Guidance Capital – Biographies

Brian Ziv, CFA. Mr. Ziv is a founding principal of Guidance Capital and heads the firm’s Chicago office.  He is also a member of the firm's Investment Committee.  Prior to forming Guidance Capital in July 2001, Mr. Ziv was Chief Investment Officer of Graystone Wealth Management Services, a division of Morgan Stanley. He has continuous investment experience dating back to 1980. He has published articles on a wide range of investment topics, including portfolio strategy, use of hedge funds and investment manager selection. Prior to joining Graystone in 1994, Mr. Ziv founded and ran Ziv Asset Management, a value-oriented equity management firm for high net worth clients. The firm also provided a range of specialized investment services to several national investment firms. Mr. Ziv has also served as Chief Investment Officer of a Frank Russell Adviser in Chicago. In the 1980s he was an equity analyst and a member of the Stock Selection Committee of Kidder Peabody & Co in New York. He holds a B.A. from Princeton University.

D. Trowbridge “Toby” Elliman III. Mr. Elliman is a founding principal of Guidance Capital and heads the firm’s Delaware office.  He is also a member of the firm's Investment Committee. Prior to forming Guidance Capital in July 2001, Mr. Elliman was Senior Vice President and Financial Advisor with Morgan Stanley. At Morgan Stanley Mr. Elliman worked with several major financial institutions developing and marketing alternative investment products. Mr. Elliman helped lead the development and launch of the Morgan Stanley Market Street Managed Futures L.P. He also worked closely with Oxford Advisors Ltd. in developing and marketing a family of offshore hedge fund products, including the Oxford Strategic Income Fund and the Oxford Strategic Market Neutral Fund. Separately, Mr. Elliman managed private clients assets at Morgan Stanley. Mr. Elliman has been in the investment management industry since 1980. Earlier in his career he was Head of Nonferrous Metals floor trading at Drexel Burnham in New York. Mr. Elliman holds a B.A. in Economics from Hampshire College.

John Abunassar. Mr. Abunassar is a principal of Guidance and is involved in all aspects of the business, focusing on the firm's strategic direction and client relations. He is also a member of the firm’s Investment Committee. Prior to joining Guidance in 2009, Mr. Abunassar was President and CEO of Allegiant Asset Management, an institutional asset management firm with approximately $30 billion in assets under management. He was also President and CEO of the Allegiant Funds. Prior to joining Allegiant in 2004, Mr. Abunassar spent 11 years with Banc One Investment Advisors, where he was the senior managing director of the firm’s institutional asset management group, a member of the Board of Directors, and a member of the investment management policy committee. Prior to joining Banc One Investment Advisors in 1992, Mr. Abunassar was an investment consultant with The Capital Control Group. He began his career in 1989 as a pension consultant at Hewitt Associates. Mr. Abunassar holds his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Business from Lake Forest College and an M.B.A. in finance from Keller Graduate School of Management.

Christopher Walvoord. Mr. Walvoord is a principal of Guidance Capital and is responsible for hedge fund manager research.  He is also a member of the firm's Investment Committee. Prior to joining Guidance Capital in August 2002, Mr. Walvoord was Director of Hedge Fund Investments at The Northern Trust Company. At Northern he oversaw all aspects of the investment process for the firm’s fund of hedge funds program and managed four different funds of funds. He previously served as a portfolio manager for the firm's structured short-duration credit portfolios. Prior to joining Northern Trust in August 1996, Mr. Walvoord was an associate in John Nuveen and Company’s Capital Markets Group where he modeled municipal derivative transactions for investment banking clients. Mr. Walvoord holds a B.S. from the University of Illinois, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California Berkeley and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, where he focused on finance and statistics.

Barry Brick, CPA. Mr. Brick is a principal, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Compliance Officer of Guidance Capital and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the firm's operations.  He is also a member of the firm's Investment Committee. Prior to joining Guidance Capital in November 2002, Mr. Brick worked for SEI Investments first managing a variety of financial and business processes within the firm’s Investment Services unit, and later serving as Director of Product Development within the Fund Services Division. His last position at SEI was developing new business for alternative investment operations, separate account processing, and mutual fund administration and distribution. Before joining SEI in 1991, he was a business unit controller at Kidder Peabody & Company and was responsible for financial operations and analysis within the retail brokerage and investment banking divisions. Mr. Brick began his career in 1982 with Price Waterhouse and Company as an Auditor in their Emerging Business Practice Group. Mr. Brick holds a B.S. in accounting from State University of New York at Albany and an M.B.A. from St. Joseph’s University.

