About the Instructors

• H. Kent Baker, PhD, CFA
• Mark Bieber, CFA
• Vincent C. Catalano
• Charles R. Gates
• Rudy Jacob, PhD 
• Hamilton Lin, CFA
• Michael Martin

• Charles Mulford PhD, CPA
• Stephen G. Moyer, JD, CFA
• O. Nathan Ronen, CFA
• Barry M. Sine, CFA, CMT
• Andrew Spieler, PhD, CFA, FRM
• Jack Yurkiewicz, PhD

Mark Bieber, CFA, is vice president in the Real Estate Group of New York Life Investments, an associate member of the Appraisal Institute, and a state-certified general real estate appraiser. Bieber is on the faculty of New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies and holds an MBA in finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Vincent C. Catalano is president and global investment strategist with Blue Marble Research and author of Sectors and Styles. A leading investment strategist, asset manager and global capital markets expert, Catalano appears regularly in the media (CNBC, Bloomberg Radio, foxbusiness.com) and is frequently quoted in professional publications (The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Financial Times). He is a past president of NYSSA and a senior fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Charles R. Gates is a managing director at Grammer and Co. and has more than 30 years of experience in investment and commercial banking, derivatives, foreign exchange, fixed income capital markets and risk management consulting. Prior to joining Grammer and Co., Gates was a senior vice president at Financial Risk Management, a premier global fund of hedge funds. He began his career as a credit officer for Citibank, where he was also a founder of Citi’s derivatives business. Gates helped the World Bank develop its swap program and helped establish the credit derivatives business at Rabobank. Previously he was co-head of the Credit Risk Management practice of Deloitte & Touche. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Hamilton Lin, CFA, has a broad background in investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, and leveraged buyouts. He is the founder of Wall St. Training, a corporate training firm that teaches hands-on, practical financial modeling, valuation, and analytic skills to investment banks, research firms, asset managers, private equity shops, commercial banks and credit firms. Prior to founding his firm, Lin was at a boutique investment bank specializing in the financial institutions industry. He has also worked at Hales & Co., a boutique merchant bank focused on the middle-market insurance industry, Banc of America Securities’ Mergers and Acquisitions group, Ryan Labs, and Goldman Sachs Investment Banking. He graduated from New York University Stern School of Business.

Charles Mulford PhD, CPA is the Invesco chair and professor of accounting in the College of Management at Georgia Institute of Technology, where he directs the Financial Analysis Lab. Mulford is also director of research at Cash Flow Analytics, LLC, which provides proprietary quantitative and qualitative research and analysis solutions to help clients better analyze, assess and predict a company’s cash flow, earnings and financial position. He has published numerous books and articles on issues of accounting chicanery and financial analysis. Mulford is a graduate of Florida State University and has practiced public accounting with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Stephen G. Moyer, JD, CFA, a portfolio manager and analyst at PIMCO, has more than 18 years of experience in high yield and distressed securities. Before joining PIMCO, Moyer was director at Tennenbaum Capital Partners, LLC and prior to that, director of research at Imperial Capital. During his career he has been affiliated with Banc of America Securities, Kemper Securities, Drexel Burnham Lambert, and The First Boston Corporation. Frequently called upon to speak at various industry events, Moyer is the author of the reference book Distressed Debt Analysis.

Andrew Spieler, PhD, CFA, FRM, is associate professor of finance at the Frank G. Zarb School of Business at Hofstra University, where he was named Distinguished Teacher of the Year. Spieler’s teaching experience includes graduate and undergraduate courses in finance, economics and statistics, as well as executive education programs. He is the former research director at the Investors’ Rights Association of America, a shareholder advocacy group, and currently serves as chair of NYSSA’s Derivatives Committee.  Spieler received his BS, MBA, and PhD from SUNY Binghamton and his MS from Indiana University.

Jack Yurkiewicz, PhD, is a professor in the Management Sciences Department at Pace University, where he has taught MBA quantitative courses since 1985. Yurkiewicz also taught quantitative methods courses at the Zarb School of Business at Hofstra University. He was voted Distinguished Professor for Teaching at Hofstra and received the Kenan Award for Teaching Excellence at Pace. Yurkiewicz received his PhD in operations research from Yale University.

H. Kent Baker, PhD, CFA, is University Professor of Finance at the Kogod School of Business at American University in Washington, DC.  He has consulting and training experience with more than 100 organizations including Comptroller of the Currency, American Bankers Association, and the National Association of Securities Dealers.  He has presented more than 700 training programs, including various CFA® prep courses in the U.S. and Europe.  He has more than 175 publications in academic and professional journals and has co-authored or edited several books, including Understanding Financial Management: A Practical Guide.  He received his PhD from American University.

Vincent C. Catalano is president and global investment strategist with Blue Marble Research and author of Sectors and Styles.  A leading investment strategist, asset manager and global economic and capital markets expert, he conducts numerous events with various CFA societies throughout the US including the popular Market Forecast series.  He appears regularly in the media (CNBC, Bloomberg Radio, foxbusiness.com) and is frequently quoted in various professional publications (The Wall Street Journal, Barrons, Financial Times, Investors Business Daily). He is a past president of NYSSA and a senior fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

C. Mitchell Conover, PhD, CFA, an associate professor at the University of Richmond, has 14 years’ teaching experience.  He has taught classes in investments, portfolio management, international finance, and corporate finance.  His research focuses primarily on investment issues and has appeared in the Financial Analyst Journal, the Journal of Portfolio Management, the Journal of Business, the Journal of Banking and Finance, and other academic journals.  He has served as a NASD arbitrator and received his Ph.D. from Florida State University in 1995.

Rudy Jacob, PhD, is professor and chairman of the Department of Accounting at Pace University, where he won the "Outstanding Teacher of the Year” award. He has also taught in the Executive Education Program at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, and has lectured at New York University and Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. His students have included executives from France, Italy, China, Korea, and the former Soviet Union. Jacob has served as a consultant to the U.S. Small Business Administration and over two hundred businesses in the areas of finance and accounting. A former faculty fellow at Coopers & Lybrand, he has published numerous papers in academic and professional journals and also serves as an ad hoc reviewer for several journals. He received his PhD from New York University Graduate School of Business.

O. Nathan Ronen, CFA, has worked as a supervisory analyst training government regulators, an accounting analyst, and as a corporate finance analyst at a Japanese brokerage firm. His professional experience encompasses well-known organizations such as New York Life, NASD, and Salomon Brothers. He has taught courses in finance and other investment-related subjects at Johns Hopkins University and Strayer College. In addition to teaching CFA preparatory courses for NYSSA, he has taught for the Washington Society of Security Analysts and the Study Seminar for Financial Analysts (SSFA). Ronen holds an MBA in finance and accounting from the University of Chicago.