Who we are

Greg Brown’s research centers on alternative investments, including hedge funds and private equity funds. He also is a leading expert on financial risk and the use of derivative contracts as risk management tools.

He is the founder and research director of the Institute for Private Capital, faculty director of the Hodges Scholars Program and a member of the Private Equity Research Consortium (PERC) advisory board.

Dr. Brown served as the executive director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise from 2015-2023.

His research has been published in leading academic and practitioner finance journals, including The Journal of Finance, The Journal of Financial Economics, The Review of Financial Studies, The Journal of Derivatives, The Journal of Portfolio Management and The Financial Analyst Journal. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Alternative Investments.

Dr. Brown serves on the board of directors of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association.

He previously served as director of research for Amundi Smith Breeden, a global asset management firm specializing in fixed income investments. He has served as a consultant on financial risk and portfolio management for money management firms, the U.S. government, non-profits and Fortune 500 companies.

Prior to joining UNC Kenan-Flagler, he worked at the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System in the division of research and statistics. He also worked in artist relations for a subsidiary of Capitol Records.

He received his PhD in finance from the University of Texas at Austin and his BS with honors in physics and economics from Duke University.

gregwbrown@unc.edu

Sarah Franks is Executive Director at the Institute for Private Capital, responsible for managing and developing relationships with current and prospective IPC members and partners.

Sarah has an extensive background in business development and finance, joining IPC from Absolute Strategy Research, a global independent macro research provider. She began her career as a research analyst with the Global Investment Strategy group at Merrill Lynch, working in London and in New York.

Sarah graduated from the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce.

dorothy_hibbard@kenan-flagler.unc.edu 

Wendy Hu is responsible for PERC-governed academic research using Burgiss data in the area of Private Capital. She joined PERC and Burgiss in 2013. Prior to this, she was a senior quantitative researcher at Permal Asset Management, where she carried out research of fund of funds performance and risk management. Prior to Permal, she was a co-portfolio manager at Zebra Capital Management. She received her Ph.D. in finance from the University of Florida in 2007 and her MA in finance from Beijing University.

Melissa Waller is Director of Public & Private Partnerships at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise. In this role, she works to develop partnerships with government entities, industry leaders and academic institutions aligned with the Institute’s mission and those of its affiliated research centers.

Previously Waller served as the former Deputy Treasurer and Chief of Staff for the North Carolina Department of State Treasury, where she successfully oversaw Department strategic planning, operations, and public-policy implementation, along with a staff of more than 400 employees. The North Carolina Retirement Systems, the pension fund for the state, is the tenth largest public pension fund in the United States, with assets in excess of $100 billion.

Waller’s background includes over 20 years of private and public-sector financial industry experience, including 15 years in the banking sector with Wachovia/Wells Fargo. She currently also serves as Executive Program Director for the National Institute of Public Finance within the NAST Foundation and is the President of the AIF Institute.

Waller graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A. in journalism and mass communication and a concentration in instructional design.

TJ Carlson is the Chief Investment Officer for the Missouri State Employees’ Retirement System. TJ has served in senior investment leadership positions for over 20 years, including 15 years as a public pension system CIO. He was most recently with the Texas Municipal Retirement System (TMRS), but has also previously served as the CIO for the West Virginia Investment Management Board, Marshfield Clinic and the Kentucky Retirement System. He serves on several prominent investment industry boards and has presented at many public pension-related conferences on various investments topics, and was named Institutional Investor magazine’s CIO of the Year in 2018.

Prior to beginning his career in the public sector, Mr. Carlson served as an infantry sergeant and squad leader in the United States Marine Corps and Reserves.

He holds an MBA from Drake University and a B.A. in mass communications from Grand View College. He is also a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst and Certified Treasury Professional.

Jennifer Conrad conducts research in the investments area. Some of her earlier work concentrated on the causes of predictable patterns in returns and trading strategies related to these patterns, such as contrarian investing.

More recently, she is working on the relation between credit default swaps and the equity market, and the determinants and effects of high-frequency trading.

Dr. Conrad teaches financial management and investments. She has won three teaching awards, research and service awards at UNC Kenan-Flagler. She is the former senior associate dean for academic affairs and area chair of finance.

She has served on the board of directors of the Financial Management Association, the Western Finance Association and the American Finance Association. She is a past president of the Financial Management Association and the current chair of its board of trustees.

She received her PhD and MBA from the University of Chicago and her BS from Butler University.

Christian Lundblad is the Richard Levin Distinguished Professor of Finance at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.  He is also a Senior Fellow and Board Member at the Institute for Private Capital and the Director of Research at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise. He earlier served as the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research, the Chair of the Finance Area, and the Associate Dean of the Ph.D. Program. Finally, he holds a courtesy appointment as a Special-Term Professor at the  PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.

His research spans asset pricing, investment management, and international finance, with a specialization in emerging market development. His research has been published in top academic journals, including the Journal of Finance, the Review of Financial Studies, and the Journal of Financial Economics.  He served as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Finance and Financial Management, and now serves at the Journal of Banking and Finance.

He also served as a financial economist at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C., where he advised the Board of Governors on international financial market developments.

He is the recipient of the Weatherspoon Award for Excellence in Research, the Roy W. Holsten Award for Outstanding Service and Dedication to UNC Kenan-Flagler, and the MBA for Executives and OneMBATeaching Excellence awards.

He received a PhD in financial economics and a master’s degree in economics from Duke University. He earned his BA in economics and English literature with highest honors from Washington University in St. Louis.

