
EXPERTS

FINANCIAL SERVICES
EXPERT WITNESSES
Our experts have unmatched industry experience in a vast array of banking services practices.
With decades of industry experience as senior executives and global managing directors at leading financial institutions, consulting firms, and regulators, each of our banking expert witnesses is dedicated to applying exceptional real-world economic, financial, and quantitative principles to complex business and legal challenges.
Our financial expert witnesses have been successfully engaged in hundreds of cases pertaining to litigations, disputes, and consulting.
We at SEDA Experts are proud to provide our world-class financial expert witness services on a wide range of matters; including, but not limited to disputes, determining causation, liability, and damages.
Many of these matters comprise alleged negligence, misrepresentation, and fraud for Fortune 500 corporations, including premiere global financial institutions, top tier banks, financial regulators, large sovereign funds, and hedge funds.
Our expertise also covers policy and procedures, internal operational controls, regulatory guidelines and industry-standard practices that financial institutions must comply to mitigate risks and potential asset losses.
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Richard A. Marin
Managing Director
Richard Marin as a former finance senior executive with over 40 years of investment banking industry experience, and as a former clinical professor at Cornell University is a world class testifying expert in asset management, alternative investments, private equity investments, securities lending, retirement and pensions, and real estate / project financing.
Craig W. Broderick
Senior Advisor
Craig Broderick is the former Chief Risk Officer (CRO) of Goldman Sachs where he served on the Management Committee and was Chair or Co-Chair of the Firmwide Risk Committee. In a 32 year career Craig oversaw control of the firm’s credit, market, liquidity, operational, model, counterparty and insurance risks.
Jane Jarcho
Managing Director
Ms. Jarcho served as a Deputy Director at the SEC Office of Compliance Inspections & Examinations (“OCIE”) and Head of the Investment Adviser/Company (“IA/IC”) examination program. Ms. Jarcho’s enforcement work covered a breadth of areas, including complex financial frauds, insider trading, offering frauds, market manipulation, broker-dealer supervision, and IA/IC violations.
R. Bram Smith
Managing Director
Thanks to 40 years of experience in the US corporate loan market, both as the Executive Director of the Loan Syndications and Trading Association (LSTA) and senior executive in three leading financial institutions such as Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, and Bankers Trust, Bram Smith is a world-class expert in loan syndications, sales and trading, and capital markets.
Peter Selman
Managing Partner
Peter Selman, as the former Head of Global Equities at Deutsche Bank, and the Co-head of Global Equity Trading at Goldman Sachs, is a world-class expert in all aspects of equity products including cash equities, OTC options, listed derivatives, equity valuation, securities lending and prime finance, ETFs and structured products.
Craig Coben
Managing Director
Craig Coben has over 25 years of financial industry experience serving as the Vice Chairman of Global Capital Markets and Global Head of Equity Capital Markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He is an investment banking world-class expert with deep expertise in a full range of equity products, including IPOs, SPACs, block trades.
J. Bradley Bennett
Managing Director
J. Bradley Bennett has over 30 years of experience in broker-dealers’ financial regulation, holding executive positions as an attorney and former Chief of Enforcement at FINRA. He is an expert in SEC and FINRA enforcement proceedings, internal investigations, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), shareholder litigation, criminal matters, and financial frauds.
Robert Mass
Managing Director
Robert Mass as a former Goldman Sachs Senior Executive, Global Compliance Head of the sales and trading businesses, and International Compliance Head is a world-class expert in governance, supervision and compliance across markets and business types – and particularly in sales and trading, commodities and derivative compliance.
Howard Mills
Senior Advisor
Mr. Mills is a former Superintendent of the New York State Insurance Department and a retired Deloitte Managing Director and Global Insurance Regulatory Leader. He has been a Senior Advisor to the Insurance Practice at McKinsey and Company and currently serves on the Boards of Genworth Financial and The Doctors Company Group.
Dr. Mark Calabria
Managing Director
Dr. Mark Calabria served as the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as a member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, and as a senior member of the staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. He is an expert in residential and consumer finance regulation and markets, as well as the prudential regulation and supervision of SIFIs.
Bruce G. Dubinsky
Senior Advisor
Bruce G. Dubinsky is a world-class forensic accountant with over 40 years of financial investigative and dispute consulting experience and a nationally recognized expert in fraud investigations, forensic accounting, and dispute consulting.
Kevin D. Oden Ph.D.
Managing Director
Dr. Oden, has unrivaled financial risk management expertise and over 30 years of financial markets experience with leading financial institutions firms Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs, holding executive positions. As former EVP and Head of Operational Risk and Compliance he is a world class expert in market risk, credit risk, counterparty risk, and operational risk.
Willem Buiter, PhD
Managing Director
Dr. Willem has over 40 years of experience in the financial industry as the Global Chief Economist at Citigroup, Professor of International Economics at Yale University and consultant to international financial institutions such as the IMF, and the World Bank. He is an expert in bank insolvency, central bank interventions in financial markets, crypto-assets, and DeFi.
