Barbara Luna, PhD, CPA, CFE, ASA, CVA, ABV, CGREA, CCRA, CREA Dean Atkinson, CPA, CFE, ABV, CAC, CFF John Luna, JD/MBA, CPA, ABV, CFF David Turner, CPA, ABV, CFF Drew Hunt, MBA, CPA, ASA |
Barbara Luna, PhD, CPA, CFE, ASA, CVA, ABV, CGREA, CCRA, CREA Venita McMorris, MA |
15490 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 300 Sherman Oaks, CA 91403 Phone: (866) 981-4266 or (818) 981-4226 Fax: (818) 981-4278 Email: expert@wzwlh.com Website: www.wzwlh.com |
4 Park Plaza, Suite 200 Irvine, CA 92614 Phone: (949) 219-9816 Fax: (949) 219-9095 Email: expert@wzwlh.com Website: www.wzwlh.com |
Rod Tasker specializes in Payment Services, Transaction Banking, and e-Commerce. He has over 20 years of experience working for major banks in strategic and business planning and cradle to grave product management, including business cases, feasibility, piloting, commercialization, and retirement. Mr. Tasker consults in strategic management and innovative solution delivery in the banking and finance industry. His achievements in Australia and internationally include:
- Leading a team of 25 people in developing an internet payment service
- Developing an enterprise Sales and Service architecture for a major bank
- Developing an international payments business architecture & operations strategy for a major bank
- Obtaining consensus amongst a consortium of 15 global banks for the strategic vision and plan for implementing B2B international ePayments
- Developing a variety of e-Banking and e-Payment products and services
- Building a payments business from start-up as CEO
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Consulting Services - Mr. Tasker is engaged by companies that offer payment services as products or services, or for whom payments are "strategic" or "core," for example, insurance companies, exchanges, retailers, and investors wanting to evaluate payment business acquisitions, mergers, or funding opportunities. His services include:
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Sylvia Kessler is an effective and skilled Certified Forensic Document Examiner as well as a Handwriting Expert with over 25 years of experience.
Background Experience - Ms. Kessler completed her training with Dr. Marie Cassil in 1976 and has been active as a Handwriting Expert and Forensic Document Examiner since 1980. Since that time, she has studied and become Certified by the Scientific Association of Forensic Experts, SAFE, as a Forensic Document Examiner. Ms. Kessler has also been Certified as a Neuro Linguistic Practitioner since 1986.
Litigation Support - Sylvia Kessler has conducted hundreds of examinations and generated numerous reports concerning questioned handwriting and signatures. She has worked with attorneys for both Plaintiff and Defense in the design of deposition questions that focus on outcome-specific results. Her services include preparing accurate Personality Profiles and/or identifying and preparing expert witness testimony for trial. Ms. Kessler has qualified as a Handwriting Expert and Forensic Document Examiner in Nebraska and Iowa courts, giving testimony in Douglas, Sarpy, Cass, Sanders, Montgomery and Pottawattamie Counties. She has been accepted in State and Federal courts to give expert testimony in cases regarding the authenticity of documents and/or signatures. Since 2010, Ms. Kessler has reviewed 140 cases which produced 9 trials, 3 depositions. 1 arbitration, and 1 hearing.
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Sidney Blum, CPA, CFE, CPEA, CFF has over 30 years of professional experience in the areas of Forensic Accounting, Intellectual Property Economic Damages, Royalty Audits, and General Economic Damages. Leading contract terms and licensing expert. 2017 California CPA of the Year & 2012 Certified Fraud Examiner of the Year.
Background - A financial damages expert witness with particular strength in patents, trademarks, copyrights, DMCA, toys, entertainment, oil & gas, malpractice, breach of contract, and consumer products. He served as Chief Audit Officer at Beats Electronics, nine years as an accounting firm Partner including five as a Big 4 Partner, and staff experience with Fortune 50 companies Occidental Petroleum, Unocal, and the Walt Disney Company where he was a member of the internal audit departments. While with Ernst & Young, he led fraud and forensic investigations nationally for their internal audit practice. Vice Chair (2016-2017) Board of Regents of the 80,000 member Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. Lead more than 1,500 financial investigations.
Litigation Support - As a Financial and Economic Damages expert witness, Mr. Blum has worked on matters from simple to several billion dollars complex litigations. He has testified on more than 40 occasions, equally for plaintiffs and defendants, in a wide variety of State, Federal, and USITC matters. Mr. Blum is a Certified Fraud Examiner, Certified Professional Environmental Auditor, and Certified in Financial Forensics by the AICPA.
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SEDA Experts is a boutique consulting firm specializing in Financial Services. They provide superior independent advice, data analytics, valuation, and expert testimony services to financial institutions and law firms in both litigation and business contexts.
Their experts have unmatched industry experience in a vast array of financial services practices. With over 30 years as global managing directors at leading financial institutions and consulting firms, each of their experts is dedicated to applying exceptional real-world economic, financial, and quantitative principles to complex business and legal challenges.
