Advisory Board

Members

• Gregory Baker

  Retired Partner, PwC Banking & Capital Markets Practice

  Gregory Baker is a CPA and recently retired assurance partner from PwC’s Banking & Capital Markets practice in New York City. He served numerous clients across a variety of financial service sectors, including online broker-dealers, exchanges and clearing houses, investment banks, hedge funds and private equity funds, and employee benefit plans.

  Gregory has deep experience advising clients on valuation, internal controls, new accounting standards, organizational transformation, regulation, data security and data mining, and compliance. In addition, Gregory had engagements for litigation support, fraud examinations, IPO readiness, Erisa compliance, and SEC brokerage and investment management compliance examination readiness.

  Gregory began his career at PwC in 1980 in New York City after graduation from Georgetown University, worked in Tokyo from 1986 to 1988, and became a partner in 1993. In addition to client service, Gregory was a frequent instructor of PwC technical training courses, guest lecturer for ten years at Wharton on developments in the derivatives markets, and PwC campus recruiter for fifteen years at University of Virginia.

• Kerem Bolukbasi

  Operations Executive, TPG Capital

  Kerem Bolukbasi is an Operations Executive for TPG Capital, where he provides interim executive leadership to the management teams and board of directors. Responsibilities include acting as the interim CFO or COO, building and executing mutli year value creation strategy, restructuring and turn-around initiatives, building finance organizations/processes, coaching CFOs on improving organizational and financial discipline and accountability, and driving due diligence projects. He joined TPG in 2014 from GE Energy, where he was the CFO of the $2B Gas Engines business based out of Munich, Germany.

  Kerem is a graduate of the GE's Financial Management Program and the Corporate Audit Staff. He obtained his MBA from the University of North Carolina and bachelor's degree from the College of Charleston, S.C. in International Business. He currently serves as a Reserve Officer in the SC State Guard, as part of a Search & Rescue Unit, and as a member of the Advisory Board for the College of Charleston Finance Department.

• Mario Nardone

  Founding Partner, East Bay Investment Solutions

  Mario began his investment career in 1999 with Vanguard mutual funds in Valley Forge, PA, where he consulted institutions and financial advisors on investment policy, portfolio construction, and Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs). He also held roles as a research analyst, a municipal bond specialist, among others during his tenure. In 2003 he earned the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, and he continues to mentor aspiring Charter candidates and young investment profesionals.

  As a Partner at East Bay, Mario serves a select group of Registered Investment Advisor firms as their outsourced Chief Investment Strategist. Responsibilities of this role include continuous oversight of advisor clients' investments, bespoke strategies for unique situations, client communications, and more.

  Mario is Past President of CFA Society South Carolina and Former Chairman of the College of Charleston Finance Department Advisory Board.

• Bernard Peters

  Chair, Finance Department Advisory Board
  CFO at Sloan Valve Company

  Since November 2014, Bernard Peters has been the CFO of Sloan, a Chicago based fourth-generation family owned business and a leading manufacturer of commercial plumbing systems. He is responsible for all financial functions of the company including finance, accounting, treasury, capital investment, budgeting, and tax. In 2019 he also became President of Sloan Flushmate, the Pressure Assist Division of Sloan.

  Prior to joining Sloan, Mr. Peters was the EVP and CFO for EveryWare Global Inc., a global marketer of tabletop products for the consumer and foodservice markets, which he took public. Previously, Mr. Peters was the CFO at Heartland Automotive Services Inc., a Blackstone Group portfolio company and the largest Jiffy Lube International franchisee. In this role, he was part of the management team that successfully turned the business around and managed the sale of the company.

  Mr. Peters started his career wih Ernst&Young and worked at the Coca-Cola Company, NCR Corporation, Marriott International and The Pampered Chef where he held financial and management roles.

  Mr. Peters is a native of Belgium and speaks 5 languages. He earned a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration from the College of Charleston in South Carolina, a Masters of International Business Studies from the University of South Carolina and is a certified public accountant.

• Paul Shorter

  Senior Vice President, Wealth Advisor, Pinnacle Financial Partners

  Paul is a Wealth Advisor for Pinnacle Financial Partners in Charleston, SC.  He has more than 20 years of experience in Wealth Management, Estate Planning, Strategic Credit, Banking and Risk Management.  Paul spent 14 years serving as a Wealth Advisor for Truist Bank, formerly known as SunTrust.  He earned his Bachelors of Science in Business Administration and a double minor in Finance and Economics from the College of Charleston.  Additionally, Paul holds his FINRA series 7, 66 and Insurance Licenses. Paul, his wife Clair and their son and daughter reside in Mount Pleasant, SC.  Paul loves the outdoors spending most of his time fishing or coaching his son’s baseball and basketball teams. Paul is a Leadership Charleston graduate from the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce.  Paul is also an advisory board member for the College of Charleston Finance Department. He is also an active member and serves in his church, the Church at LifePark in Mount Pleasant.

• Blair Smith

  Began his professional career after graduating from college by working for Salomon Brothers as a corporate finance analyst. After completing two years within corporate finance he attended graduate school and received his MBA in 1985. He continued to pursue work in the field of finance and was employed by financial services boutique Fox-Pitt, Kelton first in institutional equity sales and ultimately ran the U.S. broker dealer operations. He spent 5 years working for Swiss Re Capital Markets after Fox-Pitt was purchased by Swiss Reinsurance specializing in ILS. He continued working for Fox-Pitt and sat on the board with members of the private equity owner, J.C. Flowers & Co. He continues to specialize in financial services while working at Raymond James Financial.

• Dean T. Smith

  Founder and Senior Advisor, Stonehenge Financial Partners

  Dean Smith has been active in the structured finance markets for more than 25 years and is known throughout the industry as one of the pioneers of the non-prime and alternative mortgage.

  He began his financial career at FSA, a monoline insurance company, where he designed credit enhancement technology for private label Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS). He then went to work at a series of Wall Street investment banks, running securitization programs and trading new issue and secondary MBS.

  In 1996, Smith launched Stonehenge Financial Partners, a financial advisory firm that manages residential and commercial MBS portfolios for institutional clients. Stonehenge currently advises a large private equity fund on all of its mortgage-related investments and oversees several of their portfolio companies.

  Smith received a bachelor’s degree in economics from University of California, San Diego as well as an MA and MPhil in economics from Columbia University.

• Ellen Watson

  M&A Advisory Director, Elliot Davis

  Ellen has over 13 years of diverse experience in consulting working within and across industry and service lines, focsuing primarily on business valuation and litigation support services. In addition, Ellen spent several years as an instructor in higher education teaching a variety of finance courses while consulting with small businesses on exit & succession planning and litigation matters. Leveraging her experience in consulting and teaching, Ellen supports the M&A Advisory practice in driving quality, best practices, and innovation across teams to ensure exceptional experiences for our people and our customers.