Avinash Persaud
Managing Director
Avinash Persaud is an expert on global finance and economics, on the role of public policy in banking and financial crises, and a specialist in financial regulation and emerging markets. He has over 30 years of experience as a senior executive in large financial institutions and a respected policy advisor to major global bodies such as the G20, OECD, United Nations, and G7 Central Banks.
Blake Mather
Managing Director
Blake Mather, as a Partner and former Head of Bank Loan Sales, and Co-Head of High Yield and Distressed Sales at Goldman Sachs, is an expert in capital markets across multiple fixed-income products, including high-yield debt, loans, and distressed assets, as well as valuation and pricing across the capital structure.
Dave Douglass
Managing Director
Mr. Douglass provides advice in both litigation and business consulting matters requiring specialized financial and economic expertise. He has more than fifteen years of experience in business valuation, analysis of damages in securities litigation, valuation of intellectual property in trademark and patent disputes, loss causation analysis, solvency analysis, and regulatory compliance.
Dr. Svetla Tzenova
Managing Director
Dr. Tzenova provides expert testimony and litigation consulting services on a broad spectrum of economic issues in the areas of commercial damages, business valuation, intellectual property, antitrust and competition strategy, and various issues at the intersection of business and government.
Mark J. Buono
Managing Director
Mark Buono is a CMBS and CRE industry pioneer. He is a former Managing Director at Goldman Sachs where he held various roles in the commercial real estate business for 20 years, and a Managing Director and CRE Portfolio Manager at the Global Atlantic Financial Group. He is an expert in CMBS, CRE CDOs, and REITs, CRE Portfolio Management, and Risk Management.
Chris Whitman
Managing Director
Chris Whitman has more than 30 years of debt and equity capital markets experience, alongside as a bank treasurer and capital allocator. Chris helmed a handful of global functions over the second half of his 23 years at Deutsche Bank developing and drawing upon these skills.
Paul Frost-Smith
Managing Director
Paul Frost-Smith is a distinguished expert in Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets, with a particular focus on trading, infrastructure, custody and regulation. Mr Frost-Smith has over 30 years’ experience in international financial markets, and he is the Founder & CEO of Corinthian Digital, a Crypto investment management & advisory firm.
Mitchell I. Gordon
Managing Director
Mitchell Gordon has over 30 years of industry experience as a C-suite executive (in both public and private companies), as partner at private equity firms, and as senior investment banker. He has extensive experience in Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) as President and CFO, and he brings significant expertise in Investment Banking, M&A, and restructuring transactions.
Brett Holleman
Managing Director
Brett Holleman has over 25 years of experience trading in financial markets. He served as Co-Head of Global Trading at Fortress Investment Group's flagship $9bn global macro fund, responsible for all trading in fixed income, currency, and commodity products. He has extensive experience in plain vanilla and exotic option structures across all asset classes.
Babak Eftekhari
Managing Director
Babak Eftekhari has over 25 years of experience in the finance industry, primarily as an emerging markets and foreign exchange derivatives trader. He served as managing director and head of local European Emerging Markets trading at Goldman Sachs and then subsequently Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Tony Platt
Managing Director
Tony Platt has over 34 years of experience in Institutional Security and Derivative Operations. As a former Executive Director and Global Risk Officer at Morgan Stanley, he is an Industry-wide respected expert in Operations leadership, processes, and controls supporting a wide range of asset classes.
Arthur Miller
Managing Director
Arthur Miller has over 43 years of experience in public finance and municipal bonds serving as Managing Director and Co-Head of Public Finance Strategies & Analytics Groups at Goldman Sachs. He covered leading roles at industry organizations including Vice Chair and Member of the Board of Directors at the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board.
Slim Bentami
Managing Director
Slim Bentami has over 30 years of experience in the finance industry, primarily at Goldman Sachs’ Risk Division where he co-founded and led the Model Risk as well as the Market Risk & Capital Quantification groups. He is an expert in models used to assist in the valuation and risk management of a variety of financial products across all asset classes.
Douglas Lucas
Managing Director
Douglas Lucas has more than 30 years of experience in the financial industry and he is a world-class expert in fixed income and structured product's credit risk. He created Moody’s CLO rating methodology, and he invented measures of portfolio risk, such as the WARF and the diversity score, which are in wide use today.
Richard Jefferson
Managing Director
Richard Jefferson is a former Global Head of Commodities Trading at Deutsche Bank with over 25 years of financial markets experience. He spent 19 years at Deutsche Bank in London and New York as a Foreign Exchange Derivatives Trader and then helped to build the energy trading franchise in North American Power and Gas, Oil and Refined Products.
