Advisory Board
Texas Wall Street Women is run by an all-volunteer staff from our Board of Directors, Advisory Board, Angels and Committee Members. Take a moment to get to know us and we look forward to meeting you at an upcoming event!
Cheryl D. Alston is the Executive Director of the Employees’ Retirement Fund of the City of Dallas, Texas (“ERF”), a $3.1 billion pension plan for the City’s civilian employees. Cheryl began her term as Executive Director in October 2004 and provides leadership for the Fund’s staff in implementing the programs necessary to achieve the mission, goals and objectives established by the Board of Trustees. Cheryl also serves on the Board of CHRISTUS Health, a Catholic, faith based international health care system and serves as Chair of the investment committee and Vice-Chair of the Finance and Strategy committee.
In 2011, Cheryl was appointed by President Barack Obama to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) Advisory Committee. The PBGC protects the retirement incomes of more than 44 million American workers in 27,500 private-sector defined benefit plans. In 2010, Cheryl was selected as one of the Rising Stars of Public Funds by the editors of Institutional Investor News as one of the up-and-coming professionals poised to be future leaders of the industry.
In addition to serving as Executive Director for the Fund, she is a member of the Council of Institutional Investors (CII), the National Council of Public Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS), the Texas Association of Public Employee Retirement Systems (TEXPERS) and the National Association of Securities Professionals (NASP). Cheryl serves as Vice-Chair and Treasurer of the Volunteer Center of North Texas and the Advisory Board of Texas Wall Street Women.
Cheryl has over twenty years of expertise in the financial services industry. She served as an Executive with CIGNA Retirement & Investment Services. Prior to CIGNA, Cheryl has served as a Corporate Banking Officer at Chase Global Services, providing investment banking services for Fortune 500 clients. Cheryl has an M.B.A. in Finance from the Leonard N. Stern School at New York University and an undergraduate degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Julianne has been Co-Manager of the High-Yield Opportunities, Short-Term and Intermediate-Term Bond Funds since 2007. Since 2012 she has been co-manager of the Income Fund. Julianne joined USAA in 1999 as a Senior Fixed Income Securities Analyst covering high-yield securities. Prior to working with USAA Julianne had 12 years of investment experience with Van Kampen Funds, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs & Co, The First Boston Corporation and Drexel Burnham Lambert. Julianne earned an M.B.A. in Finance from the University of Houston at Houston, TX, and a B.B.A. in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin, TX. Julianne is a designated Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). Julianne is a member of the CFA Institute and the San Antonio Financial Analysts Society.
Ms. Cooley is Chief Investment Officer of Crestline’s Hedge Fund Solutions business and leads the Oversight Committee for Crestline Summit Equity Alpha fund. She also serves on the firm’s Investment and Executive Committees. Ms. Cooley has over 33 years of experience in the alternative investment industry as a portfolio manager, risk manager and trader. Ms. Cooley has led the Hedge Fund Solutions team at Crestline, overseeing manager selection and portfolio management, since joining the firm in 1998. Before joining Crestline, Ms. Cooley was a derivatives trader and risk manager with Taylor and Company, an investment firm associated with the Bass Family of Fort Worth, TX. Ms. Cooley began her career in the investment industry at Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company (later merged into JP Morgan) in New York and Chicago after receiving her B.A. in Economics from The College of William and Mary in 1983. Ms. Cooley serves on the Advisory Board of Texas Wall Street Women and is the Vice-Chair of the Investment Advisory Committee of Texas Employee Retirement System.
Crestline Investors, Inc., founded in 1997 and based in Fort Worth, Texas, is an institutional alternative investment management firm with approximately $9 billion of assets under management. Crestline specializes in credit and opportunistic investments, as well as hedge fund and beta solutions. In addition to its Fort Worth, Texas headquarters, Crestline maintains affiliate offices in New York City, Chicago, London, Toronto and Tokyo.
Marianne has been practicing law for more than 27 years in both the public and private sector. She joined the Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Company in April 2006 and has personally analyzed and negotiated more than 100 investments in private equity, real estate and hedge funds. As General Counsel, she is responsible for handling the legal issues concerning the operations of the Trust Company including the managing and investing of the treasury pool, local jurisdictional money and the endowments. She serves on the Trust Company’s investment committee with the CEO/CIO, Deputy CEO/CIO, CFO and Director of Internal Investments.
Prior to joining the Trust Company, Ms. Dwight was in the private practice of law representing clients on legal issues ranging from employment to contract and financial matters. She also has extensive experience in the public sector as general counsel to the Commissioner of Insurance, general counsel to the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, and Assistant Attorney General handling financial, tax and other cases.
Marianne Dwight is licensed to practice law in the State of Texas, holds a J.D. degree from Southern Methodist University School of Law and a BBA in accounting with honors from Texas A&M University. She has served on many boards involving women’s issues and access to health care. In her spare time she trains for and participates in triathlons and multiple bike events.
