Where Small Firms Meet Big Opportunities
Empowering Financial Innovators:
MAIN's mission is to empower start-up, small, and emerging investment managers and issuers by providing a disruptive, cost-effective nexus that connects them with institutional investors, family offices, and essential resources.
We are committed to leveling the playing field in the financial industry by curating high-value investment ideas, facilitating meaningful networking opportunities, and delivering targeted educational content. Through our innovative approach, we aim to foster a thriving ecosystem where smaller firms can showcase their best ideas, access critical services, and achieve sustainable growth, ultimately enabling investors to discover unique opportunities for higher risk-adjusted returns.
Management Committee
Meet Our:
BJ Bellock
COO / Forum ChairBJ Bellock
COO / Forum ChairB.J. Bellock, MBA, is a Licensed Real Estate Salesperson, with Keller Williams Commercial New York & Connecticut. He has over 25 years of experience in the financial industry, dedicating most of his career to working with Alternative Investors, including Hedge Funds, Venture Capital Funds and Private Equity Funds along with other Institutional Investors. He has served in senior positions including fixed income trading, sales, and sales management at Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and Dean Witter. He also has extensive experience as a former Financial Consultant. As an adjunct Professor, he taught various undergraduate financial courses at the Connecticut campus of Phoenix University, as well running seminars for students and the public, and was certified to teach Corporate Training classes. He holds a master’s degree in finance and a master’s degree in accounting from the Fordham University Graduate School of Business.
Bob Stearns
Membership ChairBob Stearns
Membership ChairManaging Partner- Longship Alternative Asset Management LLC.
Longship raises assets for a few select hedge fund managers that we have known for a long time.We work with private banks, family offices, fund of funds, endowments and foundations.
The Longship organization focuses on global macro, currency, commodities and
small cap long / short and Biomedical funds.Bob Stearns has over 37 years experience in the hedge fund business. He spent
8 years with Bruce Kovner at Caxton Corporation, one of the largest hedge funds
in the business. Bruce taught me how to trade and Peter D’Angelo taught me
how to run a business.Bob began his career on Wall Street with Nelson Chang in Shearson’s
commodity research division, where he spent four years as a
technical analyst and chartist. Bob then spent two years as a currency trader
at the Chase Manhattan Bank before joining Caxton.Bob has been the CIO, senior analyst and market strategist at several fund of funds
including Kenmar in Greenwich, CT, which has been in business since 1983.
Bob joined Kenmar as a senior hedge fund analyst,in 2000
after leaving his position as CIO of the fund of funds group at EGM in San Francisco.Contact Bob at Bob@LongshipLLC.com
Specialties: We have been through several bear markets. I sat in
Bruce Kovner’s office at Caxton during the 1987 crash and I was
in San Francisco in 1999 at the top of the Dot.com crash. We believe
in the wisdom of grey hair, we earned every one of them.The Viking Ship – My mother is Norwegian and I spent my summers as a child in Alesund rowing around the fjords in my grandfathers rowboat. Stearns is a Scottish name so it is possible that my mothers viking ancestors ” visited ” .
Brandon E. Angus
Board MemberBrandon E. Angus
Board MemberBrandon Angus is the Chief Technology Officer and Founding Member of Mirae Asset
Securities (USA) Inc., a broker-dealer that operates a leading institutional capital markets
platform that services institutions with complex global needs.Mr. Angus’s primary focus is on providing the technical direction and vision for the firm. He
focuses on providing solutions for hedge funds, broker-dealers, banks & asset managers.
