Brandon holds dual roles as President of the firm and Chair of the Financial Services Practice Group. As President of McDermott + Bull, Brandon leads day-to-day operations for the firm as well as the strategic buildout of the firm’s team of Managing Directors. As chair of the firm’s Financial Services Practice Group, he is a partner to an array of financial services firms including community and regional commercial banks, private banks, investment banks, credit unions, investment managers, and fintech companies. His clients include the likes of Guggenheim Partners, Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic Bank, Houlihan Lokey, Columbia Bank, Moelis & Company, Envestnet and United Capital Financial Advisors.

Brandon is a corporate attorney by trade having practiced with Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, and Buchalter Nemer in their corporate finance departments. As corporate counsel, he advised his clients in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, asset-based financing, and real property purchase and sale transactions. 

In addition to his work at McDermott + Bull, Brandon is a frequent guest lecturer on the topics of leadership and career development at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business’ Executive MBA program, and the University of California at Irvine Paul Merage School of Business. He is a member of the California Coast Chapter of YPO.  And he currently sits on the Mission Hospital Foundation Board of Directors. 

Brandon received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Southern California and his Juris Doctorate from Penn State. Minimize

Previously, he was a principal and co-head of Investment Banking at Sandler O’Neill + Partners, L.P. While at Sandler O'Neill, Burgess was involved in a number of transactions for depository institutions, including the sale of MB Financial to Fifth Third Bancorp, the sale of PrivateBancorp to CIBC; the sale of FirstMerit Corp. to Huntington Bancshares; First Midwest Bancorp’s acquisitions of Northern States Financial, Standard Bancshares, NI Bancshares, Great Lakes Financial and Banco Popular (Chicago); the merger of Baylake Corp and Nicolet Bankshares; the sale of Taylor Capital Group to MB Financial and First National of Nebraska’s sale of its merchant acquiring business to TYSYS. Burgess advised clients on equity and debt capital issuances, including Comerica, Wintrust Financial, Associated Banc-Corp, First Busey Corp., and AgStar Financial Services, among others.

Prior to joining Sandler O’Neill, Burgess was a managing director in the financial institutions group of Goldman, Sachs & Co. where he worked in investment banking for over 10 years. As a senior investment banker, he was responsible for coverage of Midwestern financial institutions, including over 35 publicly traded companies. Burgess advised clients on a wide range of transactions, including Sears Roebuck in its sale of Sears Credit to Citigroup; Household International in its sale to HSBC Holdings; and U.S. Bancorp in its merger with Firstar Corp. Over the course of his career, Burgess has been involved in more than 30 domestic and cross-border M&A transactions whose total value exceeds $60 billion and over 30 capital underwriting and corporate finance transactions with proceeds of over $20 billion.

Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Burgess was a Lieutenant in the United States Navy from 1994-1998. His military service included leading a 135-man division on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk and two deployments to the Persian Gulf in support of U.N. no-fly zones over Iraq. He was awarded Navy Commendation and Navy Achievement Medals for exemplary performance and leadership during his deployments in the Persian Gulf, South America and the Caribbean.

Burgess holds a Masters of Business Administration degree in finance from the Graduate School of Business at The University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in economics with honors and distinction from the United States Naval Academy. Minimize

Jason has an MBA from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, where he met Professor Jim Schrager, who has successfully applied the work of Nobel prize-winning economist Herbert A. Simon to business strategy for the past 30 years, winning many accolades along the way.  Jason and Schrager have collaborated on banking and financial services strategy for the past 14 years, and developed a curriculum and forum for applying Schrager’s proven framework to the strategic questions of financial institutions.  Jason was one of six original employees at Performance Trust Capital Partners when the firm opened its doors in 1994.  Since 2005, Jason has overseen the company’s strategy, and created new methods for teaching and distributing PT’s unique methodology to financial institutions across the country

Jason has spoken at seminars sponsored by banking organizations, regulatory agencies, and graduate schools of banking for more than 20 years. These groups include SNL Financial, The BAI, ABA, FHLB, FDIC, various Federal Reserve banks, and many state and local associations.  He has also helped many bank boards and management teams with strategic planning.   Jason particularly enjoys making difficult concepts clear and compelling. His seminars are always designed to help executives and board members identify and understand critical data and patterns buried within their own deep knowledge, and apply this expertise more powerfully to answer challenging questions about future growth. Minimize

Frank was designated a “top-rated” speaker by FMS and is well known for his popular seminar “Turbo Charging Your ALCO Process” having helped thousands of bankers across the country.

Frank is a graduate of Siena College. He lives in Winchester, Massachusetts and is an avid golfer and runner, having completed numerous marathons including several Boston Marathons over the past 25 years. Minimize

Prior to this role, Mr. Hareyan served at First Foundation as the Applications and Project Manager, laying the foundation for the Project Management Office. Along with his prior experience at the UCI, School of Law’s technology team, he is able to provide a well-rounded approach to every business problem, and align technology with business objectives.

