Board of Visitors
Mr. Andrew J. Demetriou
Partner
Lamb & Kawakami LLP
Andy Demetriou is both a lawyer and consultant to institutional health care providers and other companies involved in the delivery of healthcare services on corporate matters. In his law practice he has been lead counsel in merger and acquisition, joint venture and financing transactions for these clients. As a consultant he has served as a strategic advisor to health care institutions in transactions as well as an expert witness in litigation matters involving healthcare transactions, corporate governance and fiduciary duties. Andy has focused over the past 15 years on the governance obligations of nonprofit organizations, corporate fiduciary responsibility, special committee and audit committee responsibilities, development of committee charters, conflict of interest and ethics policies and corporate compliance work. He is regularly called upon to address major conferences of lawyers and trade associations on topics including merger and acquisition transactions, corporate governance, non-profit management and the ethical responsibilities of lawyers.
He has served on governance committees or acted as corporate governance advisor to a number of nonprofit organizations, including Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Facey Medical Foundation, Presbyterian Healthcare Services, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the UCLA Foundation, the Junior Statesman of America Foundation and the Saint Sophia Foundation.
Andy is active in the American Bar Association, having served as Chair of the Health Law Section in 2007-08 and a member of the Section Officers Conference. He is a past Vice-Chair of the American Health Lawyers Association Sarbanes-Oxley Task Force, responsible for monitoring governance developments of interest to healthcare lawyers and institutions. He was Co-Editor of the AHLA Corporate Governance Quarterly in 2007-08. He has also held leadership positions in Sections of the State Bar of California and Los Angeles County Bar Association. He is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a Life Fellow the Los Angeles County Bar Foundation. His service to UCLA has included being a member of the UCLA Foundation Board of Trustees and Board of Directors, serving as Co-Chair of the UCLA Fund for four years, membership on the Board of Visitors of the Department of Economics and service on the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame Selection Committee.
Andy received his JD from UC Berkeley and his BA in Economics from UCLA.
Scott B. Dubchansky
/in Uncategorized /by Jerry LiuBoard of Visitors
Mr. Scott B. Dubchansky
Managing Director
Rimrock Capital Management, LLC
Scott is a partner at Rimrock Capital Management, LLC, a SEC Registered Investment Advisor headquartered in Irvine, California. Founded in 1999, Rimrock manages assets on behalf of institutional clients and high net worth investors. Previously, Scott was Managing Director and Founding Partner at Metropolitan West Asset Management, LLC (MetWest), an employee-owned investment firm focused on fixed income portfolio management. He co-founded the firm in 1996, and served as Chief Executive Officer from 1996-2008 and as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Metropolitan West Funds from 1997-2008. Scott also served as Chief Executive Officer of MWAM Distributors, LLC, a limited purpose broker dealer affiliate of MetWest. Prior to founding MetWest, he spent 12 years as an institutional fixed income salesman with various Wall Street firms including Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and Drexel Burnham Lambert.
Scott holds designations as a general securities principal and a financial and operations principal. He received a bachelor’s degree in economics from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and serves on the Board of Visitors of UCLA’s Department of Economics and the Audit Committee of the UCLA Foundation. Scott participates on the Dean’s Leadership Council of the School of Social Ecology at UCI, and is currently the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Lewis & Clark College of Portland, Oregon.
Scott and his wife Laurie live in Newport Beach and have two adult children Alison and Evan.
Robert M. Ettinger
/in Uncategorized /by Jerry LiuBoard of Visitors
Mr. Robert M. Ettinger
President
Flaherty and Crumrine Inc.