Michelle U. Gass, CPA, CFP® is founder and principal of Paradigm Advisors, an independent fee-only financial advisory firm. Michelle has a passion for helping people and resolving complex issues for her clients while navigating their path towards financial freedom. Her diverse experiences working in different areas of finance – accounting, tax, family office environment, hedge funds and ultimately becoming an entrepreneur – make her uniquely qualified. Michelle’s professional career started in public accounting at Arthur Andersen, where she learned firsthand the positive impact of strategic tax planning on wealth accumulation. After transitioning into investment management and nontraditional investment strategies, she founded Paradigm and successfully managed alternative investment funds for over two decades. Michelle has a Masters of Accountancy with a concentration in Taxation and an undergraduate Accounting degree, both from the University of Tennessee. She has served on the Advisory Board of TXWSW since inception and is active at their church and with various community organizations. Michelle and her husband have two grown children.
Sharmila (Shar) Chatterjee Kassam is a proven business professional and institutional investor who most recently co-managed the $30 billion Employees Retirement System of Texas.
• During her tenure at ERS, she accomplished with her team:
• Evolution of the trust portfolio from a 60/40 model to an endowment model
• Aligned the investment program’s team of 77 staff so its culture and practices were closer to that of a professional global asset manager
• Four compensation studies and the redesign of the incentive compensation plan
• Initiated multiple governance best practices with the highlight being an overhaul of the investment policy emphasizing the critical relationship between Board and staff and clearly defining the established governance structure
• Led the most recent asset allocation study targeting a portfolio of the highest possible risk-adjusted returns net of fees and also designed to leverage the talent of the investment staff for execution
• Advised the $2.9 billion Texa$aver 401(k) / 457 Program, a defined contribution plan, focused on the necessary evolution of investment products offered
• Transformed the $1 billion emerging manager program to be a model of how these portfolios can be accretive to trust returns and can be at the forefront of innovation by establishing profitable seeding platforms
Shar has spent over a decade studying asset allocation processes, global retirement programs and risk management. She has spent time promoting best practices in the industry through Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA), Alignment of Interest (AOI) and the CFA Institute. Before joining ERS, she spent 15 years in the venture and technology industry working in financial, legal, operational and management roles.
Shar holds a bachelor’s degree in Accounting (with honors) and a J.D. degree, both from The University of Texas. She is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in Texas and also licensed to practice law in California and Texas. She was the 2018 Institutional Investor NextGen CIO Finalist. She is a nationally recognized leader in the pension industry and sought out globally as a speaker.
Carla Knobloch manages the Owners Fund, a fund of concentrated funds that she started in 2005. She previously served as the Chief Investment Officer of the Brown Foundation. During more than twenty years in the investment business, she has worked in research analysis, portfolio management, company management, and investment manager search and selection with a focus on long term oriented investing.
Carla received her BA in Economics from Yale College and a CFA designation. Carla serves on the Board of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and chairs its Finance Committee, the Board of Houston Wilderness, a number of investment committees and is active in Education Reform including Yes Prep Public Schools.
Mari Kooi is currently a partner in an Investment Partnership, Santa Fe Partners. She manages her family office and serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Santa Fe Institute where she chairs the Finance Committee. Mari is also the recently retired CEO and owner of Wolf International Companies, a group of investment companies she founded in 1997 while living in Geneva Switzerland. In this role as CEO, Mari managed a highly successful business with twelve international funds including responsibility for all investment management, business management, and product development to an international clientele. Her particular expertise is entrepreneurship, financial management, risk management, and fund structuring. Some of her financial specialties include commodities, complex fixed income derivatives, options, high frequency trading, futures, and activist investing. Wolf International served over 300 clients worldwide, including international banks, pension funds, trusts, States, private banks and private individuals. The Company ceased most operations in 2014.
Mari is now transitioning to her “governance” phase of her career taking on more leadership roles in the non-profit sector. In 2015 Mari intends to join one corporate board. Her considerable experience in this realm caused the Financial Times to put Mari on its inaugural list of “The Agenda Diversity 100”, prestigious International Board of Directors Guide. The list identifies Fortune 1000 Company Board Candidates.
Retired in March, 2016 after 46 year career at Bank of America/U S Trust and its predecessors, where she was Managing Director, U. S. Trust, responsible for Trust Group in West Texas , Oklahoma and New Mexico.
Darlene is a graduate of the University of Texas in Austin.
Darlene has served on several boards including: Women’s Haven, Cliburn, Texas Ballet Theater, WARM Place, Kupferle Breast Center, Harris Foundation, Streams and Valleys, Fort Worth Club and the Fort Worth Business and Estate Council.
Darlene is married with 2 children and 5 grandchildren.
Lisa A. Peterson is a Partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, where she counsels investment vehicles, high-net-worth individuals and companies in all of their transactional activities and day-to-day business needs. Lisa’s practice involves a wide array of corporate and transactional matters, including: mergers, acquisitions and divestitures; corporate governance and other general corporate matters; the formation of complex joint ventures, partnerships, limited liability companies and strategic alliances, as well as numerous types of commercial matters; investments in private equity, venture capital, hedge and real estate funds; direct investments in corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies; co-investments; secondary transactions; and other similar matters, and advice to private investment funds in the full range of their fundraising and investment activity.
