John D. DesPrez IIIChief Executive Officer | John D. DesPrez III, a prominent executive in the financial services industry, was appointed InspereX’s Chief Executive Officer in January 2015. Mr. DesPrez previously served as CEO of John Hancock Financial Services and as Chief Operating Officer of Manulife Financial Corp., one of the largest diversified insurance groups in the world. Mr. DesPrez oversaw the U.S. operations of Manulife for 10 years, during which time the company purchased John Hancock. As CEO and President of John Hancock Financial Services, Mr. DesPrez oversaw a broad-based financial services operation with multiple business lines, including annuities, mutual funds, group pensions, college savings plans, structured financial products, managed accounts, and life and long-term care insurance. In addition to Manulife’s U.S. operations, Mr. DesPrez was later also given responsibility for Canada and Asia, and then became COO with oversight of all the firm’s operating businesses around the globe. A native of Cleveland, Mr. DesPrez majored in economics at Harvard College and graduated from law school at Georgetown University. He previously served on the Board of Governors of the Investment Company Institute and the Board of Directors of the American Council of Life Insurance, both in Washington, D.C. Mr. DesPrez continues to serve as an honorary trustee of the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. Mr. DesPrez also serves on the boards of Halstatt, LLC, a Collier family holding company, Haversine Funding, LLC, a non-bank lender, and of the Boca Raton Museum of Art. |
Brad Busscher is Chief Administrative Officer, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of InspereX and is responsible for overseeing the legal, compliance and technology departments. He is also a member of the InspereX Executive Committee.
Prior to joining InspereX in 2009, Mr. Busscher served as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Mesirow Financial, where he was a member of the Executive Committee, supported a diverse group of operating entities engaged in brokerage, asset management, insurance, private equity and hedge fund of funds activities and participated in several material acquisitions by the firm. Before that, he held senior level positions at Van Kampen Investments – a unit of Morgan Stanley, and Kemper Securities / EVEREN Securities, Inc. / First Union Corporation (n/k/a Wells Fargo Advisors). He also served as a Branch Chief of Enforcement of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and began his career in private practice in Miami, Florida.
Mr. Busscher holds a BA from Cornell University, a JD from the University of Miami and an MBA in Finance and Accounting from the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business. He recently completed his term as a Director of the National Society of Compliance Professionals, published a chapter in a securities treatise (“Corporate Transactions: The Role of Compliance”), and is a frequent speaker on securities regulatory issues.
Christine Carrels is the lead champion and guardian of the InspereX brand, having orchestrated its launch in 2021. She oversees the firm’s digital-first approach to building the firm’s reputation, engaging clients, and educating investors.
She is a veteran of creating, managing, and analyzing content to help build relationships for organizations ranging from start-ups to non-profits to the Fortune 500. Before joining InspereX in 2016, she was the director of marketing for a regional bank in Illinois for eight years, partnering with executive management to grow the bank’s market share.
Ms. Carrels graduated magna cum laude from the University of Illinois and was the lead writer and researcher for a published photo history of the university. She volunteers frequently for charitable causes and is a past president of Illinois Women in Leadership.
Aditi Deeg is an experienced strategist who leads all of InspereX’s financial matters, including accounting, financial planning & analysis, regulatory financial reporting, as well as oversight of risk management.
She brings over 20 years of public and private sector experience with a proven track record in scaling businesses. Prior to joining InspereX, Ms. Deeg was the Chief Financial and Operations Officer of charity: water, a global nonprofit organization, where she was responsible for overseeing all financial strategy and scaling operations. Previously, Ms. Deeg spent over a decade in the financial and tech sector, holding the position of Chief Financial Officer at pingmd, a digital healthcare solutions company, and Kingstown Capital, a high growth value hedge fund. She also held various positions at Bear Stearns and Banc of America Securities.
Ms.Deeg currently sits on the Board of several nonprofit organizations. She holds a BA from University of Maine and an MBA from the New York University Stern School of Business.
Laura Elliott helped co-found InspereX’s predecessor firm Incapital in 1999. As As President of Partnerships & Engagement, she specializes in business development and relationships with the firm’s top-tier clients.
Previously, Ms. Elliott worked at ABN AMRO as Syndicate Manager for the GMAC SmartNotes program, responsible for all dealer relationships. Prior to ABN AMRO, she was at Mesirow Financial for nine years, working consecutively in compliance, retail and institutional sales, and high-yield trading.
Ms. Elliott earned her BS in education from the University of Alabama and currently serves on the President’s Cabinet at the university. She has served as a member of the Bond Dealers of America board and the SIFMA Retail Fixed Income committee. She belongs to the Women’s Syndicate Association and the Security Traders Association of Chicago.
As Head of Product, Douglas Galm ensures that our technology development meets the needs of our external and internal customers. He has more than 30 years of experience in the financial services industry.
A former corporate bond trader, Mr. Galm parlayed his trading experience into a product management career developing software for fixed income participants. An 18-year Bloomberg veteran, he was an early member of the TOMS team and a cofounder of ETOMS, where he developed many of the e-trading tools still in use today.
Mr. Galm spent 3 years at TMC, where he established and led the firms ‘PDQ’ department (product development, quality assurance and helpdesk). A member of the senior management team, he was responsible for the implementation and support of the firm’s largest wealth management client in the company’s history.
More recently, he spent 3 years at S&P Global Ratings where he was a strategic lead in the technology product management department.
Steve Giles oversees InspereX operations and broker dealer business continuity and vendor management programs.
Prior to joining InspereX, he spent 21 years at Manulife Financial and its U.S. division John Hancock. While there, he held a variety of operations management positions, including most recently, Vice President of General Account Investment Operations. His experience includes mutual funds, variable annuities, fund administration and fixed income investments and operations.