SEDA Experts provides independent advice, financial consulting, data analytics, valuation, and expert testimony services to financial institutions and law firms in both litigation and business contexts.
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Richard A. Marin, Managing Director, a former finance senior executive with over 40 years of industry experience, and a former clinical professor at Cornell University, is a world-class testifying expert. Mr. Marin is a Finance, Real Estate, and Venture Capital industry executive who is currently the CEO of Low Emissions Resources Corporation. He also is involved in managing private equity investments, consulting on major commercial real estate and attractions projects, and an expert in the retirement field.
Mr. Marin was previously a senior executive at three major financial institutions; Bankers Trust Company, Deutsche Bank and Bear Stearns. His initial career spanned corporate finance, sales and trading, structured products, emerging markets, processing, and several other disciplines. Later in his career, he focused on building and running large asset management businesses in both the traditional and alternative spaces and in the institutional and high net worth markets. He also served as Chairman and CEO of AFI (USA), a major distressed commercial and residential property developer, for whom he restructured over $2B of liabilities.
Mr. Marin has been a successful financial entrepreneur, involved in founding several venture capital firms (Beehive Ventures and Green Visor Capital) and a hedge fund (Ironwood Global). He served as CEO of the New York Wheel, a $650 million development project, from 2012 to 2017. He is currently the CEO of Low Emission Resource Corporation, a start-up scientific research & development company working in the areas of hydrogen and ammonia production.
He is a published author of Global Pension Crisis: Unfunded Liabilities and How We Can Fill the Gap (Wiley & Sons, 2013), Mater Gladiatrix (Lulu Press, 2017) and Gulag 401k: Tales of a Modern Prisoner (Lulu Press, 2017). View full Vitae.
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Kenneth Simmons, Managing Director, has over 30 years of industry experience as Executive Vice President at leading financial institutions, and at regulatory agencies such as OCC and FDIC. He is a Review Board Member and Faculty member at the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists, and the North & South Metro Atlanta Compliance Roundtable Founder and Chairperson at the Community Bankers Association.
He served as Executive Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer at Origin Bank, and in a similar position at Hamilton State Bank. During his career he was responsible for all aspects of Regulatory Compliance, he devised comprehensive BSA/AML Programs including complex layers of investigations and an enhanced monitoring system to exceed Supervisory Expectations, and developed comprehensive risk assessments, audit schedule and compliance testing programs addressing regulatory inventory of risks.
Mr. Simmons served the Office of the Comptroller Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as Compliance/ BSA Specialist Bank Examiner. During his tenure with the OCC he was the functional Examiner-in-Charge (FEIC) on complex BSA & Compliance examinations, and the Supervisory Review Examiner for BSA/AML, fair lending, and CRA examinations.
He evaluated effectiveness of AML systems (such as FCRM, Bankers Toolbox, and FIS (Prime) and formulated opinions on the use of such systems. He also worked directly with Supervisory office and legal staff regarding BSA/AML violations, MRAs, and consent order issuances, providing guidance and direction to financial institutions regarding resolution of these matters.
In addition, he served as the General Audit Manager for a multi-billion dollar financial institution, and he served as a Compliance Officer for several financial institutions. View full Vitae.
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Kevin D. Oden, Managing Director, has unrivaled Financial Risk Management expertise and over 30 years of financial markets experience with leading financial institutions firms Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs, holding executive positions.
Mr. is an innovative risk manager and entrepreneur with a strong track record of leading risk teams to the forefront of industry practice. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Risk Management Association (RMA) and on the RMA Journal Editorial Advisory Board and the financial technology firm Scienaptic Systems.
During his career, he managed small and large teams (as many as 4000) across a number of risk disciplines including market risk, counterparty risk, model validation, risk model development, operational risk, cyber security, financial crimes and compliance. Developed an industry leading practice in model risk management with patents pending on several innovations in system design. Highly successful at building working relationships with business leaders as well as U.S. and foreign regulators.
Mr. Oden has over 30 years of industry experience, including risk management, trading, sales, portfolio management. Superior quantitative background and communication skills provide a unique ability to deliver risk insight to all stakeholders and influence decision making throughout the firm. He was a member of Wells Fargo’s management committee and Asset Liability Committee (ALCO).
Dr. Oden was an Executive Vice President and Head of Operational Risk and Compliance within Corporate Risk at Wells Fargo & Co., managing second-line risk activities across information security, financial crimes risk, model risk, operational risk, regulatory compliance risk, and technology risk. Prior to this he was the Chief Market & Institutional Risk officer for Wells Fargo & Co. View full Vitae.
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Pat McElroy, Jr. has more than 40 years of experience in the Banking Industry as a Regulator, Banker and Consultant. He has provided various management, lending, operational and regulatory services to financial institutions throughout the United States. Mr. McElroy has extensive experience as an expert witness and has been qualified in civil, criminal and bankruptcy proceedings. He is courtroom seasoned and also has high profile case experience.
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