Lisa serves on several firm committees and is a member of the Business Law and Computer and Technology sections of the State Bar of Texas, the American Bar Association (Business Law Section and Energy Business Committee) and the Tarrant County Bar Association (Business and Estate, International and Women Attorneys Sections); and a Fellow in both the Texas Bar Foundation and the American Bar Foundation. Lisa’s community, civic and charitable activities include being a former director and an officer of Resolana and a member of the Grants Review Committee of the Dallas Women’s Foundation. She also serves as a member of the Board of the Dallas Chapter of The General Counsel Forum.
Lisa has been recognized by Fort Worth Texas magazine as one of Tarrant County’s top corporate/mergers and acquisitions attorneys and she has been named one of the “Great Women of Texas” by the Fort Worth Business Press. Lisa received her J.D. from the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University and her B.S. in Accounting, cum laude, from Louisiana Tech University.
Becky Roof brings a unique perspective to her turnaround and crisis management engagements. With over 25 years of experience, her credentials consist of an equal blend of corporate and consulting experience. Becky?s tenure as vice president and CFO of a Houston-based oilfield services company provides her with an enhanced perspective of the corporate and operating issues faced by management, other stakeholders and their representatives. She also possesses an extensive consulting background providing interim and crisis management to troubled and underperforming companies in a broad array of industries.
Prior to joining AlixPartners, Becky was a director in the corporate finance, regeneration and disputes practice for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Previously, she provided litigation support, fraud investigative work, and corporate recovery consulting services for Ernst & Young LLP.
Becky is a Certified Management Accountant, a Certified Insolvency & Restructuring Advisor, and a CPA (licensed in Texas). She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration and Bachelor of Arts degree in geology from Trinity University, where she was a university scholar. She is a member of the Turnaround Management Association, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and is on the Board of Directors of the American Bankruptcy Institute.
Rhonda Smith is the Executive Director of the Houston Municipal Employees Pension System
(HMEPS), a $2.1 billion pension plan for the City’s municipal employees. Rhonda has been with the System since 2008 and began her term as Executive Director in August 2011. Smith provides leadership for the System’s staff in implementing the programs necessary to achieve the mission and goals established by the Board of Trustees which includes managing the System’s investment portfolio.
Rhonda has over twenty years of experience in the financial field. She served as senior auditor for both Deloitte & Touche and Occidental Petroleum. She headed the City of Houston’s franchise section of the Regulatory Affairs Division and assisted in creating the audit team.
After her tenure at the City, Smith became the Chief Financial Officer of the American Red Cross of Greater Houston. Smith then was recruited by the Houston Firefighters’ Relief & Retirement
Fund (HFRRF) as Deputy Director, where she worked until she began her job at HMEPS.
In addition to serving as Executive Director for the Fund, Rhonda was appointed to the Executive Board of the Government Finance Officer Association (GFOA) where she was Chair of the Audit Committee and currently serves as a member of the Nominating Committee. She is also a member of the National Council of Public Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS), the Texas Association of Public Employee Retirement Systems (TEXPERS) and the National Association of Securities Professionals (NASP). Rhonda has also been nominated to serve as Chair of the American Leadership Forum Investment Committee.
Smith has an M.B.A. in Finance and Management from the University of Houston, C. T. Bauer College of Business and a B.S. degree in Accounting from the Ohio State University Fisher School of Business.
Laura T. Starks is the Chairman of the Department of Finance, the Charles E. and Sarah M. Seay Regents Chair of Finance, and Director of the AIM Investment Center in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. She has done extensive research on finance issues including research that focuses on corporate governance and institutional investors. Her publications have appeared in the leading academic journals and she has presented her research at universities all over the world. She has received a number of awards for her research including the 1996 Smith Breeden Distinguished Paper Award from the Journal of Finance, the 1997 Western Finance Association Best Paper in Corporate Finance Award, the 1998 Financial Management Association Best Paper in Corporate Finance Award, the 2002 and 2003 FMA European Meeting Best Paper Award and the 2003 Fama-DFA Second Prize from the Journal of Financial Economics. She was named a Fellow of the FMA in 2002.
She is an Editor of the Review of Financial Studies and has served as Associate Editor of a number of finance journals, including the Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, and Financial Management. She has served on the Board of Directors of the three national academic finance organizations: the American Finance Association, the Western Finance Association, and the Financial Management Association. She is an independent director for the CREF Retirement Accounts and the TIAA-CREF Mutual Funds and serves on the Governing Council of the Independent Directors Council. She was previously an independent director for USAA Mutual Funds. She has served on the Investment Advisory Committee for the Employees Retirement System of the State of Texas since 1990 and is currently Chairman of the Committee.
Interested in Volunteering?
If you would like to learn more about getting involved as a volunteer, you may reach out to any of us or email us at info@txwsw.com