Board of Governors Nominatons for 2024-2025

In accordance with the Bylaws, notice of the Annual Meeting of the Members of CFA Society Los Angeles, Inc. to be held 4:30 PM on Thursday, June 6th, at SoFi Stadium is hereby given. The purpose of the meeting is to elect officers and members of the Board of Governors and to transact such other business that properly comes before the meeting. The meeting is open to all members of the Society and all non-retired regular members are eligible to vote.

The Nominating Commission, consisting of Falko Hörnicke, CFA, CFP (Chair), Peter Stutz, CFA, Alicia Romo, CFA, Akiko Hayata, CFA, James Lewis, CFA, CIPM, and Laura Carney (non-voting), hereby submits the following slate of candidates for officers and members of the Board of Governors for the fiscal year 2024-2025.

All members of CFALA are encouraged to attend the Annual Meeting of the Members of the Corporation. Members who are not able to attend the Annual Meeting may be represented by proxy by filling out a Proxy Voting Form. Proxies must be in writing and filed with the Secretary of the Corporation before being voted.

BOARD OF GOVERNORS CANDIDATES FOR 2024-2025

President
Mariya Entina, CFA, CPA

Vice President
Steven Wang, CFA

Treasurer
Dagney Maseda, CFA

Secretary
Scott Laudeman, CFA

Past President
Pete Stutz, CFA

1-Year Term Governors Expiring 2025
Jeff Kuhlman, CFA

3-Year Term Governors Expiring 2027
Julia Bonafede, CFA
John DeFonso, CFA, CPWA

Returning Governors (Not up for election)
James Fenkner, CFA (2-year term expiring 2025)
Mary Machado-Schammel (3-year term expiring 2026)
Geoff Schneider, CFA (3-year term expiring 2026)

President

Mariya Entina, CFA, CPA
University of California, Los Angeles - BS in Economics

Mariya Entina, CFA, CPA is a Portfolio Manager at DoubleLine. Her current focus is investment grade corporate bonds. Previously, Ms. Entina was a Credit Analyst at Pacific Life Insurance Company. Prior to this she held roles at Capital Group and KPMG. Mariya Entina is a CFA Charterholder, licensed CPA, SASB FSA Credential Holder, and has earned the CFA Institute Certificate in ESG Investing. Her bachelor's degree in Economics and Accounting is from the University of California, Los Angeles. Ms. Entina currently serves as Vice President on the Board of Governors’ Executive Committee, Co-Chair for the Women’s Advisory Council, and executive sponsor for the DEI Roundtable series for CFA Society Los Angeles. She is passionate about ESG investing, improving financial literacy in our local community, and advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion within the investment management industry.

Vice President

Steven Wang, CFA
Cornell University – MEng, Operations Research
 
Steven Wang is a seasoned fixed income specialist with 17+ years of experience on both buy-side and sell-side of the finance industry. Steven was most recently a senior quantitative analyst at DoubleLine Capital. Prior to DoubleLine, he was a Research Analyst at Harvard Business School. Previous to that, Steven was the Director of Quantitative Fixed Income Investment Strategies for CYS Investments, a NYSE-listed Real Estate Investment Trust. Prior to CYS, he was a Trading Desk Strategist for fixed income products at Morgan Stanley. Steven started his career as a MBS structurer at JP Morgan in New York City. Steven holds a MEng in Operations Research from Cornell University and he is a CFA charterholder.

Treasurer

Dagney Maseda, CFA
California State University Northridge – BS, Finance   
           
Dagney Maseda is a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager at SSI Investment Management. She has over 20 years of experience in trading, credit analysis, portfolio management and marketing.  Ms. Maseda serves as the lead PM for SSI's Convertible Arbitrage strategy and is an integral part of the marketing efforts. She was named to the Hedge Fund Journal’s 50 Leading Women in Hedge Funds 2021. 

Dagney is a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society Los Angeles.  She graduated from California State University, Northridge, summa cum laude, with a BS in Finance.
 

Secretary

Scott Laudeman, CFA
University of Southern California, Viterbi School of Engineering - B.S.; Colorado School of Mines - M.S.

Scott is a portfolio manager and wealth management advisor at First American Trust. Prior to working at First American Trust, Scott founded and managed a registered investment adviser. Scott’s financial services career started with a mutual fund distributor acquired by BlackRock. During his 22 year career at BlackRock, Scott managed investment relationships for financial institutions. Scott has served as a volunteer in several positions for The CFA Society Los Angeles and is currently serving a three year term as a member of the Board of Governors. He is the past Chairman of the Ethics and Advocacy Group and taught the Private Wealth Risk Management curriculum in the USC/CFALA CFA Review Program.

