ACG NY VIP Family Office Series - Developing a Family Office Impact & ESG strategy

Ron D. Cordes has enjoyed a 30+ year career in the investment industry. He was co-founder and CEO of a $ 74 bb AUM U.S. wealth management firm, AssetMark (NYSE: AMK), and in 2006 co-founded the Cordes Foundation, which has a global mission to drive market-based capital to address the world’s most important problems.

Ron speaks extensively on impact investing and achieving meaning and purpose in an “encore” career, and has been profiled in multiple publications including the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s,  FastCompany, Forbes, Financial Advisor, Financial Planning, Private Wealth Management and The New York Times.

He was a co-founder of ImpactAssets, a leading U.S. Donor Advised Fund platform focused on impact investing, and currently Chairs the Boards of MicroVest Capital Management and Align Impact Advisors.

Mr. Irvin is the Chief Executive Officer of Q Hydrogen Solutions Corporation and has been since its formation in 2013. He is also serving as the Chief Operating Office of QuasarWave Corporation, a position he has held since 2010.

Mr. Irvin is responsible for crafting commercialization strategies and is known for his relationships within the commercial and equity communities.

His background includes technology deployment at Raytheon Company and experience in the financial sector.  Mr. Irvin graduated from Babson College in 2007 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration with concentrations in Finance and Global Business Management. He is also a certified Project Management Professional (“PMP”).

Cathrin Stickney is the Founder and CEO of Parity.org, a not-for-profit organization that asks companies to take the ParityPledge®. The ParityPledge asks leaders to commit to simply interview at least one qualified woman and one qualified person of color for every open role, VP and Higher, including the C-Suite and the Board. That’s it. No quotas. No deadlines. Nearly 500 companies on six continents, including Nasdaq, Best Buy, Ralph Lauren, Oracle, and Adobe, have signed the ParityPledge to support equal representation in leadership.

Ms. Stickney has more than 25 years of experience as an operations and thought leader in the healthcare industry. She has worked with investors and tech companies doing business in the health care sector to help them understand the post-reform environment and seize opportunities to achieve business objectives in the marketplace. She is an advisor at Blueprint Health (NYC), StartUp Health (NYC) and Launchpad (SF). In addition, she sits on the Leadership Board of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, the Board of Directors of Hint Health in San Francisco, and is a senior advisor of several early-stage tech companies in both New York and Washington, DC.  

Ms. Stickney was a Senior Partner at start-up Evolent Health in Arlington, VA where her chief role was to advise the Founder/CEO and senior team on the payer market strategy and to kick-start the company’s approach to the commercial payer space for provider-owned health plans.  She was also Vice President for The Advisory Board Company (ABC) in Washington D.C. where she consulted with government and key health care industry stakeholders on the transformation of the industry. Most notably, she worked side-by-side with the Lt. Governor of Rhode Island and led the effort through a CMMI grant to design the state’s public-private approach to the Affordable Care Act. She has been consulted by key government entities like the US Department of Transportation and political leaders for her insights into new industry models and scenarios that impact health policy development. In 2015 she advised Secretary Hillary Clinton and her healthcare team for business scenarios post 2017.

Prior to joining ABC and Evolent, Ms. Stickney was a high-ranking operations executive at Cigna Healthcare in Hartford, CT for 12 years.  She was responsible for leading service to the organization’s 7,000+ employer clients from large national employers to mid-size and small businesses around the country. She led a team of 2500 people to trouble-shoot and manage Cigna’s book of business.  

Her career has included executive operating roles in hospital administration for Sutter Health in Sacramento where she led the Neuroscience, Orthopedics, and Spine centers and was the CEO for Sutter’s for-profit outpatient arm including primary care clinics, VNA Home Health operations, etc.; as leader of national provider contracting for Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, and as medical group administrator for Foundation Health in northern and central California where she had P&L responsibility for a dozen primary care clinics.  

Ms. Stickney is an Adjunct Professor at New York University where she teaches a course she wrote, The Making of a Healthcare Entrepreneur.  

Ms. Stickney holds a Master’s degree in Health Administration and Policy from the University of Southern California. 

Marcia Nelson is a Managing Director and Registered Representative of ShareNett Securities LLC, a members-only global network of professional investors collaborating on curated, quality investment opportunities. Marcia has spent a large portion of her career working in and for family offices and private dealmakers. She was previously at Alberleen Family Office Solutions, an independent investment advisory firm backed by family offices, and she formerly worked for an ultra-high-net-worth philanthropic family as well as a sports and entertainment family. Over the last 20 years, she has developed a strong network of private families, institutional investors, and advisers who are increasingly seeking access to quality direct deal flow from trusted, experienced partners.
Triple C Advisory is a business life cycle consulting firm Marcia co-founded. Working off three pillars – Customer Acquisition, Consulting and Capital – the firm works with early stage companies as an advisor and board member to prepare them to receive institutional-grade investments.

Marcia serves on the boards of several industry-related organizations, including: as President of ACG-NY (Association for Corporate Growth), which focuses on driving middle-market investments; as a board member of VentureCapitall.Org, a non-profit early-stage start up accelerator; and with the investment committee for University Impact, a donor-advised fund. She is also an advisor to a Utah-based Single Family Office. 

Marcia was named one of the 2020 Most Influential Women in Mid-Market M&A by Mergers & Acquisitions magazine, was listed as one the 2018 Who’s Who In Impact Investing by the Denver Business Journal and was honored with the 2017 ACG-NY Women of Leadership Award.

She received her BA from Southern Utah State College and her MBA from the Gabelli School at Fordham University. Marcia holds Series 7 and 63 licenses.