The Board of Directors

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Throughout her career, Maryann Fernandez has been an industry leader in creating substantial opportunities for multiple stakeholders to convene, explore and solidify ways to work together.

As an independent consultant, Maryann brings decades of experience and insight from both the private and public sectors to her work with a diverse set of clients, ranging from wealthy families to US-based non-profits to large multi-national organizations. The primary focus of her consultancy includes partnership development, resource mobilization, organizing/refining complex processes, donor engagement, strategic planning and philanthropic advisory.

Prior to her consultancy, Maryann served as Senior Partnerships Officer for the Regional Bureau for Asia & the Pacific for the UN World Food Programme, developed custom philanthropic learning journeys for Philanthropy Indaba, and produced many wealth management industry events in multiple roles including VP Family Education Services at Harris Private Bank. 

David Kersnar is a Founding Ensemble Member of Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre Company where he has served as Artistic Director and head of its Education and Community programs. 

As our group’s artistic influence and leading practitioner, David has written and directed several interactive case studies for the financial services industry and managed several educational workshops using theatrical techniques in problem solving exercises. 

Additionally, David has designed, directed and performed in over 50 productions with Lookingglass Theatre Company, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Children’s Choir, Chicago Children’s Theatre, Northwestern University, Roosevelt University, has also appeared with the Goodman, Steppenwolf and Remains Theatre companies, and performed critical roles in numerous television, radio and film productions. 

He received a BS in Theatre and Performance Studies and an MFA in Directing from Northwestern University. 

 Stephen J. McCarthy is the Managing Director of KCG Capital Advisors, a family investment office/ foundation administration venture that he co-founded with his late father, John M. “Jack” McCarthy, a former Co-Managing Partner/CIO of Lord Abbett ($195B AUM private partnership established in 1929). Mr. McCarthy has almost forty-five years of diversified professional experience in the financial services, philanthropy, theater, entrepreneurship and film sectors.

Mr. McCarthy has been trustee of his family’s 34-year-old private foundation, represented his clan as a long-time member of the Institute for Private Investors (IPI), is a founding member/trustee of The Greenwich Roundtable (GR) and a cofounder of The Gotham Triangle (TGT). Separately, he is Chairman of the 2018 FWR award winning Shaking The Tree (STT) theater group (www.shakingthetree.org) and a Partner/ EP with Quixotic Endeavors (QE), a film production firm featuring corporate/individual biopics such as “Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s”, “Crazy About Tiffany’s”, “Harry Benson: Shoot First”, “Always At The Carlyle”

and “Alan Pakula: Going For Truth”.  

Don Kozusko provides tax and legal advice to family offices, businesses, investors, and philanthropists. He has also served as a mediator, an advocate, and an expert witness in trust and business disputes.

Don graduated from Villanova University and Harvard Law School.  After practicing as a partner in two multi-national law firms for over twenty years in litigation, private capital markets, and tax and trust planning, Don became a founding partner of Kozusko Harris Duncan in 2000.

The partners of Kozusko Harris Duncan have advised wealthy families for over 30 years. Afterworking in inter-disciplinary teams, and reflecting back on his career experience, Don has been drawn to the study of risk management, with particular emphasis on scenario planning, cognitive bias, family dynamics, and structural evolution in governance.

Paul McKibbin is an Executive Director in the Ernst & Young LLP’s Americas Family Office Advisory practice. He has more than 20 years of experience in advising families on the creation, management and optimization of family office services tailored to their unique needs. 

Prior to joining EY in 2016, Paul was a Managing Partner of Family Office Metrics, a firm that provides targeted business consulting on management, operations and technology applications for family offices. Previously the director of GPFN, a wholly owned subsidiary of Guggenheim Partners (GP), he developed its highly secure “Virtual Family Office” websites which provided a blueprint for knowledge management while enhancing the overall interaction of family members, trustees, staff and various advisors.

Before his firm’s acquisition by GP in December 2004, Mr. McKibbin was the founder and president of Private Family Networks (PFN), a vice president with SEI and a consultant with The Metropolitan Group. An entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience creating financial software solutions, he received a BA in English and MA in organizational behavior from the University of Pennsylvania. 

For over 40 years, Dennis have been one of the leading architects of the field of family enterprise consulting. As both an organizational consultant and clinical psychologist, he helps multi-generational families to develop governance practices that build the capability of next generation leadership and ensure ongoing capability of financial organizations and family offices to serve their family clients.

His work with families helps inform financial advisors and wealth managers about the knowledge and skills needed to serve their client families. He’s an acclaimed speaker and workshop leader in programs for business families and financial service firms. He is an associate with Wise Counsel Research, a think tank that sponsors my research and offers professional education workshops.

He is also a Family Business Fellow at the Smith Family Business Initiative at Cornell University, a faculty advisor at the Ultra High New Worth Institute, a regular contributor to Forbes Leadership channel, reporting on family cross-generational family business and wealth, and a professional member of STEP, Society for Trust and Estate Planners.

Carolyn is a Partner and Senior Consultant at Relative Solutions. She integrates her extensive experience working with families with her passion for teaching and mentoring the next generation 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 and both a trustee and board member of a 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. Her belief that “if you take care of the family, you take care of the business” is at the foundation of her work in the areas of ownership systems, transitions, and family governance.

Prior to Relative Solutions, Carolyn had a psychotherapy practice for 18 years, working with children, adolescents, adults, and families. In addition to her work as a therapist, she had a private consulting practice working with multi-generational family businesses whose family members share assets.