Immediate Past President

Peter Stutz, CFA
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign - BS, Computer Science; University of Chicago - MBA

Peter Stutz has over 25 years of institutional investment industry experience as a fixed income analyst, trader, and portfolio manager.

He was most recently a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager at Guggenheim Partners in Santa Monica, CA. At Guggenheim he was responsible for the management of a variety of insurance company fixed income portfolios. He has also been a part of the firm’s Portfolio Construction Group where he was responsible for creating model portfolios for the firm’s core fixed income, multi-credit, multi-asset, and insurance strategies.

Prior to joining Guggenheim, Mr. Stutz was a Portfolio Manager at Western Asset Management where he was part of the generalist fixed income portfolio management team as well as a member of the firm’s Investment Advisory Committee. Mr. Stutz specialized in global interest rate and derivative strategies and was responsible for U.S. inflation-linked bond portfolios.

Mr. Stutz received his BS in computer science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, his MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and received the CFA® designation in 1996. Mr. Stutz is an instructor at Level II in the USC/CFALA CFA Review Program.

Governor: 1-Year Term Expiring 2025

Jeff Kuhlman, CFA
Santa Clara University – BS, Finance; University of California, Los Angeles – MBA; Defense Language Institute – Associate of Arts in Korean

Jeff Kuhlman is an Executive Director and Wealth Advisor at J.P. Morgan Wealth Management. 

Jeff provides strategy, advice and guidance to individual and institutional clients, helping them pursue their goals more effectively through the investment markets. He offers extensive knowledge of portfolio construction across multiple asset classes and instruments, supporting clients in designing tailored portfolios that reflect their distinctive risk tolerance, time horizons, legacy intentions and 
cash-flow needs.
 
Prior to joining J.P. Morgan in 2023, Jeff spent more than 13 years with First Republic Private Wealth Management, where he was a Senior Vice President within the investment management research group. In this capacity, Jeff led the portfolio consulting group, which included Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO) solutions for institutional clients, namely endowments, foundations and retirement plans. Jeff joined First Republic in 2010, moving from the UCLA Endowment. Previously, he served in the U.S. Army as a Korean linguist.
 
Jeff earned his B.S. in Finance from Santa Clara University. He also holds an A.A. in Korean from the Defense Language Institute and an M.B.A. from UCLA. He is a CFA Charterholder, awarded through the CFA Institute.
 
Active in his local community, Jeff is a member of the Board of Governors for the CFA Society of Los Angeles (CFALA). He serves as the chair of the Environmental, Social, and Governance advisory council for CFALA. An advocate for financial fluency, Jeff also volunteers as a finance instructor for Operation Hope and AmeriCorps.

Governor: 3-Year Term Expiring 2027

Julia Bonafede, CFA
B.S. in Marketing from the University of Colorado and an M.B.A. in Finance and Entrepreneurship from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California

Julia Bonafede, CFA Co- Founder, Rosetta Analytics AI Julia has spent the past several years with the Rosetta Analytics AI team of experienced investment professionals and machine learning scientists building the next generation asset management firm. Rosetta manages systematic investment strategies developed on the firm’s advanced AI investment platform which uses leading-edge proprietary deep reinforcement learning models to extract unique relationships in data.

Prior to co-founding Rosetta Analytics, Julia spent 24 years serving clients and building teams and offices at Wilshire Associates.  She served as President of Wilshire Consulting and was a member of Wilshire’s Board of Directors and Wilshire Consulting’s Investment Committee. She led over 90 consulting professionals servicing more than 200 client relationships with AUA of over $1 trillion.  She has a strong history and philosophy of portfolio risk management and research and expanded Wilshire Consulting’s business into Outsourced CIO and Risk Consulting services for clients. She has served as strategic consultant to large state and corporate pension funds, and endowment and foundation clients.

Ms. Bonafede earned a B.S. in Marketing from the University of Colorado and an M.B.A. in Finance and Entrepreneurship from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. She is a member of the CFA Institute, CFA Society Los Angeles and was a founding member of the London Society of Investment Professionals/CFA Society United Kingdom. She recently served on the Standards of Practice Council for the CFA Institute.  She is also a member of the Financial Data Professional Institute Advisory Board and serves on the West Coast Chapter Committee for Women’s Association of Venture & Equity (WAVE).  She is the Strategic Advisor to a state pension fund and has also served on retirement, corporate and school boards.

