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Michael F. Amoia, JD, CFP, CLU, ChFC, Vice President, Advanced Markets for The Potomac Group and Crump Life Insurance Services, Inc., is well-versed in financial planning and life insurance and has authored numerous articles, including The Interplay of 409A and Split Dollar, Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts in Times of Tax and Legal Uncertainty, The Goodman Triangle, and FLPs Flipped Upside Down. He received his bachelor’s degree in economics from George Mason University and graduated cum laude from the University of Baltimore School of Law. He is attending Georgetown University Law Center to earn a master of law degree in taxation. |
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Leanne Garland Barlow, JD, of the national firm of Joyce Paul, PLLC, practices estate planning in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her practice is concentrated on multi-generational wealth transfer and asset protection for families and family-owned businesses. She received her bachelor's degree in History from Southern Methodist University and her Juris Doctorate degree from Baylor University School of Law. |
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Jim Bowman joined SAF in April 2007 and has an impressive and consistent track record in creating successful strategies for marketing life products and managing distribution channels. Prior to joining Summit Alliance, Bowman most recently headed the Life Division at AXA Distributors. He also served as Senior Vice President and Chief Agency Officer for Transamerica Insurance and Investment Group and during his tenure, led the organization to record sales year after year. Bowman is known for his tremendous energy, expertise, and success in generating product sales for independent producers and national accounts. He is a graduate of Purdue University. He and his wife, Jeane, have two children - Haley and Connor. |
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David L. Cook, PhD, is one of the country's top Peak Performance coaches and seminar leaders. He served as "Mental Training Coach" for the San Antonio Spurs from 1996 – 2004 that included two World Championships. He also served as mental training coach for the Washington Wizards of the NBA in 2005, helping them reach the second round of the playoffs for the first time in 26 years. Cook is President of his Texas-based Peak Performance firm that bridges the gap between the sports and business arenas. He is the former Director of Applied Sport and Performance Psychology at the University of Kansas (1984 – 1996) where his peers elected him President of the National Sport Psychology Academy in 1992. Cook has been recognized by Golf Digest, Golf Magazine, Golf Illustrated and Golf Tips. He recently released his first performance novel, Golf’s Sacred Journey: Seven Days at the Links of Utopia. |
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Michael K. Farrell is Executive Vice President at MetLife responsible for leading U.S. Distribution, consisting of Employee Benefits Sales, Individual Distribution, third party distribution through MetLife Investors and the sales support functions. He also oversees a team focused on the operations, sales and investment product management for MetLife’s four broker-dealers (MetLife Securities, New England Securities, Tower Square Securities and Walnut Street Securities).
Before assuming his current position in August 2009, Farrell was in charge of all aspects of MetLife’s market-leading annuity business, including sales, marketing, annuity product development and pricing, fund investment platforms, customer experience and retirement strategy. Prior to this role, Farrell was responsible for third-party distribution, overseeing the company’s dramatic growth in wirehouse, banks, planner, regional broker-dealers and brokerage organizations. Prior to joining MetLife in May 2001, he was President of Michael K. Farrell Associates, Inc. Over the span of his career, Farrell has held the positions of President at Mutual Benefit Pension Corporation, and Senior Vice President of Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company. He served as National Sales Director for ReliaStar Retirement Plans, and as a Member of the ReliaStar Enterprise Council.
Farrell is on the Board of the Insured Retirement Institute, an industry trade organization addressing the retirement income needs of Americans. He is active in community affairs and serves as a board member of the Boys and Girls Club Life Camp. He is a graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University.
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Jonathan M. Forster, listed as one of nation's top tax lawyers, focuses on business planning for privately held companies, business succession, executive compensation and estate planning. Forster provides innovative, practical tax strategies to assist business owners in building and preserving the value of their companies and personal net worth. He also supports the life insurance industry, having worked in the financial services industry in the early 1980s for EF Hutton where he supported the Washington, DC insurance coordinator. His representation includes numerous government contracting firms, national life insurance distribution firms, and several large family offices. Forster is the founder of two privately-held companies, a continuing education firm, and a distance learning company both of which provided accredited continuing education for life insurance producers. He also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of several companies and non-profits, and is an active member of the regional life insurance councils. |
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M. Bryan Freeman began his career as a life insurance agent. In 2009, Freeman celebrated 20 years since the completion of his first life settlement. He founded Habersham Funding LLC, a licensed provider doing business nationally, in 2001. Freeman is in his fifth term on the Board of the Life Insurance Settlement Association and is its former four-term President. He was selected in the inaugural list of the 10 Most Influential People in Life Settlements by Life Settlement Review. In 2006, Freeman was commended for his long service and pioneering efforts in life settlements by both the State of Georgia Senate and House. |
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Vincent J. Granieri FSA, MAAA, EA is CFO and Chief Actuary for 21st Services, LLC. He is responsible for 21st Services' financial area and all actuarial activities with respect to its life expectancy underwriting systems. He is spearheading 21st Services' project to study over 15 million Medicare records to improve the state of the art of longevity analysis. Prior to joining the company, Granieri spent more than five years operating an independent consulting practice that he founded, serving the insurance and financial services arena. As Chief Actuary/Chief Financial Officer for virtually all the organizations he has served over the past 20 years, he has built and managed every aspect of actuarial and financial operations. He supplemented these skills with meaningful assignments in operations, investments, marketing and systems. He has also worked with Life Settlements provider, Life Equity LLC.