Attaining expertise in leading startups, business strategy, information technology,
cybersecurity, & product development, Mr. Angus concentrates on developing technical
solutions for, and building partnerships with, financial companies around the world.Previously, Mr. Angus has held multiple leadership positions at several leading financial
services firms and has been a founding member of three business startups. His practice in
prime brokerage, securities financing, trading & professional clearing services has been a
key concentration during his career. Mr. Angus is active in financial industry groups and
information sharing forums and is registered with FINRA.Britt Erica Tunick
Director of OperationsBritt Erica Tunick
Director of OperationsBritt Erica Tunick is a Senior Consultant specializing in media relations, corporate positioning, content creation and event planning. She is an award-winning journalist with more than 20 years of experience writing about the financial services industry. Britt is a former senior writer for AR Magazine (Absolute Return & Alpha), where she wrote cover stories and in-depth profiles on many of the hedge fund industry’s biggest and most influential firms, as well as comprehensive features on a range of topics in the alternative investment industry. Prior to AR, she was an editor at Alpha Magazine, an in-house editor for KPMG’s M&A practice, and a senior editor at Investment Dealers’ Digest Magazine. She also spent two years in London, where she reported on European and U.K. startups for EO News and wrote stories for Euromoney Magazine, the Sunday Business and the Financial Times. Britt also has significant event planning experience from programming multiple panels and lining up high profile speakers for hedge fund symposiums, to organizing and running monthly networking events and an annual black tie gala, managing the database and website for a membership organization and coordinating and running a major fundraiser attended by more than 1,300 people for a non-profit organization. Britt holds a bachelor’s degree in English/Journalism from Pepperdine University and a master’s degree in Public Affairs Reporting from the American University School of Communication in Washington D.C. She was the 2006/2007 president of the New York Financial Writers’ Association and a member of the organization’s board of governors from 2002 to 2012. She is also a member of 100 Women in HedgeFunds, the Society of American Business Editors & Writers and is the president of the Junior League of Bergen County. Britt is the July 2010 recipient of the American Society of Business Publication Editors’ Northeast Region Silver Azbee award and received 1st and 3rd place editorial awards from Euromoney/Institutional Investor in 2009. In 2008 she was awarded the New York Financial Writers’ Association’s Emil Meier Award.
Constantine Baris
TreasurerConstantine Baris
TreasurerSince 2001 I have operated Baris Financial Management, Ltd. BFM provides business management services to entertainment community, plus other high networth individuals. We provide a full array of financial services including back office and middle office, as well as tax preparation and consulting. I work with several money managers to provide investment services.
David McClean
Lobbying ChairDavid McClean
Lobbying ChairDavid McClean is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Business and Professional Ethics at Rutgers University, Newark, where he teaches courses in social ethics, environmental philosophy and ethics, business and professional ethics, Africana philosophy, and other subjects in philosophy. Since 1992, he has been Principal of The DMA Consulting Group, which provides regulatory, risk, and governance services to financial services industry firms. He is the editor of The Integrated Ethics Reader: Reconnecting Thought, Emotion, and Reverence in a World on the Brink (Cognella, 2019, revised 2020), and he has authored Wall Street, Reforming the Unreformable – An Ethical Perspective (Routledge, 2015), Richard Rorty, Liberalism, and Cosmopolitanism (Routledge, 2014), and a self-published 257-page monograph on climate change, “Climate Change: The Moral and Political Imperatives” (2017). He is currently working on a volume addressing business integrity and global corruption. In 2020, Dr. McClean was sponsored to serve as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of The New School and serves as a member of the Board of Governors of The New School for Social Research (The New School’s graduate division), is a member of the Board of Directors of Impact@Africa (based in Nairobi, Kenya), which facilitates impact investment across the African continent, and is a member of the College of Advisors of ERASE Racism, based in Long Island, New York.
John Paul DeVito
Board MemberJohn Paul DeVito
Board MemberCo-Founder / Director, InteliClear, LLC – InteliClear www.inteliclear.com is a 21st Century Post Trade Software SAAS company for middle and back-office operations in the $30.0 billion global securities settlement and post trade processing market.
Founder / OpenHand Inc www.openhand.com OpenHand is a pioneering self-clearing fintech firm that operates on a subscription-based model, prioritizing both financial gain and altruistic endeavors for its members.
John has 40 years of leadership roles in the financial service industry in sales, trading, technology, operations, financial and compliance. He has nine Securities Licenses Series 4,7 24,27,53,55,63,65 and 99 and two degrees from New York University.John Paul DeVito
Co-Founder / Director, InteliClear, LLC – InteliClear (www.inteliclear.com) is a 21st Century Post Trade Software SAAS company for middle and back-office operations in the $30.0 billion global securities settlement and post-trade processing market.
