About Shaking the Tree

Maryann Fernandez, Executive Producer & Co-Founder, Shaking the Tree Interactive Productions / Independent Philanthropic Advisor

Maryann Fernandez has had an impressive career spanning over 25 years across wealth management and social change with senior positions in private banking, philanthropy, and with Nobel Peace Laureate UN World Food Programme in Bangkok. 

As a Philanthropic Advisor, Maryann empowers her clients to envision significant positive changes they can bring about in their communities and the world. Her approach involves developing customized learning opportunities to engage all family members, thereby fostering a collective commitment towards their mission. She is adept at navigating the intricate dynamics within families and organizations, and with external partners, to create strategies that are practical and considerate of these relationships.

Since launching Shaking the Tree in 2000, Maryann has been involved as a writer, producer and facilitator for a majority of the Living Case Studies. She has a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP) designation and is a 21/64 Certified Advisor.

Carolyn D. Greenspon, Partner, Relative Solutions

Carolyn focuses her client engagement on ownership systems, transitions, and family governance. She has worked with families for more than 25 years to tackle complex issues that often derail individual and familial relationships.

She combines her depth of experience with a strong passion for teaching and mentoring to help the next generation of families to assume their role and responsibility as leaders of the family enterprise. Through her efforts, families are able to create effective family governance structures that span generations.

As a fifth-generation member of a business-owning family, including previous roles as a trustee and board member of her family enterprise, Carolyn is uniquely qualified to combine her specialized training with her personal experience navigating the complexity of a family which shares financial and business assets. The foundation of her work is a belief that “when you take care of the family, you take care of the enterprise.”

Dennis Jaffe, Research Fellow at BanyanGlobal Family Business Advisors.

Dennis’s work with families helps inform his learning programs for financial advisors and wealth managers about the knowledge and skills needed to serve their client families. He is an acclaimed speaker and workshop leader in programs for business families and financial service firms.

In 2021, Family Wealth Report recognized Dennis for his Outstanding Contribution to Wealth Management Thought Leadership. He was also cited as one of a hundred global influencers of family enterprise by the UK newsletter Family Capital.

He has had teaching or consulting engagements at Hult University in Dubai, the Pacific Asia chapter of Family Business Network, and the Advisory Board of Chinese University of Hong Kong. He was an original member of the Polaris team working with the Family Business Network to create a roadmap for family and business sustainability, as well as an advisor to Inner Will, a firm to support values in family enterprise.

David Kersnar, Artistic Director

David Kersnar, Co-Founder & Artistic Director, Shaking the Tree Interactive Productions / Professor of Practice in Theater, Penn State University

David Kersnar, is a founding ensemble member of the Tony Award winning Lookingglass Theatre Company and has performed, designed, written, instructed, produced, and directed with the company since it was founded in 1988, serving twice as the Lookingglass Artistic Director and Lookingglass Education Founder and Director. Kersnar recently co-wrote and directed for Lookingglass the smash-hit adaptation of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas.

David has also worked with the Goodman, Steppenwolf, Remains, Alley, Touchstone, Actor’s Gang, Natya Dance and Chicago Children’s Theatres, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Actor’s Gymnasium, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Lyric Opera and Chicago Children’s Choir.

Directing and writing credits include Sita Ram, The Last Act Of Lilka Kadison, La Luna Muda, The Magic Victrola, Popcorn and Pasquale, Don Quixote, Goodnight Moon, Flying Griffin Circus, Brundibar, Through the Looking Glass, The Lookingglass World Circus, and Lookingglass Lab.

Don Kozusko, Chairman of the Executive Board

Don Kozusko, Partner, Kozusko Harris Duncan 

Don counsels international and domestic entrepreneurs, investors, philanthropists, and privately-held businesses in the tax and legal issues relating to their investments, business activities, estate planning, and charitable endeavors. He has also served as a mediator and an advocate in disputes involving the control of privately-owned businesses, investment ventures, and family trusts.