Bob Ettinger has over 25 years of experience managing preferred securities, twenty-two of those having been spent with Flaherty & Crumrine. Prior to joining F&C, he also worked at Scudder Stevens & Clark with Bob Flaherty and Don Crumrine on developing strategies to hedge preferred securities. Bob has developed a number of sophisticated tools for analyzing preferred securities. He serves as the primary liaison between Flaherty & Crumrine and the brokerage community. Bob also serves as President of the U.S. Flaherty & Crumrine funds. Bob has a BA in Economics from UCLA and was honored as the department’s Commencement Speaker in 2001. He received his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Nicholas P. Saggese
/in Uncategorized /by Jerry LiuBoard of Visitors
Mr. Nicholas P. Saggese
Retired Senior Advisor
Moelis & Company
Nick Saggese recently retired as a Senior Advisor at Moelis & Company. Mr. Saggese worked at Moelis & Company following a more than 25-year career with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP where he was a Partner and served as the Co-Head of the firm’s Private Equity practice. In this role, he represented clients in connection with a variety of corporate transactions, including private equity, mergers and acquisitions, recapitalizations, securities offerings and corporate restructurings. Mr. Saggese is a co-author of one of the leading handbooks regarding corporate restructurings. He has also been recognized as a top lawyer in each of capital markets, mergers and acquisitions and private equity in a number of legal and business journals and was named one of the Top 100 Lawyers in California by the Daily Journal.
Mr. Saggese holds a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, an M.B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles and a J.D. from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. He is a Member of the Board of Visitors of the University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Economics, a Member of the Board of Advisors of Los Angeles Regional Foodbank and a Member of the Board of Overseers of Loyola Law School, Los Angeles.
Kevin K. Albert
/in Uncategorized /by Jerry LiuBoard of Visitors
Mr. Kevin K. Albert
Partner
Pantheon Ventures
Kevin Albert, Partner and Global Head of Business Development joined Pantheon in 2010 and has 35 years of private equity experience. Kevin is a member of Pantheon’s Partnership Board and is responsible for business development activities globally at Pantheon. Kevin previously worked at Elevation Partners where he was in charge of fundraising and investor relations. For the 24 years prior to joining Elevation, Kevin ran the Global Private Equity Placement Group at Merrill Lynch. He has a BA in economics and an MBA in finance from the University of California, Los Angeles. Kevin is based in New York
Joe Fellerman
/in Uncategorized /by Jerry LiuBoard of Visitors
Mr. Joe Fellerman
Principal
Recovery & Resolution Planning, LLC
Mr. Fellerman is the Principal of the firm Recovery & Resolution Planning, LLC which provides advice and guidance on significant regulatory matters to the largest financial firms in the world as well as major advisory firms. Mr. Fellerman has over 41 years of banking experience providing perspective on risk, liquidity and asset management, with an emphasis on regulatory and private sector responses to banking crises.
Mr. Fellerman was with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for over 29 years in progressively responsible positions as a commissioned bank examiner, a senior asset liquidation specialist, as an internal subject matter expert/consultant on financial modeling, failure forecasting, and large bank failure simulations. Prior to his retirement from the FDIC he was the Special Advisor to the FDIC’s Director of the Office of Complex Financial Institutions responsible for providing advice and guidance on resolvability issues of complex financial institutions.
Mr. Fellerman also has over 10 years of experience in the private banking sector, primarily in managing the credit administration of large community banks and special asset management. He participated in several FDIC resolution transactions on the buy side for both open bank and closed bank resolutions.
Andrew J. Demetriou
/in Uncategorized /by Jerry LiuBoard of Visitors
Mr. Andrew J. Demetriou
Partner
Lamb & Kawakami LLP
Andy Demetriou is both a lawyer and consultant to institutional health care providers and other companies involved in the delivery of healthcare services on corporate matters. In his law practice he has been lead counsel in merger and acquisition, joint venture and financing transactions for these clients. As a consultant he has served as a strategic advisor to health care institutions in transactions as well as an expert witness in litigation matters involving healthcare transactions, corporate governance and fiduciary duties. Andy has focused over the past 15 years on the governance obligations of nonprofit organizations, corporate fiduciary responsibility, special committee and audit committee responsibilities, development of committee charters, conflict of interest and ethics policies and corporate compliance work. He is regularly called upon to address major conferences of lawyers and trade associations on topics including merger and acquisition transactions, corporate governance, non-profit management and the ethical responsibilities of lawyers.
