trade association focused on the development of the longevity and mortality marketplace. Mr. Crohn previously worked at Bear Stearns, where he structured debt for municipal bond and derivative transactions. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics from Northwestern University.

Ed Boyer is a Principal and Senior Consultant in the Hunt Valley headquarters of Asset Strategy Consultants (ASC). He has more than two decades of experience in investment consulting and is a nationally recognized author and expert on client/investment manager relationships. He has been an industry panelist for many alternative investment conferences. After graduating from the University of Colorado with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, Mr. Boyer entered the securities business with Dean Witter in San Francisco. He joined ASC in 1992 and has presented seminars on fiduciary and investment management topics, sponsored in conjunction with prominent law firms in the Greater Baltimore area. He specializes in evaluating investment management organizations and the risks associated with various structures.  Mr. Boyer has particular expertise in the area of alternative investments, such as venture capital, private equity, hedge funds, real estate, natural resources, etc. He completed Level I of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designation and attended Callan College for fiduciary training.

Andrew Plevin
Co-CEO
BroadRiver Asset Management L.P.

Andrew Plevin is a founding principal of BroadRiver and plays a key role in developing the company’s strategic plan, investment strategies, and related commercial initiatives. From 2002 to 2006, Mr. Plevin was a founding principal of SPAR L.P., an advisory firm investing in life settlements for institutions. In 2006, together with Philip Siller, Mr. Plevin started Goldman Sachs’s life settlement desk and served as Co-CEO of Goldman Sach’s Eastport Capital subsidiary. While at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Plevin participated in the founding and was a member of the board of directors of the Institutional Life Markets Association (ILMA) and co-developed the Goldman Sachs QxX longevity indices. Mr. Plevin received his MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and his BA in Economics from the University of Michigan.