Founder / OpenHand Inc (www.openhand.com) – OpenHand is a pioneering self-clearing fintech firm that operates on a subscription-based model, prioritizing both financial gain and altruistic endeavors for its members.
John has 40 years of leadership roles in the financial services industry in sales, trading, technology, operations, financial, and compliance. He holds nine Securities Licenses (Series 4, 7, 24, 27, 53, 55, 63, 65, and 99) and two degrees from New York University.Megan Sierszulski
Head of LegalMegan Sierszulski
Head of LegalAs a New York-licensed attorney and trained on Wall Street, Megan has experience in U.S. securities and tax law compliance and currently serves as Head of Legal and Compliance Services at Summit Financial Services Ltd., a Hong Kong-based global tax consultancy firm. Prior to her role at Summit, she was an associate at Gusrae Kaplan Nusbaum PLLC and then worked as in-house counsel at FINRA member firms Velocity Clearing LLC and Velocity Capital LLC. Megan received her B.A. from Northwestern University and her J.D. from Boston College Law School, followed by her LL.M. in International, European, and French Business Law from the Sorbonne Law School in Paris.
Robert Akeson
PresidentRobert Akeson
PresidentRobert Akeson is managing director at Riverside Management Group (“RMG”), a boutique investment bank. At RMG, he focuses on advising asset managers, broker-dealers, fintech companies, and their supporting ecosystems on financial transactions. In addition, he is Managing Member of Solidus Advisors, LLC (“Solidus”), which advises asset managers and broker-dealers on start-up, operational, business, and succession planning matters.
Previously, he was Chief Operating Officer and Co-Head of Prime Brokerage at Mirae Asset Securities (USA) and was on the firm’s Management Committee. Also, Mr. Akeson ran Neuberger Berman’s prime brokerage, correspondent clearing, and related agency execution business. While at the firm, Mr. Akeson, served on the firm’s Operating Committee and on the SIA’s Clearing and Membership Committees. Additionally, Mr. Akeson has held management positions at Morgan Stanley, ICBC, and Broadridge’s predecessor, ADP BISG. He also has General Partner and Advisory Board level experience with small money management firms.
Mr. Akeson’s experience includes P&L management, corporate strategy, business development, operations, IT, compliance, risk management, due diligence, balance sheet and liquidity management. He also has extensive experience with FINRA New Member and Continuing Membership Applications for businesses including prime brokerage and portfolio margin. In addition, Mr. Akeson has led successful efforts to become self-clearing working with FINRA and clearinghouses, including DTCC, FICC, and OCC.
Mr. Akeson has been a member of the DTCC Systemic Risk Task Force and Chairman of the Business Management Interest Group of the CFA Society New York. He currently serves on the Management Committee of the New York Alternative Investment Roundtable, where he hosts a podcast. In addition, he is a member of the Economic Club of New York. Mr. Akeson earned an MBA from New York University and a BA from Washington College. He holds the following licenses/ registrations, SIE, 7, 9, 10, 24, 63, 79, and 99.
Susan Webb
Vice PresidentSusan Webb
Vice PresidentSusan Webb, Founder, CEO, and Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of Appomattox, leads the investment committee and sets the firms’ overall asset allocation including strategic implementation of its macro view. Susan overseas the investment and portfolio management professionals responsible for manager selection, asset allocation, proactive measures to manage portfolio risks and returns, and liquidity. Susan’s career in finance spans over 35 years, featuring hands-on derivatives trading, financing and structuring.
Prior to founding Appomattox in 2005, Susan served as Managing Director of the fund of hedge funds Atlas Capital where she launched the seeding platform. She previously held senior positions on the trading desks of Citibank, Paribas Capital Markets and CIBC. She served as a managing director at Caisse des Depots, where she established the U.S. credit derivative and synthetic CLO and hedge fund structuring business.
Susan serves on the board of GTI Capital Group (focused on investments in India), advisory board of Catalyst Financial Partners (promotes small and emerging managers), and Advisory Committee of Saxena White’s Women’s Alliance. She is a trustee and member of the investment committee of Brick Presbyterian Church in New York. Susan earned a BA from the University of Virginia and an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School.