Keith Crouch oversees MSCI’s private-capital indexes and related datasets. Previously, he led the data product at Burgiss, which MSCI acquired in 2023. Before then, he was an investment banking analyst at RBC Capital Markets where he focused on bank mergers and acquisitions. Keith holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Montclair State University, serves on the advisory board for the Private Equity Research Consortium and is a CFA® Charterholder.

Dominic Garcia is Chief Pension Investment Strategist for CBRE Investment Management. In this role, Dominic is responsible for structuring investment and funding solutions for institutional investors and U.S. pensions.

Prior to joining the firm in 2021, Dominic was the Chief Investment Officer at New Mexico PERA. While at PERA, Dominic helped usher pension reform, integrating a cost-sharing mechanism to the benefits structure, as well as modernizing investment governance and the investment process to include a risk-based, separate alpha-beta approach.

Previously, Dominic was Senior Funds Alpha Manager at the $144 billion State of Wisconsin Investment Board, where he built and managed risk-based multi-asset strategies including hedge funds and portable alpha, risk parity and active strategies across all asset classes.

Dominic serves on the research and advisory boards for EDHEC Infrastructure Institute, UNC-Kenan Institute for Private Markets, AIF Global Center for Private Capital, the University of Chicago, Center for Municipal Finance and Abriendo Puertas. Dominic is a Chair for the Santa Fe Preparatory School Endowment.

Dominic graduated from the University of New Mexico with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Spanish and the University of Chicago with a Master of Public Policy in Public Finance.

Mr. Griffiths has been applying quantitative methods to private markets for over 25 years. As the Founder of Private Market Metrics, LLC, he is working on projects in performance analytics and risk management. In addition to his commercial efforts, he is a member of the Research Advisory Council of the Private Equity Research Consortium (PERC) and is involved with related academic activities.

Mr. Griffiths was previously a Partner and Head of the Quantitative Research Group (QRG) at Ares Management Corporation, and before that he was a Partner and Head of QRG with Landmark Partners. His first job in finance was as Vice President and Head of Quantitative Research with the Goldman Sachs Private Equity Group, which he helped to launch.

Before getting started with private equity, Mr. Griffiths was Chief Scientist at Business Matters, a venture-funded software startup. He has also been a lead engineer at TASC and Synetics, where he specialized in guidance, navigation, and control problems.

Mr. Griffiths is a CFA® charterholder, who received a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University and an MS and BS from Michigan State University.

Mr. Keck is StepStone’s head of research and portfolio management. He is also involved in the Firm’s responsible investing and risk management initiatives and is a member of the board of directors.

Prior to co-founding StepStone, Mr. Keck was a managing director at Pacific Corporate Group, a private equity investment firm that oversaw over US$15 billion of private equity commitments for institutional investors. Before that, he was a principal with Blue Capital, a middle-market buyout firm.

Mr. Keck graduated cum laude with a BA from George Washington University and received his MBA with high honors from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He served in the US Navy as a Naval Flight Officer, receiving numerous decorations flying EA-6Bs off the USS Nimitz (CVN-68).

Bryan Lewis joined U. S. Steel in August 2019 as vice president and chief investment officer. He has executive responsibility for the company’s global investments for both the defined contribution and defined benefit plans, as well as other related programs. Prior to that, he was the Chief Investment Officer of the Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System. Previously, Lewis served as executive director of the $20 billion Illinois State Universities Retirement System, where he led fund administration and investment management for two defined benefit plans and one defined contribution plan. Previously, Lewis spent six years as manager for the North Carolina Department of State Treasurer working on the state’s retirement systems. He holds a MBA from the University of Miami and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Maryland College Park.

Bryan Lewis U.S. Steel

John D. Skjervem is Chief Investment Officer for Utah Retirement Systems (URS) which manages a financial and real asset portfolio totaling $49.8 billion as of December 31, 2022 and comprises both defined benefit and defined contribution retirement programs. Prior to URS, John was Chief Executive Officer of Alan Biller and Associates, responsible for its $131 billion institutional investment advisory practice.

John also previously served as Chief Investment Officer for Oregon State Treasury where his team managed a $111 billion, globally-diversified investment program. Before his tenure in Oregon, John held a variety of portfolio management and leadership positions at Northern Trust including Chief Investment Officer for that firm’s $180 billion wealth management division.

John is a member of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation’s Investment Advisory Group, an advisor to the Retirement Board of the Public Employee Retirement System of Idaho and a member of the IEEE Foundation’s investment committee. He also serves on the Pacific Pension Institute’s Board of Directors, is a member of the Milken Institute’s Global Capital Markets Advisory Committee and serves on the Investor Advisory Group of the International Sustainability Standards Board. John holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, received his BA in Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and earned an MBA with concentrations in Finance and Statistics from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Mr. Turetsky is a Partner and Head of the Quantitative Research Group within Ares Global Client Solutions. He oversees the group’s Original Research and Quantitative Software Development teams, and coordinates with other quantitative professionals within Ares’ investment teams. Prior to joining Ares in 2021, he was a Partner in the Landmark Partners Quantitative Research Group. Previously, Mr. Turetsky was COO of the Riverside Company’s European private equity business. In addition, he was an Investment Banking Associate at Lehman Brothers and Lazard Middle Market. Mr. Turetsky holds appointments as an Adjunct Professor of Design & Innovation and as an Engaged Management Scholar Research Fellow at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. He is a member of the advisory boards of the INSEAD Private Equity Initiative and the EDHEC Infrastructure Institute. He is also a Board Member of the Defined Contribution Alternatives Association and a member of the Research Council of the Institute for Private Capital at the University of North Carolina. Mr. Turetsky holds a B.S. from Bar-Ilan University in Economics, an M.B.A. from INSEAD and a Ph.D. from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University.