This October, The Adviser will take a select delegation to San Francisco, home to Silicon Valley and global tech innovation. This is an invitation-only event for close contacts and stakeholders of The Adviser’s editorial team. You’ll have the unique opportunity to hear first-hand from some of the world’s top technology and data firms to see how they're revolutionising mortgage lending and broking, and opening up lucrative new markets. We’ll introduce you to some of the nation’s biggest-hitting brokers to find out how they dominate their market in the USA – and how you can apply their strategies to your own business.
The Adviser’s US Study Tour is not just about the unique opportunity to give your business a significant competitive advantage - it offers so much more for its elite delegation. Not only will you have the chance for an intimate personal interaction with our speakers, panellists and luminaries, it’s also a powerful networking opportunity for Australia’s leading mortgage industry professionals.
The Adviser US Study Tour is exclusive with limited places available. Confirm your place early to ensure you don’t miss out.
Due to the connections made and the information gained from the tour, I have implemented new systems to automate my processes, introduced new revenue streams and now have more contacts within our industry to help me become an even better broker.
This was by far the best learning experience I have had.
Through sheer force of reputation and enormous effort, the organisers gathered together a series of presenters of the highest calibre from across the entire mortgage industry.
The attendees represented a cross-section of the Australian mortgage industry that was equally impressive and that has resulted in a number of key business relationships that have generated real business for us.
A first-class event that could not be faulted – from the accommodation, to the excellent range of speakers and evening events.
The tour connected us with some of the most influential finance minds.
Without exception, the most impactful, well organised, structured, industry-leading and relevant event I have ever attended.
By far, this was hands down the BEST business event of last year, and my career, to date.
The impact this event has had on my business ensured that I was more informed and consequently ahead of my competition.
Peter’s session alone will be worth the trip to San Francisco. He has been at the forefront of technology and data innovation for many years and has written several books, on a variety of future-oriented topics.
His first book, The Art of the Long View (Doubleday, 1991) is considered by many to be the seminal publication on scenario planning, was voted the best all time book on the future by the Association of Professional Futurists and is used as a textbook by many business schools.
Inevitable Surprises (Gotham, 2003) is a look at the forces at play in today's world, and how they will continue to affect the world.
He also wrote The Long Boom (Perseus, 1999) with co-authors Peter Leyden and Joel Hyatt, which is a book about the future of the global economy.
His book When Good Companies Do Bad Things (Wiley, 1999), is an argument for corporate responsibility in an age of corruption.
China's Futures (Jossey-Bass, 2001), is a vision of several different potential futures for China.
He also co-authored the Pentagon's An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.[4]
Peter has also worked as a consultant on several movies, including Minority Report, Deep Impact, Sneakers, and WarGames. He serves on the board of directors for the Long Now Foundation. He also serves in the boards of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and the Asia Internet Coalition In 2007, Schwartz moderated a forum titled "The Impact of Web 2.0 and Emerging Social Network Models" as part of the World Economic Forum in Davos. He serves on the Research Innovation and Enterprise Council of Singapore and in 2014 was appointed an International Distinguished Fellow of the Prime Minister's Office. He was also voted into the Futurists hall of fame by the Association of Professional Futurists in 2012. Additionally, Schwartz is also a member of the Berggruen Institute's 21st Century Council.
Stephen Bulfer is a 5x entrepreneur, start-up advisor, and active angel investor with Berkeley Angels, 500 Startups, among other networks. He has participated in 2 successful exits to NetApp (ionGrid) and Dropbox (Clementine). Stephen has a unique blend of enterprise and startup experience; business and technical, which helps him position the team for success across the startups and deals he drives. His enterprise experience extends to White House/Executive Office of the President, HP, Visa, MasterCard, Allstate, Kaiser, P&G, and over 50 Fortune 500 organizations. His mission in his last corporate role as an EIR was to build a startup ecosystem and portfolio, connecting large Silicon Valley tech firm to the startup ecosystem. He met with over 1,500 startups within 24 months across many domains including fintech, drones, robotics, IoT, wearables, collaboration, security, and more. Engagement included strategic investment / M&A, joint engineering/dev, and/or GTM.