His writings and speeches have been sponsored by such organizations as the American Bar Association and various state and local bar associations, the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation, American College of Trusts and Estates Counsel, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, Vanderbilt University, the Institute for International Research, Trusts and Estates, Family Office Exchange, Institute for Private Investors, and the Bureau of National Affairs.

Don participates in an interdisciplinary peer group of recognized advisors devoted to a family wealth management practice, known as the Collaboration for Family Flourishing. He is listed in the Best Lawyers in America and Chambers (USA).

Stephen McCarthy, Executive Board

Stephen McCarthy, Seasoned Family Office Executive

Stephen McCarthy has 50 years of relevant experience in the financial services industry and foundation management arenas. For 20 years, he held increasingly complex executive positions in strategic planning, credit/risk management, capital markets and retail brokerage at UBS/PaineWebber, BOA/Security Pacific, Deloitte, Citibank and Pru-Bache. Subsequently, he spent 30 years actively managing his family’s investment office and family foundation with his late father, Jack McCarthy - MP/CIO of Lord Abbett (est. 1929/$214B AUM). 

He served on the Portfolio Subcommittee for Wesleyan's endowment and the investment committee of Bon Secours, a Catholic healthcare system. Current (or past) member/Board of Director/Trustee for such groups as the Institute for Private Investors, The Greenwich Roundtable, The Gotham Triangle, Philanthropy New York, Council on Foundations, FORGE.

Aside from Shaking the Tree, Stephen is Partner/Lead Investor/Executive Producer, Quixotic Endeavors, which develops and distributes documentaries on iconic brands and individuals and is Mentor of the Year/ Coach/Judge at NYU/Stern's annual $300K business plan competition. 

Paul McKibbin supports family offices on business and operational risk assessment, and on re-engineering and family office systems and technology.

He is a specialist in the information architecture of family offices and has selected, designed and implemented risk management, reporting and accounting infrastructures for some of the world’s most sophisticated family offices.

Prior to joining Ernst & Young LLP, Paul was a Managing Partner with Family Office Metrics, a globally recognized leader in providing management consulting to single family offices. Prior to this, he was founder and president of Private Family Networks, a provider of secure virtual family office platforms for global single family offices.

Paul is a regular speaker on family office technology topics. He has a Bachelors degree in English and a Master’s degree in Organizational Behavior, both from the University of Pennsylvania.

Isabel Miranda, Founding and Managing Partner of Pearlman & Miranda 

Isabel Miranda’s practice focuses on Trusts & Estates Law. she advises multi-generational families on estate planning, family governance, the administration of their estates and trusts, succession planning for their closely held businesses and charitable planning. Her peers consider her a thought leader on client-centered, values-based estate planning. 

Before founding Pearlman & Miranda, Isabel was the CEO of Heritage Family Wealth Consulting and the Managing Partner of a solo law practice. Prior to that, Isabel was the Managing Partner of the Trusts & Estates Law practice at DeCotiis, FitzPatrick & Cole. 

Before her legal career, she managed the trust business at the U.S. Trust Company of New Jersey as Senior Vice President and Director, Chief Trust Officer. Before U.S. Trust, she was Vice President and Director of The Citibank Private Bank, where she headed the domestic personal trust business and also founded Citicorp Trust South Dakota.

Dennis Passis, Vice Chairman of the Executive Board

Dennis Passis, Founder, The Family Wealth Library

Dennis Passis is currently a mediator facilitating the resolution of commercial disputes and conflicts between family business owners and is the founder of the Family Wealth Library. Critical to his success is his 40 years of owning and operating a family business that produced trade shows in the United States, England and Europe. His ability to establish trust, generate creative alternatives, and diffuse emotional scenarios in a pressurized environment is invaluable to his success as a mediator.

For the past 25 years he has been on the Chicago Regional Board of the Anti Defamation League (ADL) and has served as Chair of the Development, International Affairs and Legacy committees. For the past 10 years he has served as a National Commissioner of ADL and currently serves on the Development, International Affairs and Marketing committees. He has a bachelor’s degree from Roosevelt University and a J.D. from DePaul University College of Law.