He is a graduate of the University of California, Irvine, where he majored in Business and Information Management. He earned his PMP (Project Management Professional) certificate in August of 2017. With his leadership, First Foundation earned the Laserfiche Run Smarter Award in 2015, in recognition of improved productivity, innovative processes, and exceptional business results. Minimize

Jason stumbled into financial services in the early 90’s as a manufacturing engineer for Deluxe Corporation. Since leaving paper checks for the digital world, he’s been an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and head of strategy implementation for a public company. In 2008, he co-founded PerkStreet Financial, one of the first challenger banks, helping pave the way for new partnerships between traditional financial service firms and startups.

Jason and his wife are active angel investors in companies that include mobile savings, B2B payments, international payments, investment management, fraud detection, analytics and back office tools. Minimize

Chris is the Chief Strategy Officer for CenterState Bank, a $17 billion, publicly traded community bank based in Florida. In addition to strategy, he is responsible for channel transformation and digital banking. He is an active bank investor, small business owner, school instructor, frequent speaker and author on a multitude of banking topics including his new book, “The Successful Lender’s Field Guide.” Chris is the producer and host of the iTunes podcast, Bank to Bank. 

Mr. Nichols has held executive and operating positions at several banks, including Bank of America and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. Chris was a co-founder of FinancialOxygen, a banking technology company; and was a forensic accountant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. He holds a degree in economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. 

Chris is an active participant in the community as a sworn law enforcement officer, emergency medical technician, flight rescue officer and is certified in search management. Minimize

Pittenger has 15 years of experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining S&P, Pittenger held management positions as the CFO of Southern Trust, a subsidiary of SONA bank. He also served as the Director of consumer real estate and VP of strategy for Middleburg bank.  He graduated with an MBA from William & Mary. Minimize

He is the author of the banking blog, Street Talk, and host of the podcast by the same name. His in-depth analysis of the banking industry, including a focus on community banks, can be found on SPGMI's Research & Analysis feature, which includes historical and forward-looking performance figures.

During his tenure, he has regularly covered and participated on the conference circuit, moderating panels and webinars focused on major issues facing banks. He has spoken as industry events as well, offering updates on bank fundamentals, market conditions and forecasts for what lies ahead. He has been quoted in a number of trade publications and the national press, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Financial Times and has appeared on Fox Business News and NPR's Planet Money.

Nathan holds a Bachelor of Arts degrees from Washington & Lee University, where he majored in business journalism. . Minimize

Julieann is a former board member of the American Bankers Association and presently serves on the ABA’s Membership Council and Government Relations Administrative Committee. She is Chair of the new ABA Core Committee. She is a founding of member of Alloy Labs, a Consortium of banks nationally formed to innovate in the banking space. In 2014 Julieann was named to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Community Bank Advisory Council.

Locally, Julie is Chairman of the Cooperative Central Bank and is most recently a Director of ACBB resulting from its merger with Bankers Bank Northeast She is the Chair of the Lahey Hospital Continuum of Care Board overseeing Homecare, Hospice and Senior Care. In 2019 she was named to the Executive Committee of the Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation.

In 2014 and 2016, American Banker Magazine named Julie to its list of the 25 Women to Watch in Banking and the Commonwealth Institute has named Reading Cooperative Bank a Top 100 Women-Led Business for the past four years running.

In addition to an MBA from the Charles F. Dolan School of Business at Fairfield University, she has completed advanced studies at the Stonier Graduate School of Banking, Massachusetts School for Financial studies, Harvard Business School’s Division of Continuing Education and the CEO Leadership Lab at Wharton’s Aresty Institute for Executive Education. She is a proud member of the first cohort of Lawrence Leads, a cross-sectoral leadership program focused on civic engagement and social responsibility taught by Harvard Business School. Minimize

He is also the internal industry analysis SME on various banking topics, macro-economic analysis, and product development with a focus on financial forecasting / benchmarking.

Prior to Novantas, Bob garnered 10 years of experience in the banking industry as a consultant and an institutional investor for several top funds. Minimize

In addition, John is responsible for identifying synergies across the Community Markets solution portfolio, deconstructing into our Fusion Fabric.Cloud platform to deliver best in class services, driving an outside in view, with investments and developing go-to-market strategies. The goal is to empower customers to leverage their existing investments while moving toward next generation financial services solutions.

Prior to joining Finastra, John served in leadership roles at Firstrust Bank, TD Bank, and Chase. Before that, he spent a decade building startups in Hosted Services, Software, and Digital Marketing.  Minimize

Marshall is energized by the challenge of executing thoughtful strategies that ensure corporate longevity and deliver sustainable financial performance.  He is equally motivated to never lose sight of the fundamental processes that enable the bank to serve each client as a valuable individual.  Marshall holds a BA in Finance from Michigan State University. Minimize