Stephen's recent venture is StreamLoan, a platform to allow customers the easiest way to buy or refinance a home. Stephen has built another A team, killer product, aligned with a huge market and clear pain point. StreamLoan is venture backed. Stephen holds two master's degrees from Columbia Business School and University of California Berkeley.
Courtney Keating Chakarun is Senior Vice President, Innovation & Marketing at CoreLogic. Courtney directly oversee marketing and drives the 3-year CoreLogic playbook for growth and innovation across the enterprise. Additionally, Courtney’s team works in partnership with our business units and cross functional teams to create a shared product management approach to accelerate and drive commercial excellence.
Courtney joined CoreLogic in fall of 2014 to lead innovation efforts and combine her passion for data, technology and delivering solutions for growth and an optimal customer experience.
Prior to CoreLogic, Courtney held various leadership roles at General Electric. Most recently, she led new product innovation, mobility and research insights for GE Capital’s Retail Finance division.
Courtney has a track record of driving growth in digital payments and consumer lending. She developed and launched numerous innovative credit card programs in the United States and throughout the European Union. Courtney commercialized a complete suite of mobile products to allow customers to apply for credit, service and pay with their phones in the retail environment. She led the launch of the first Walmart Discover dual card and utilized her quality experience to develop Walmart.com e-apply. Courtney delivered the first AVON MasterCard and Visa co-brands in Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic.
Courtney earned a BSBA in Marketing from the University of Arkansas and MBA from the Sam M. Walton College of Business.
By collaborating with leading financial institutions, entrepreneurs, and fintech developers,Yodlee has become a disruptive catalyst for creativity and ingenuity for millions of consumers and small businesses all over the world. Anil and Yodlee lead the charge in driving the global consumerization of financial data to create a more financially informed generation, and ultimately a stronger global economy.
Over the last 30 years, Anil has innovated new market strategies and increased the lifetime customer value for some of the world's most recognized brands such as General Mills, Kraft, and Gateway. Anil will share insights on how data can significantly improve customer satisfaction and broker productivity.
Jason Madiedo is the Co-founder and CEO of Alterra Home Loans, a minority majority-owned, U.S. mortgage bank with loan coverage in 20 U.S. states. Alterra is strategically focused on serving the underserved consumers in markets they serve, and are committed to their mission to help build wealth through homeownership.
Alterra was voted by Mortgage Tech Magazine as one of the Top Tech Savvy Companies along with one of the fastest growing by Hispanic Business Magazine. Jason is the perfect combination of compassionate leader and results-driven executive that understand that his people are the company’s number one asset. He began his career in the Mortgage industry over 23 years ago as a Loan Originator for over 15 years, later holding several positions, from Underwriter, Manager, Sr. Manager to Executive.
A second generation mortgage professional, he is very passionate about assisting hard-working consumers and continue in his mother’s footsteps; helping to build wealth and community through the purchase of a home. He has served as national president for the National Association for Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP) both Nationally and at the Chapter level. Madiedo currently serves on the board of The Mortgage Collaborative and on the Advisory boards for both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Matt Swanson is the founder and CEO of Augment, a customer experience-driven artificial intelligence platform, and is responsible for driving the strategic direction and vision of the company. He also serves as the managing partner of Silicon Valley Software Group in which he advises a number of enterprises on their technology strategy. Prior to founding Augment, he co-founded Google Ventures-backed SpeakerText in 2010 and served as its CTO before the company was acquired by CloudFactory in 2012.
Matt received his M.S. in Computer Science and Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. As a researcher, he worked with computer vision and machine learning systems to support one of the first industrialized self-driving agriculture vehicles.
Ori is a marketer turned entrepreneur. Ori started his career in advertising, working with MasterCard, Unilever, ExxonMobil, and Intel to better understand their customer’s motivations and how to engage with them.
In 2013, Ori co-founded Sindeo, a company on a path to change the way people make their largest financial decision: their mortgage. Sindeo grew to over 100 employees, provided hundreds of millions of dollars of mortgages in 12 states, saved homeowners more than $25 million, while delivering industry-leading customer satisfaction scores. Ori took the startup from idea through acquisition, being a core driver of strategy, culture, and marketing.