Peter Carl. Mr. Carl is responsible for hedge fund manager research and risk management. He is also a member of the firm’s Investment Committee. Mr. Carl has extensive experience managing money. Prior to joining Guidance Capital in September 2006, Mr. Carl was Chief Operating Officer of Explorer Fund Advisors, where he developed and launched a quantitative global macro hedge fund. While at Explorer, he was responsible for portfolio and risk management, and infrastructure development. Before starting Explorer in 2002, Mr. Carl was an Executive Director at UBS where he developed risk management services for hedge funds. While at UBS he also managed an exclusive relationship with Prediction Company, an independent research and development firm, to create an equity market-neutral proprietary trading business. Prior to UBS, Mr. Carl worked for O'Connor and Associates, a boutique options-trading firm from 1986 to 1992.  The firm was acquired by Swiss Bank Corporation in 1992 and then merged with UBS in 1998. Mr. Carl earned an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, where he focused on finance. He also holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering/Management Science from Northwestern University.

Amar Ehsan, CFA. Mr. Ehsan is responsible for hedge fund manager research. He is also a member of the firm's Investment Committee. Prior to joining Guidance in September 2009, Mr. Ehsan was a securities analyst at Stark Investments. At Stark, he was responsible for trading OTC commodities and researching global investment opportunities in the mining, infrastructure and shipping sectors for the firm's "event driven" strategy. Prior to joining Stark in 2006, Mr. Ehsan was an equity analyst at Wells Capital Management focusing on domestic small and mid cap stocks in the Energy, Natural Resources and Consumer Discretionary sectors. Mr. Ehsan graduated from Beloit College in 2000 with a B.A. in Business Administration and will be completing his M.B.A from the University of Chicago in 2010 with concentrations in Finance, Econometrics, International Business and Strategic Management. Mr. Ehsan is a CFA charter holder and a member of the CFA Society of Chicago.

Donna Rafa. Ms. Rafa is the Compliance Officer of Guidance Capital. Prior to joining Guidance Capital in March 2004, Ms. Rafa worked at SEI Investments as the Legal Services Director for Alternative Investments in the firm's Global Funds Services Division. Her responsibilities included developing a client service model for the delivery of legal services to alternative investments and providing legal/administration/compliance support to alternative investment clients administered by SEI. Ms. Rafa also managed outside counsel relationships and acted as a liasion between SEI service / operation teams ans outside counsel.  She also provided legal support to SEI's Dublin based administration and custodial companies. Prior to her role as Legal Services Director, Ms. Rafa was responsible for the management, training, recruiting and oversight of the legal service managers within SEI's legal department, managed the delivery of legal services to mutual fund clients administered by SEI, and was also a dedicated legal resource to four mutual fund administration clients. Before joining SEI in 1996, she worked as a paralegal at Drinker, Biddle & Reath in its Investment Management Division. Ms. Rafa holds a B.B.A. in Business Law and Marketing from Temple University and a paralegal certification in Corporate Finance & Business Law from The Philadelphia Institute for Paralegal Training.

Lewis Stretch, III. Mr. Stretch is the Controller of Guidance Capital and is primarily responsible for the financial operations of all of Guidance Capital’s hedge fund products. Prior to joining Guidance Capital in May 2007, Mr. Stretch was a Director - Global Alternative Investment Services with PFPC, Inc. At PFPC he managed eight client relationships and oversaw a group in charge of more than $3 billion in assets under administration. The group performed NAV calculations on various style and structure funds including fund of funds. Before joining PFPC in 2006, Mr. Stretch served as Director of Operations and CCO for Brandywine Asset Management, Inc. He was a member of the management team and responsible for all operations of the funds and management company. Before joining Brandywine in 2001, Mr. Stretch worked at SEI Investments as fund accountant and supervisor in SEI’s newly formed Alternative Investments Outsourcing Solutions group. Mr. Stretch holds a B.S. in Business Administration – Accounting from Millersville University.

Pisey Touch. Ms. Touch is a research analyst at Guidance Capital and is primarily responsible for providing investment research support and analysis for all of Guidance Capital's hedge fund products. Prior to joining Guidance Capital in September 2007, she was an analyst for Russell Investment Group, a multi-manager investment firm based out of Tacoma, Washington.  At Russell, Ms. Touch performed analytics on their Trust and Mutual Funds, served as the team lead for several financial audits and was the primary administrator for their financial reporting system. Ms Touch holds a B.A. in Business Adminsitration with a concentration in finance from the University of Washington.

Wendy Evans. Ms. Evans is the Client Service Manger at Guidance Capital and is primarily responsible for investor servicing and administraton functions.  Prior to joining Guidance Capital in January 2002, she was a flight attendant  with United Airlines from February 2000 to November 2001.  Prior to joing United Airlines in 2000, Ms. Evans was a property adjuster at United Service Automobile Association.  Ms. Evans is currently working towards a business adminsitration degree at Wesley College.