He has served on governance committees or acted as corporate governance advisor to a number of nonprofit organizations, including Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Facey Medical Foundation, Presbyterian Healthcare Services, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the UCLA Foundation, the Junior Statesman of America Foundation and the Saint Sophia Foundation.
Andy is active in the American Bar Association, having served as Chair of the Health Law Section in 2007-08 and a member of the Section Officers Conference. He is a past Vice-Chair of the American Health Lawyers Association Sarbanes-Oxley Task Force, responsible for monitoring governance developments of interest to healthcare lawyers and institutions. He was Co-Editor of the AHLA Corporate Governance Quarterly in 2007-08. He has also held leadership positions in Sections of the State Bar of California and Los Angeles County Bar Association. He is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a Life Fellow the Los Angeles County Bar Foundation. His service to UCLA has included being a member of the UCLA Foundation Board of Trustees and Board of Directors, serving as Co-Chair of the UCLA Fund for four years, membership on the Board of Visitors of the Department of Economics and service on the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame Selection Committee.
Andy received his JD from UC Berkeley and his BA in Economics from UCLA.
George Kettner
/in Uncategorized /by Jerry LiuBoard of Visitors
Mr. George Kettner
President
Economic Systems, Inc.
Dr. George Kettner heads up Economics Systems Inc., a 75-person management consulting and software development company in Falls Church, Virginia. His work focuses on facilitating the strategic decision-making of top management, human resource (HR) management, advanced analytics, disability employment policy and research, and program evaluation. Dr. Kettner is directing overall corporate efforts to develop enterprise HR systems to automate human resource operations, from hiring management to retirement, and combine the latest computer technology with subject matter expertise in Federal HR management.
Dr. Kettner earned his doctorate degree in economics at UCLA, where he also obtained his baccalaureate degree in economics. He has over 30 years of experience in management consulting and has led his own consulting firm since 1990.
Andre James
/in Uncategorized /by Jerry LiuBoard of Visitors
Mr. Andre James
Senior Partner
Bain & Company
Andre James is a Senior Partner in Bain & Company’s Los Angeles office. He has advised media & entertainment clients across the globe for the past 16 years and currently heads Bain’s Media & Entertainment Practice in the Americas.
Mr. James has worked with clients most sectors of the media & entertainment ecosystem including TV, film, music, video games, print, digital advertising and out of home advertising. In these sectors, he has experience in most steps of the value chain from content creation to aggregation to distribution. The issues he has advised on range from strategy to operations to organization to M&A/PMI. Mr. James has authored Bain’s point of view on the future of video and is a frequent speaker at conferences on this topic as well as others.
Mr. James jointed Bain & Company in 2000. In addition to working in the Los Angeles office, Andre has spent significant time as a member of Bain’s Hong Kong, Seoul and Paris offices.
Prior to joining Bain & Company, Mr. James worked for Coopers & Lybrand as an analyst in their middle market mergers and acquisitions practice. He has also gained experience from working in the legal and private equity industries.
Mr. James earned an MBA from the Wharton School and a JD from University of Pennsylvania’s School of Law. He is a licensed attorney in the state of California. Andre is an alumnus of UCLA where he received a Bachelor of Arts in business economics, graduating magna cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Vedika Sanghai
/in Uncategorized /by webteamJohn J. Peterson Scholarship Scholarship Recipient
Biography: Vedika Sanghai is a third year double majoring in Business Economics and Psychology with a minor in Entrepreneurship. She was born and brought up in Mumbai, India and moved to Los Angeles 3 years ago to pursue her education. She is interested in various fields such as Consulting, Marketing and Social work. Vedika aims to work in a company for a few years after graduation, after which she aspires to move back to India and build her own social enterprise business, which would focus on alleviating poverty in rural parts of India through the channel of education. She has absolutely loved her experience at UCLA and believes that it has helped her grow as an individual. She hopes to make the best of the opportunities she was given at UCLA and help others achieve their dreams.