Governor: 3-Year Term Expiring 2027

John DeFonso, CFA, CPWA
University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School - BS, Economics

John has been in the wealth advisory business for over 20 years providing advice, investment management, and planning. John is a Chartered Financial Analyst charterholder and is also a Certified Private Wealth Advisor designee. John serves on the Wealth Management Advisory Council for the 2400 member CFA Society of Los Angeles. John earned his BS in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He enjoys traveling, having visited 60+ countries, golfing, skiing, and backcountry hiking. He and his wife are sometimes proud parents of two usually good children.

Returning* Governor: 3-Year Term Expiring 2025

James Fenkner, CFA
California State University, Sacramento – BA, Economics; Tufts University – MA, Economics 

Before returning to the US as a private investor, James Fenkner spent the majority of his 20-year career in Eastern Europe, much of it during the heyday of liberalization. He was co-founder and investment director of Red Star Asset Management LLC, once the region’s largest long-short equity fund. Prior to Red Star, James worked as the chief strategist and head of research at Troika Dialog, which grew to become the largest independent stock brokerage in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Prior to joining Troika Dialog, James was head of research at Robert Flemings Bank (CIS) in Moscow, Russia. He originally moved to Eastern Europe in 1993 as a Soros Foundation lecturer in Economics at Vilnius University in Lithuania. James began his investment career in 1991 as an economic analyst at Fidelity Investments in Boston.

Mr. Fenkner holds a BA in Economics from California State University, Sacramento, and a MA in Economics from Tufts University. In 1998, he earned a CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) designation and in 2004 became a founding member of the Russian CFA Society. 

James, his wife Tatiana, and their four daughters reside in Santa Barbara. He enjoys tennis with the Montecito Tennis Mafia and is a co-founder of Fair Education Santa Barbara, a nonprofit focused on educational excellence. 

Returning* Governor: 3-Year Term Expiring 2026

Mary Machado-Schammel
Georgetown University - BA, International Studies and Economics; Georgetown's Business and Foreign Service Schools and ESADE University – Global MBA

Mary Machado-Schammel's extensive experience in the Financial Services Industry spans over 35 years. She has held various roles, from Chairman of an M&A Advisory Firm/Investment Banker to the Lower Middle Market, to Global Investment and Corporate Banker to Fortune 100 in the Emerging Markets, and Strategic Consultant to the C-Suite of Fortune 500 firms, including Chief Investment Officers, and the Buy-Side. Her wealth of experience is a testament to her deep understanding of the industry and her ability to navigate its complexities. 

Mary works with Global Strategic Consultant Coalition Greenwich, formerly Greenwich Associates, which Indian-based CRISIL acquired. She is also Co-Founder and Chairman of M&A Advisory Firm Venture Advisors Business Sales and Acquisitions. The industry-agnostic firm works with founder/owner businesses in the lower end of the middle market to prepare and sell them to strategic buyers, including private equity firms. Her prior professional experiences include being Head of Standard Chartered Bank, West, where she led the Bank’s initiative to build its investment and corporate banking business with Fortune 100 corporations through global teams in emerging markets. At Merchant Bank First Interstate Bank Limited, Mary managed portfolios of sovereigns, multinationals, and banks in developed and developing countries with specialties in distressed debt and aircraft finance.

Mary is committed to her community serving as the AWIU liaison to the US State Department for the IWOC Program, board member of Georgetown University's Board of Governors and The Ann Peppers Foundation, Co-Founder and Chair of Georgetown’s Wall Street Alliance West, Ambassador to Georgetown's Institute for Women, Peace, and Security, Ambassador to the NACD, Senior Advisor to UCSD's Center for Commerce and Diplomacy, and Co-Chair of CFA LA’s ESG Advisory Council. She serves as Chair of Pasadena's Code Commission and is a former Pasadena Redistricting Task Force member. Mary has a B.A. from Georgetown in International Studies and Economics and a Global MBA from Georgetown's Business and Foreign Service Schools and ESADE University.

Returning* Governor: 3-Year Term Expiring 2026

Geoff Schneider, CFA
University of California, Los Angeles – BA, Mathematics and Economics

Geoff Schneider,CFA is a Wealth Manager for BNY Mellon Wealth Management.

He works with ultra-high net worth families, providing holistic advice and tailored solutions to meet their specific wealth needs. 
Geoff joined the firm in 2015 and has more than 10 years of experience in the financial services industry. 
Geoff received a bachelor’s degree from UCLA in Mathematics/Economics. He is a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Los Angeles. He serves on the advisory council of the Wealth Management Excellence Series. He has also volunteered for the Investment Research Challenge and Financial Advisors Contest, mentoring high school and college students in financial literacy and investment research.