Phil Coolidge – Chief Executive Officer. Prior to forming GFX, Phil worked as the chief executive officer of Signature Financial Group, a private fund administration company which maintained offices in Boston, New York, Grand Cayman and London. In that role he developed the Hub and Spoke and Global Hub and Spoke investment fund structures.
Prior to that position, Phil worked as a corporate attorney for leading law firms in Manhattan and Boston, as well as an Assistant General Counsel for Massachusetts Financial Services.
Phil received his J.D., cum laude, from the Georgetown University Law Center, his M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and his B.A., magna cum laude, from Tufts University.
Christine Dorsey – Christine was Vice President and a Director of Signature Financial Group, Inc. She served as legal product manager for clients utilizing the Hub and Spoke investment fund structure, including large U.S banking institutions, custodian banks, mutual fund companies, as well as Swiss private banks. She acted as a key contact person with SEC personnel, working closely with clients to facilitate completion of SEC regulatory filings. She also served as the point of contact for outside legal counsel, accounting firms and custodian banks, and was responsible for the preparation and distribution of board meeting agendas, minutes, and proxy materials, and served as an officer for various investment funds. Christine also assisted in the first Global Hub and Spoke regulatory filings.
John Murphy – Director, Software Development. John has over 18 years in designing, developing and coding web-based database driven dynamic software systems in the financial, telecommunications, semiconductor and computer industries. He is well versed in large scale data systems, user interfaces and data analysis systems.
John developed a significant portion of the software for the Signature Financial Group’s Hub and Spoke System. He has also worked for Lotus Development in the advanced products division; has been Director of East Caribbean Cellular in Saint Martin, designing and developing the cellular subscriber system and all the associated accounting systems for the Caribbean Islands; has designed and developed the Crystal Reports Print engine; and has worked for the FHI360-Satellife Center for health information and technology on the implementation of the GATHERdata data system for third world countries using cell phones to acquire data and coding for the analysis of epidemiological data.
John has studied economics and mercantile systems at the University of London and holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts.
Andrés Saldaña – Prior to joining GFX, Andrés served as Managing Director and senior counsel at Wellington Management Company, LLP. Wellington Management is a global investment fiduciary with over $1 trillion in institutional client assets under management.
At Wellington Management, Andrés served as Head of Legal for Asia Pacific and Head of Legal for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Andrés provided leadership and legal counsel focusing on the firm’s global growth for 20 years.
As the firm expanded into major capital markets including London, Frankfurt, Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo, Andrés advised on the establishment of new legal structures, in-country and cross-border licensing, business development strategies, and the firm’s strategic initiatives. He also worked on the structuring and governance of investment fund families worldwide, including trust company pools, hedge funds and investment companies.
Prior to joining Wellington Management, Andrés worked as in-house attorney at Signature Financial Group and as a corporate attorney for major law firms in Boston. He specialized in investment management and investment company law, including the Hub and Spoke investment fund structure.
Andrés has a B.A. and M.A. from Brown University. He received his J.D. from Yale University Law School.
Tom Coolidge – Tom currently is the Pipeline and Gas Utility Industry Manager for Esri, a high technology company. He has more than 40 years of leadership and management experience in the communications and application software industries, and in entrepreneurial to corporate settings. After six years at The Patriot-News Co., central Pennsylvania’s leading regional newspaper, he joined Stoner Associates, Inc., a startup developing technical application software primarily for the gas and petroleum industries. During his 26 years at Stoner Associates, Inc., and its successors, he served in a broad range of positions of increasing responsibility, including 20 years as a corporate officer and culminating as head of the business unit, part of a large multinational corporation.
Tom graduated with a B.S. in Public Communications from Syracuse University. He also completed The (Senior) Executive Program at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia.
Paul Freeman – Paul currently serves as a non-executive director on the boards of a number of BlackRock Group companies and investment funds. He retired as a managing director of BlackRock at the end of 2015, having worked in the financial services industry for over 35 years, during which time he held senior management positions at BlackRock, Schroders, Rothschild Asset Management, Henderson Investors, and GT Management (now part of Invesco). Paul is a Chartered Accountant.
Jim Hoolahan – Jim is the founder and Principal of Employee Care Resources which provides access to long term and custodial care experts to address the financial, legal and caregiving needs of its clients. Prior to ECR, Jim was a Director of NY Life Investment Management and the head of its institutional money market fund business.
Prior to NY Life, Jim was a Senior Vice President and head of the New York office of Signature Financial Group. He was responsible for client relationships and business development efforts for the firm’s fund administration and Hub and Spoke licensing businesses. He was also a member of the group which developed the Global Hub and Spoke structure.
Prior to Signature, Jim was a Vice President at The Chase Manhattan Bank with a wide range of management positions, including responsibility for the creation and operation of the Vista family of funds.
Jim received his MBA from the Simon Business School of the University of Rochester, and his AB in economics from Boston College.
Sandra Shimon – Sandra is the founder and CEO of Shimon Innovation, a management and strategy consultancy serving Fortune 500 leaders, international financial institutions, and global investment managers.
In that capacity Sandra has been a Senior Consultant/Development Specialist for the World Bank Group (IBRD) with management consulting/business planning assignments as well as strategy work and Private & Financial Sector Development, including work on an innovative investment framework to stimulate public private partnerships in Europe and Central Asia.
Sandra has also held positions with Hard Rock International, Structured Investment Management, NBCUniversal, GE Capital and Malek Partners. She was also a Global Services Manager for Ernst & Young in Chicago and Zurich.
Sandra received her MBA from the Harvard Business School and her B.A., summa cumlaude, in Accounting from the University of Northern Iowa.
Heywood Sloane – Heywood has executive and line management experience in the bank, investment management, publishing and information industries.
Heywood is a principal of DSG, a consulting firm, where he works with senior executives of banking, investment and insurance clients to develop strategic business initiatives, design products and services, and execute marketing and distribution plans. While with DSG, he also served as Managing Director of the Bank Securities Association and the Bank Insurance & Securities Association.
Prior to joining DSG, Heywood was General Manager and Director of Institutional Markets for Wiesenberger, now a part of Thomson Reuters. There he merged two mutual fund information companies (CDA and Wiesenberger), and developed state of the art asset allocation, hypothetical, performance measurement, and sales software systems for securities and investment management firms.
Prior to Wiesenberger, Heywood was a Vice President with Delaware Group he worked with the chairman and president on a variety of strategic initiatives, and was responsible for investment product management and retirement plans marketing. He led the effort to develop the industry’s first “class of shares structure.” In addition, he brought to market a variable insurance product line, as well as unique, successful, hybrids of deposit, transaction, credit and securities products.
Heywood has a B.A. in Economics from Haverford College, and a Masters in Management from the London School of Economics.
Gordon Swartz – Prior to joining GFX, Gordon worked as a corporate attorney in the financial services industry with a focus on investment companies and advisors, regulatory compliance and enforcement, trust companies, and brokerage and commodities matters.
As an in-house attorney with Citibank, Gordon worked with Phil in the development of the Hub and Spoke investment fund structure.
Gordon received his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and his B.A. with honors from Washington & Jefferson College.