Future Plans: This summer, Vedika is hoping to do a strategy/ marketing internship within the entertainment industry. She hopes to apply the synergy of her Economics and Psychology major to accurately understand consumer needs and communicate with them effectively. She also aims to work on her own startup, alongside with an internship. After gaining adequate experience, Vedika strives to secure a job with a consulting company in the fall, where she aspires to work for the next 3-4 years. After working with a consulting company, Vedika will pursue her MBA and move back to India after, trying to build and grow her own social enterprise company
What does the scholarship mean to me?: I am honored and overwhelmed to receive the John J. Peterson scholarship. Having seen my whole company start their own businesses and companies, I have always known that I would want to be an entrepreneur. Through the various Economics and Entrepreneurship classes I have taken at UCLA, I have been equipped with the knowledge to successfully start and run my own business. I will be using the proceeds of this scholarship towards my education as well as applying it towards my startup to get access to the initial resources I needed but did not have access to. This scholarship will help me get a head start with my company and give me the opportunity to become a successful entrepreneur by allowing me to apply what I have learned in the classroom to the real world. I am going to spend my upcoming summer working on my startup and hope to launch it in the Fall of 2017.
Devaluation Risk and the Real Economy
/in Research Spotlight /by Simon BoardColin Weiss
A pertinent form of economic uncertainty for developing countries today is that of devaluation risk: the possibility of a large decrease in the value of a country’s currency relative to other currencies. It is difficult to measure the impact of economic and political uncertainty on the economy because changes in uncertainty are often the result of changes in economic performance. The effects of devaluation risk in particular are also hard to estimate because actual devaluations often quickly follow increases in devaluation risk.
In his job market paper, “Is Devaluation Risk Contractionary? Evidence from U.S. Silver Coinage Agitation, 1878-1900,” UCLA graduate student Colin Weiss uses an historical setting to identify the negative effect of devaluation risk on aggregate economic activity. In the late 19th century, the U.S. operated on a gold standard, where the dollar could be exchanged for gold at a fixed price at the treasury. This system was unpopular with a large fraction of the population who wanted the dollar to be devalued against gold under a policy of unlimited silver coinage. While the U.S. did not abandon the gold standard, political factors increased devaluation risk for several years.
Weiss constructed a set of daily-level silver policy events between 1878 and 1900 from the historical record. He then gathered daily data on bond yields for U.S. corporations during this time period. News indicating a higher probability of dollar devaluation raised corporate borrowing costs, particularly for fi rms with heavy debt burdens that were payable in gold. Using monthly data on the interest rate differential between short-term gold and dollar-denominated debt, he shows that silver policy news is quickly followed by jumps in this devaluation risk premium.
Turning to the aggregate effects of devaluation risk, Weiss links his daily silver policy news series with a monthly industrial production index and traces the response of this index to silver news. An increase in devaluation risk is associated with a signifi cant fall in industrial production one year after the silver policy news occurs according to his analysis. He argues that devaluation risk lowered economic activity during this time period because greater uncertainty about the dollar led to a contraction in credit as gold was withdrawn from the fi nancial sector. Evidence on gold out flows from the U.S. and the ratio of currency holdings to deposits in banks during this time period corroborates this hypothesis.
Many developing countries today borrow heavily in dollars rather than their local currency, a trend that has accelerated in recent years. At the same time, the probabilities that these other currencies depreciate against the dollar has increased as the Federal Reserve solidifi es plans to raise interest rates and consequently the value of the dollar in the near future. Weiss’s research indicates that developing countries’ financial conditions deserve careful monitoring in light of these facts.
Colin Weiss will be joining the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in August.