Granieri earned his bachelor's degree (summa cum laude) from Ball State University, majoring in actuarial science. He also holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School. He is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries, as well as an Enrolled Actuary under ERISA. He currently serves on the American Academy of Actuaries' SVL2 Steering Committee Sub-Group on Corporate Governance. |
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David Isaacson, CLU, ChFC received his MBA at the Wharton School of Business and is a founding Principal of First Financial Resource with more than 80 offices nationally. He has offices in Massachusetts and Kansas where he works with “older, richer, sicker” clients as a product specialist to buy life insurance policies FOR his clients, and when appropriate, FROM his clients. His first life settlement was closed in 1996. Just last year he wrote: Understanding Life Settlements—Uncovering the Treasure in Unwanted Life Insurance Policies. The book is intended for consumers and their advisors and will be useful for agents wanting to learn how to proceed in this market. Issacson feels strongly that the settlement industry offers all of us the opportunity to sell more insurance and to be advocates for our clients. |
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Richard E. Jackim, JD, MBA, CEPA, is the Founder of the Exit Planning Institute and the author of the critically acclaimed book, The $10 Trillion Opportunity: Designing Successful Exit Strategies for Middle Market Business Owners. Jackim is an experienced investment banker, former Wall Street attorney and consultant. He is responsible for business development for MidCap Advisors, a middle-market investment bank that represents privately-owned businesses with revenues of between five and $150 million. During his career Jackim has been involved in over 60 mergers or acquisitions of privately owned companies with a combined market value of over $1 billion. |
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Linwood Jones, ACS, FLMI, AIAA, has over 30 years of experience in underwriting. He has worked at Manulife Financial focusing on Underwriting Operations and at North American Life Assurance of Toronto. Jones is focused on maintaining a relationship business and his goal is to deliver in a professional and timely manner. |
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Martin Kalb has over 30 years of experience at Greenberg Traurig representing clients in all aspects of tax law, estate planning, corporate matters and mergers and acquisitions. Kalb also served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of UniCapital Corporation, a former New York Stock Exchange equipment leading company. Prior to joining Greenberg Traurig he was an attorney in the Office of the Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service in Washington D.C. |
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Deborah Knupp has worked globally with CEOs, executives, managing partners and attorneys as a coach, consultant and business executive for nearly 20 years. She is the founder and Managing Partner of Akina, a national consulting and training firm based in Chicago that helps organizations rethink how to sell and lead though creating and sustaining relationships. Prior to Akina, Knupp was an executive in sales and human resources in high-tech professional service firms and at Alcan Packaging, Frito-Lay and Pearle Vision. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science. and Senior Fellows honors in Organizational Communication from The University of Texas at Austin. |
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John McCarroll, JD, serves as general counsel at Q Capital Strategies LLC, a life settlement provider. Prior to this position, he practiced insurance regulatory and corporate insurance law, most recently with firms Dewey and LeBoeuf and Locke, Lord, Bissell, and Liddell. He also worked as an in-house attorney with Insurance Services Office and has represented clients in litigation, corporate and employment matters. McCarroll was recently elected Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Life Insurance Settlement and is Chairman of the Legal Committee. He worked extensively to revise the Life Insurance Settlement Association Standards and Best Practices. McCarroll earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and a law degree from St. John’s University School of Law. |
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Moshe A. Milevsky, Ph.D. is a tenured Finance Professor at the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto (Canada), the Executive Director of the non-profit IFID Centre and President and CEO of the QWeMA Group. Since 2002 he has been a Fellow of the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences and has lectured at Universities in the U.S., Europe, South America and Asia. He has also consulted and provided expert witness testimony for a variety of global pension funds and insurance companies and is currently a member of a number of corporate advisory councils.
Milevsky has written six books, including the Calculus of Retirement Income which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2006. He has co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed articles on the topics of insurance, investments, pensions and annuities. His popular writing was acknowledged with two National Magazine (Canada) awards in 2003, and he received a Graham and Dodd scroll award for a 2006 article in the Financial Analysts Journal.
His most recent book, entitled Are You a Stock or a Bond?: Create Your Own Pension Plan for a Secure Financial Future was published by the Financial Times/Pearson Education press in the Fall of 2008.
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David Nour is a social networking strategist and one of the foremost thought leaders on the quantifiable value of business relationships. He is the author of Relationship Economics (Wiley, 2008), The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Raising Capital (Praeger, 2009) and Social Networking Technology Best Practices Series, a senior management advisor, and a featured speaker for corporate, association and academic forums.