Today, he’s working with early- and mid-stage startups to build a strong foundation to enable rapid scale, as well as with more established companies on creating an innovative, entrepreneurial culture and teams.
With 13 years of experience in management consulting, Rajesh Bhat cofounded Roostify to create an easier and more efficient way of securing a loan and purchasing a home. A proven negotiator and technologist, Rajesh previously led numerous Fortune 500 companies in IT, outsourcing deals ranging from $20M to $1B in total contract value.
Nikesh Kalra is a Silicon Valley native, Nikesh currently commercializes next generation products for Equinix, focusing on Enterprise transformation segments including security, SDN/NFV, and cloud. He was previously in cloud & IT industry marketing for Equinix, helping grow the business from $400M (900+ customers) to $600M (1,200+ customers) in 2-years and overtaking the network vertical to become the largest revenue segment.
Prior to Equinix, Nikesh led strategy, business development, and sales efforts for a number of innovators in the cloud and network infrastructure including Aryaka Networks (SDN/SDWAN), Front Porch Digital (storage management, acquired by Oracle), Digital Fountain (networking, acquired by Qualcomm), and StreamVision (CDN). As an investment banker, he served as an advisor on over $1B in technology and digital media sale and financing transactions.
Nikesh is a grass-roots philanthropist, an advisor to several entrepreneurs, and a hands-on parent. He holds an MBA from the University of Oxford and a BS from the University of Southern California’s Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurship.
Will Oberndorf is an early-stage venture investor based in San Francisco with several years of venture capital and investment banking experience. Will runs venture investments for Oberndorf Enterprises, LLC, the Oberndorf Family office, where he is responsible for the identification, evaluation, consummation and management of new venture investments. Will primarily focuses on investing in the fintech, real estate tech, insurance technology and other industries where the Oberndorf family has had domain expertise / experience. He seeks to find investments that have synergies across the Oberndorf Family office's other business units, including a principal real estate investment arm and a concentrated public markets portfolio. Will is a Stanford University graduate and has a deep passion for fly fishing and Bay Area sports teams.
David Wind is a Vice President at Earnest and has extensive experience in consumer finance with a deep background in residential mortgage lending. Formerly, he ran the Home product at SoFi and partnerships and product development at Guaranteed Rate, one of the nation's largest home lenders. Originally from NY, David has an undergraduate degree from Boston University, a Masters of Finance from New York University and a JD from New York Law School
Dr. Christine A Parlour, Professor of Finance, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. Currently teaching the FinTech course in the Berkeley-Haas MBA program.
Vince White has worked in the mortgage industry for 18 years where he has traded mortgages for several large institutions that include MortgageIT, Staten Island Bank (SIB) Mortgage, American Pacific Mortgage, and for the last 4 years Alterra Home Loans. At Alterra Vince is responsible for the interest rate risk management, pricing, and post-closing of loans. He graduated from University of Florida with a major in Finance and minor in Economics. Vince also received an MBA from University of Miami. He was born in England and currently resides in Las Vegas. He enjoys hiking, tennis and cycling.
Alex Whitlock
Director
The Adviser
Steve Weston
Financial Services Executive
(Emcee)
Jim Hall
Head of Events & Professional Development
The Adviser
Philip Tarrant
Director
The Adviser
PLEASE NOTE: Delegates will be responsible for having a valid passport and relevant US visa, arranging their own travel from Australia to San Francisco as well as hotel transfers, travel insurance, plus additional personal expenses or incidentals.
Closer to departure, a full travel pack will be sent to delegates, including:
Pre-departure information
Background on the US market
General information (accommodation, transfers, what to pack, currency etc.)
Suggested activities while you are in San Francisco
Four-day study tour agenda
Final delegate and attendee list
Three-day conference agenda, speakers and bios
For any further information or event enquiries, please contact:
Michael Magee
Phone: (02) 9922 3300Ronan McGowan
Phone: (02) 9922 3300