Financial Institutions Update (March 25, 2021) - Speakers
Speakers
Robert Fleetwood, Partner, Barack Ferrazzano
Rob is co-chair of the Firm’s Financial Institutions Group, which is one of the largest in the nation serving community and regional banks, representing 250+ financial institutions. Over the past 5 years the group was ranked #2 legal advisor in the U.S. and #1 in the Midwest by announced bank and thrift M&A transactions and in 2020, our Group again ranked #1 in the Midwest region according to S&P Global Market Intelligence (by announced bank and thrift M&A transactions). Over the past decade the group has also been ranked ranked #1 in the Midwest and #4 in the U.S. (121+ M&A transactions; $6.6B+ deal value).
John Behringer, Partner, RSM US
John is the national financial institutions consulting practice leader and leads the Great Lakes financial institutions practice working with clients ranging in size from $100 million to over $100 billion. He has over 20 years of public accounting experience working specifically with commercial banks, both privately and publicly held, de novo institutions, mortgage banks, investment companies, and broker dealers. John focuses on providing advisory and risk management consulting services to commercial banks. He has extensive experience providing internal and external audit services, loan review, and credit administration risk management services. These services include SEC, Sarbanes-Oxley, and FDICIA reporting issues, internal controls implementation, and ongoing compliance services.
John Geiringer, Partner, Barack Ferrazzano
John leads the Financial Institutions Group’s regulatory practice at Barack Ferrazzano. He is a well-known banking attorney who handles regulatory compliance and enforcement issues for banks across the country. John is a Vice Chairman of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Banking Law, and previously served as the Chairman of its Enforcement, Insider Liability and Troubled Banks Subcommittee, and its Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering Subcommittee.
Katherine Fritzi Getz, Partner, Barack Ferrazzano
Fritzi is a partner in the banking group who advises financial institutions on corporate, regulatory and securities law matters. Fritzi regularly represents clients in connection with the review and negotiation of business contracts, including a wide range of vendor agreements and Fintech arrangements and partnerships.
John K. Freechack, Managing Director, Piper Sandler
John is a Managing Director in Piper Sandler's Financial Services Investment Banking Group. With over 15 years of financial institutions experience as both an investment banker and a commercial banker, John brings extensive knowledge of the regional and community bank sector. He concentrates on M&A and capital raising in the banking sector, primarily in the upper Midwest, and has completed more than 50 transactions totaling over $4 billion in deal value. John joined Piper Sandler in October 2015 from River Branch Capital LLC. Prior to joining River Branch in March 2013, John worked in the Investment Banking Group at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. John previously worked for a regional commercial bank where he was involved in acquisitions, finance, and lending.
Abdul R. Mitha, Partner, Barack Ferrazzano
Abdul focuses his practice on capital raising transactions, mergers and acquisitions, securities regulation, Fintech agreements and partnerships, and corporate governance matters. He has a wide array of experience in structuring corporate and financial transactions, most notably representing companies in merger transactions, and issuers, placement agents and underwriters in public and private offerings of debt and equity securities. Before joining the Firm, Abdul practiced in the corporate group at a large national law firm in New York.
Brandon Koeser, Senior Analyst, RSM US
Brandon is a manager with RSM’s financial services practice. He brings over 10 years of experience serving clients, both public and private, in the financial services industry, including broker-dealers, private equity funds and small business investment company (SBIC) funds, hedge funds and financial institutions with assets up to and over $1 billion. In his current role, Brandon serves his clients by providing industry-specific insights and thought leadership that allows them to stay at the forefront of the changes within their industry while also providing assistance with audit and accounting matters, financial statement audits, attest engagements and special projects, including specialized internal audits and risk assessment engagements, audits of internal controls over financial reporting, custody audits, and employee benefit plan and health and welfare plan audits.
Jennifer Docherty, Managing Director, Assistant General Counsel, Piper Sandler
Jennifer Docherty is a managing director and associate general counsel in the financial services group at Piper Sandler & Co. She has over 20 years of experience as a senior banking and legal advisor, including structuring and executing over $63 billion in capital raising for financial institutions since 2014, including over $25 billion through more than 130 debt and equity transactions in 2020. In addition to transactional work, Docherty works closely with management teams and boards of directors providing general strategic and industry advice. She is a frequent national speaker and panelist at industry conferences, and regular contributor to articles on banking and gender diversity. Docherty is the co-founder and founding director and chief executive officer of Bank on Women, Inc./WIN (Winning Strategies for Boards and C-suites), a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the community bank industry on the importance of adding qualified women to the Board and C-suites of community banks.
Anthony J. DeCandido, Partner, RSM US
Anthony DeCandido is a Partner at RSM US LLP and has over fifteen years of experience at the firm. Anthony serves as the Connecticut Financial Services Leader and is a fellow in RSM’s cutting edge Industry Eminence Program, which positions its fellows to understand, predict and communicate economic, business and technology trends shaping the industries RSM serves. Anthony has prepared research around a critical business theme affecting all industries – environmental, social, and governance (ESG) – and is a lead advisor within RSM’s ESG Advisory practice, where he guides clients through strategy development, data collection, and reporting and communications.