Nour and his team have researched over 400 social networking applications in 22 distinct categories, publishing articles such What’s your social networking strategy? in numerous publications. Nour is a contributor to The Social Media Bible (Wiley, 2009) and is currently researching and writing his next forthcoming book on Enterprise Social Networking.
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Sam Radin, JD, is the founder of National Madison Group, Inc., a nationally recognized firm that provides life insurance services to high net worth individuals and businesses. Radin is known as an expert in the sophisticated use and design of life insurance products. A unique aspect of his practice is planning for writers and other creative professionals, including the disposition of their copyright catalogues. With more than 30 years of experience in personal, business, estate and gift tax planning, Radin has served as a member of various bar association tax committees, and is a frequent speaker to accountants, attorneys and financial planning professionals.
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Lloyd Rothenberg's client base includes private equity, venture capital and hedge funds, premium finance and life settlement companies. His practice focuses on private equity acquisitions, financings and dispositions, mergers and acquisitions, premium financing, life settlements, strategic alliances and joint ventures, complex commercial transactions, venture capital investments and private placements of securities. Rothenberg also represents high net worth individuals, corporate executives, closely held business owners and U.S. citizens and residents residing in Israel in a variety of commercial transactions and in connection with their estate and tax planning. |
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Bobby Samuelson is the founder and principal of SamuelsonDesign, an independent consulting firm providing product intelligence and creative design to producers across the country. His specialty is life insurance design for estate planning techniques. Samuelson regularly presents to industry groups on product pricing, anomalies, and applications. He worked in the Advanced Sales Resources team at National Financial Partners prior to founding SamuelsonDesign. He graduated from Furman University with honors in Economics.
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John Scroggin, JD, LL.M (tax), AEP, has practiced as a tax attorney in Atlanta for more than 30 years. He holds a BSBA, J.D. and LL.M. (tax) from the University of Florida. In 2009, Atlanta magazine selected Scroggin as both a Georgia “Super Lawyer” and a Five-Star Wealth Advisor. Scroggin serves as Founding Editor-in-Chief of the NAEPC Journal of Estate and Tax Planning, is the author of over 200 published articles and columns, and has been quoted extensively, including: The Wall Street Journal (1999, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 & 2009), CHH Headline News, National Public Radio, Fortune, Forbes, Kiplinger’s, Money, Dow Jones Investment Advisor, Worth, Financial Advisor, Smart Money, Wall Street Magazine, Registered Rep. National Underwriter, Bloomberg Wealth Management, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The South China Post, The LA Times and Newsday.
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Terri Sjodin, is the Principal and Founder of Sjodin Communications, a Public Speaking, Sales Training and Consulting Firm, based in Newport Beach, California. She is one of America's most highly sought after female speakers and has trained and motivated thousands of people from all over the world. Her unique specialization is advancing the persuasive presentation skills of professionals. She is the author of the highly acclaimed book, New Sales Speak - The 9 Biggest Sales Presentation Mistakes and How To Avoid Them published by John Wiley & Sons, New York. She is also co-author of Mentoring - A Success Guide for Mentors and Protégés, co-written with Floyd Wickman, and published by McGraw-Hill. Sjodin’s clients include an impressive list of Fortune 500 companies, industry associations, academic conferences, and leadership on Capital Hill. She was named one of the top five “Women in Business” by the Orange County Business Journal at the distinguished WIB awards.Beyond her success as an entrepreneur and author, Sjodin is a frequent guest on radio and television talk shows throughout the country appearing on CNN, CNBC, and many major network affiliates to comment on issues relating to public speaking and presentation skills in today’s market. |
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Melvin Warshaw is General Counsel and Senior Vice President, Investor Relations for Financial Architects Partners (FAP). Warshaw’s primary responsibility is to create and deepen FAP’s relationships and provide strategic marketing for advisors, including lawyers, CPAs and family offices and has over 25 years of industry experience. Prior to joining FAP, Warshaw was the Senior Wealth Advisor at JP Morgan Private Bank in the New England region. Previously, he was a partner at, and the head of, the McDermott Will & Emery Private Client Department in the Boston office. He has also been an estate planning and tax partner at the Boston-based law firm, Burns & Levinson. Warshaw began his legal career as an attorney in the General Counsel’s office at the Internal Revenue Service National Office in Washington, D.C. |
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Jerry Weihs brings 25 years of experience in Advanced Sales to Sun Life Financial. He has a diversified background combining degrees in law, business administration and economics with experience in public accounting and business, estate and pension planning. An attorney and CPA, he managed the Advanced Sales area for Allmerica Financial. Weihs is very effective at communicating technical, financial, legal and tax information in an understandable manner with strong experience in estate planning, as well as benefit and business planning issues for small business owners. He is a frequent speaker before professional groups on estate planning topics. He has extensive experience with private placement programs for high net worth individuals, COLI plans for executives, and working with CPA distribution channels. Weihs has extensive product development expertise with variable products for COLI and second-to-die markets. |