Mr. Giles earned a BS in Business Administration from Northeastern University’s University College and an MSF from Boston College. He previously served on the Board of Visitors for the Northeastern University Business School and on the MBA Finance Career Track Advisory Committee. He holds Series 7, 24, and 27 licenses.
George Holstead is President of InspereX’s Fixed Income division, encompassing all fixed income trading, dealer and institutional sales, and the capital markets practice, including debt and equity syndicate businesses, and the firm’s industry-leading InterNotes program, offering individual investors access to new issue corporate debt offerings.
Mr. Holstead joined InspereX in 2019, bringing more than two decades of sales experience coupled with a track record of establishing and expanding highly successful fixed income divisions for large regional broker-dealers such as Raymond James and Sterne Agee. Prior to InspereX, he was a managing director at Brean Capital, where he was responsible for the build-out of the Middle Market and Financial Institutions Group.
A graduate of Texas Wesleyan University, Mr. Holstead holds FINRA Series 7, 24, and 63 licenses
Hugh McHaffie leads InspereX’s development and distribution of market-linked products through its expanding presence in the financial advisor, banking, and broker-dealer communities.
Hugh is a veteran of the wealth management industry, previously having served as President of John Hancock Wealth Management, a division that offers mutual funds, retirement savings products and annuities. In addition, he oversaw John Hancock’s Investment Management Services and served as President of the John Hancock Trust and John Hancock Funds II mutual fund complexes. Prior, he was Senior Vice President, Individual Business Product Management for MetLife and served as Chairman of the Metropolitan Series Fund. A graduate of the University of Toronto with a BA in economics, Hugh is formerly a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and past member of the American Academy of Actuaries.
Marshall Nicholson has primary responsibility for guiding InspereX’s technology strategy and extending our partnerships. He is an experienced executive with more than 20 years in fixed income technology.
Most recently, Mr. Nicholson served as a senior advisor at SumRidge Partners, a technology-driven fixed income market maker specializing in corporate bonds, municipal bonds, and institutional preferred securities. Previous to that, he was President of ICE Bonds at Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). He has also held executive leadership roles at Millennium Advisors, Knight BondPoint, and ValuBond. He started his career in sales at Scudder Investments & Thompson Financial.
Mr. Nicholson earned his MBA from the University of Georgia and his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Sean O’Connor is the original architect of InspereX’s BondNav platform and now leads the technology team. He was a co-founder of predecessor firm 280 CapMarkets in 2016, and he has overseen the development of BondNav since then. Mr. O’Connor has more than 15 years of software engineering experience, including principal and lead engineering roles at several fintech startups such as Prosper Marketplace.
Kayur Patel ensures that InspereX meets the highest standards of data privacy and security for the safety of the firm and its clients. He brings a wide array of technology experience to the firm, having worked in roles ranging from desktop support to front-end site coding to content management. His information security career spans multiple fintech companies, including roles in enforcing Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance for global consumer finance companies such as TransUnion and Prosper Marketplace. Mr. Patel earned a bachelor’s degree from Penn State University and a master’s degree from Chestnut Hill College.
Deryk Rhodes is responsible for the origination and trading of market-linked products (MLPs), maintaining issuer relationships, and overseeing MLP sales to dealers, institutional investors, and non-wholesaled financial advisors. Prior to joining InspereX in 2010, he was with Newbridge Securities as Head of Structured Products Trading. His experience also includes serving as a Director at Citigroup, focusing on market-linked product sales to third-party dealers and institutional accounts, and as a Vice President within the market-linked products structuring and trading group at Nomura Securities. Deryk has been a frequent speaker at industry conferences and is regularly quoted in investment journals.
Dave Rudd is a 20-year veteran of institutional fixed income sales and trading, and one of the visionaries behind 280 CapMarkets. Driven by a belief that dealers should compete for advisors’ business, and that technology should play an integral part of that process, he set out to develop a new firm with a new perspective; a conflict-free model centered around Best Execution. Prior to 280, Mr. Rudd was Director of Fixed Income Capital Markets and a top producer at RW Baird in San Francisco. Previous roles include Institutional Sales at RBC Capital Markets, Piper Jaffray, and Fidelity Capital Markets. He is a native of Silicon Valley and a graduate of the University of Arizona with a degree in Economics.
John Tolar oversees InspereX’s Dealer Sales and Institutional Sales teams, including all efforts to bring InterNotes corporate debt, U.S. agencies, CDs, corporates, mortgage- and asset-backed securities, preferred stock, and municipal bonds to broker-dealers, institutional investors, registered investment advisors, and banks. He has been with the firm since 2003. Previously, Mr. Tolar held sales roles at Countrywide Securities and FTN Financial, and worked as a Portfolio Manager for SunTrust Bank. He earned a BS in business from Florida State University and holds Series 7, 24, and 63 licenses.
Sara Wehmeyer leads InspereX’s efforts to attract, recognize, reward and develop best-in-class talent in order to drive organizational effectiveness and productivity.
An experienced executive with direct experience in all aspects of human resources, Ms. Wehmeyer previously held a variety of roles focused on human capital within the wealth management industry. She spent 16 years at UBS Wealth Management Americas, most recently serving as Head of Talent and Development, where she partnered with the business on accelerating the firm’s wealth management transformation efforts via high-quality training, structured talent management processes and leadership bench development. She previously held a number of leadership roles including Senior HR Business Partner, Head of Compensation Strategy & Consultation, and Head of Next Gen Programs and Campus Recruiting, as well as roles in both fixed income and equity sales.
Ms. Wehmeyer graduated summa cum laude from the Pennsylvania State University and is a frequent speaker on human capital issues.