Robert Almanas
Managing Director
In a 35 year career in financial services, Robert Almanas has held a variety of management positions in firms representing the various transaction banking and post-trade functions associated with cross-border financial activity: global custody, correspondent banking, contract administration, asset management administration, local market custody, and market infrastructure.
David Saul
Managing Director
David Saul is a Chartered Accountant with over 25 year’s experience in financial services in both Compliance and Internal Audit as the Global Head of Compliance Risk Assurance at HSBC, the UK Head of Compliance Monitoring, Testing and Surveillance at Barclays, and the Group Head of Internal Audit and Operational Risk at BMO Asset Management.
William Kugler
Managing Director
Bill is an experienced Financial Risk, Capital Markets and Risk Transformation Executive most recently with Capital One from 2012 to 2022 where he was the Chief Market & Liquidity Officer and established the risk management functions for Market, Liquidity and Counterparty Credit.
Michael Dafforn
Managing Director
Michael Dafforn is a former Executive Director, Corporate Derivatives Trading at Nomura International, and a financing specialist with over 24 years of global markets experience across structuring and trading roles within leading investment banks where he was responsible for structuring, executing, and managing financing transactions.
Robert MacLaverty
Managing Director
Robert MacLaverty is a managing director with SEDA Experts (SEDA) providing financial, economic, and testifying expert services to the nation's leading law firms, investment banks, pension funds, endowments, and foundations.
Kristin Kaepplein
Managing Director
With over 30 years of industry experience as former SEC Director, Goldman Sachs VP, and Consultant, Kristin Kaepplein is an expert in financial intermediaries’ regulation and compliance, broker-dealer and investment adviser business practices, and technologies employed in provisioning financial services to institutional and retail investors.
Tim Rezvan, CFA
Managing Director
Tim Rezvan, CFA has over twenty years of experience in equity research, in both the asset management and sell-side equity research industries, working for leading financial institutions such as BlackRock and Oppenheimer. His expertise encompasses equity securities in the Exploration & Production (E&P) industry, oil and natural gas commodities, and commodity derivatives.
Edward J. Fraim Jr.
Managing Director
Edward J. Fraim Jr. has over 25 years of experience in Energy and Financial Derivatives, Futures and Options. As the former Head of ICE Proprietary Data he is an expert in derivatives trading, benchmark price valuations, complex pricing models, commodities risk management, hedging strategies, and supporting technologies.
Kenneth Simmons
Managing Director
Kenneth Simmons, with over 30 years of industry experience as Executive Vice President at leading financial institutions, and at regulatory agency such as OCC and FDIC, is a top expert in regulatory compliance, anti-money laundering, bank secrecy act, and financial crimes risk management.
Timothy J. Fogarty Sr.
Managing Director
Timothy Fogarty is a former senior Federal Reserve Bank officer with over 35 years of industry experience covering all aspects of international central banking operations and extensive special purpose financial transactions in support of U.S. government and multinational policy objectives.
Damiano Colnago
Managing Partner
Damiano Colnago is the co-founder of SEDA Experts LLC. He specializes in custody and trustee services, and collateral administration. His expertise includes banking operation, collateralized debt obligations, fund of funds, derivatives , asset-backed securities (ABS), mortgage backed securities (MBS), syndicated loans, and cryptocurrencies.
Sergio C. Godinho
Managing Partner
Sergio Godinho is the co-founder of SEDA Experts LLC and the former Head of CDO Risk and Compliance at Wilmington Trust. He is a senior professional with diversified experience in both the financial services industry, as well as providing advice in litigation, dispute resolution, mediation, and business consulting matters, including class actions and class certifications.
Robert Munns
Managing Director
Robert Munns is a banking professional with over 30 years of experience in Asset Based / Middle Market Lending. As former Senior Vice President for leading financial institutions he specializes in loan operations, cross-selling, portfolio management, and sound credit practices. His expertise includes direct loans, commercial mortgages, and loan syndications & participations.
Peter U. Vinella, Ph.D.
Affiliate Expert
Peter U. Vinella has more than 30 years of experience in the financial industry as a consultant and an executive with leading financial institutions. Mr. Vinella has extensive testifying experience acting as an expert for both plaintiff and defendant, involving more than 25 matters and including seven cases with more than $1 billion at stake.
David Hinman, CFA
Affiliate Expert
David Hinman, CFA has over 25 years of fixed income asset management and trading experience, holding executive positions such as the Head of Fixed Income at Salient Partner and Portfolio Manager at PIMCO. He is an expert in trading and managing portfolios of credit derivatives, investment grade, and high yield corporate bonds, bank loans, emerging market debt, and CLOs.
During all stages of the engagement, our banking expert witnesses are adroitly supported by highly skilled, experienced, and dedicated staff.
These stages include case early assessment, data analysis, damages and valuation calculation, as well as report and exhibits preparation and submission to ensure that deliverables are met at the highest standards protecting expert witnesses’ reputation and credibility.