“Marketing to Financial Advisors”

Frank Tirado is Vice President, OIC Education and a member of the Industry Services management team at The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC), the world’s largest equity derivatives clearing organization and foundation for secure markets. He is responsible for educational initiatives for individual investors, financial advisors and institutions. Before the Options Industry Council, Frank was Director of Trader Marketing at TD Ameritrade and led the marketing team responsible for the strategy, planning, and execution of integrated marketing plans for the trader segment, trading platforms, mobile trader app, derivatives, portfolio margin and Asia operations. Before TD Ameritrade, Frank was Senior Manager for Brokerage Marketing at E*TRADE Financial and led the growth strategy for the trader segment and trader education. Frank also spent seventeen years at CBOE and held positions in domestic and international business development, marketing, The Options Institute, and regulatory services. Frank has extensive experience helping investors, traders, and financial advisors understand the importance of options as an investment tool and helping firms build their options business. He was also an Instructor for the Options Institute and the Options Industry Council and presented seminars in the U.S., Canada, and Latin America in English and in Spanish. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from the University of New Mexico; has a Master of Science in International Business; and completed the SIFMA Securities Industry Institute® executive education program at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Erik Kobayashi-Solomon has parlayed 20 years’ experience on Wall Street to found Framework Investing, a company that trains individuals and organizations to measurably improve their decision-making processes, confidently assess the value of public and private companies, and intelligently structure investment portfolios.  Before founding Framework, he served as a buy-side analyst covering Japanese equities, the market risk manager of an $800 million global long-short hedge fund, Morningstar’s Market Strategist, the head of listed derivative operations for a bulge-bracket investment bank in Tokyo, and as the Director of Research for a financial data provider. He was also engaged by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation as the architect of the bank’s standardized valuation model for emerging market private equity portfolio and prospects.  In October 2014, McGraw-Hill published his first popular press book The Intelligent Option Investor: Applying Value Investing to the World of Options. In addition to this book, he was the author or principal co-author of several book-length guides to corporate valuation and investing strategies used in private training courses.  Erik’s specialties include corporate valuation, option pricing, portfolio risk control, financial model design, and behavioral finance. Investing articles Erik has authored have appeared in prestigious publications globally (e.g., Nikkei Shinbun—Japan, Business & Economy—India, Wall Street & Technology—U.S.) and he contributed key sections regarding equity market volatility to the Ibbotson SBBI Year Book.  Erik, the son of a NASA scientist father and a professional violinist mother, graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Texas at Austin, where he majored in Asian Studies and Japanese. After working in Japan for several years as a teacher, translator, and television actor, he won a full-ride scholarship to study business at the top-ranked school for international business in the United States—Thunderbird—in Glendale, Arizona. Erik graduated Summa Cum Laude from Thunderbird and was selected as the outstanding student of his graduating class.  Erik lives in Chicago, Illinois with his family and enjoys hiking and reading. In his spare time, he volunteers at the local Japanese school to teach children Kendo—the Japanese art of swordsmanship.

Eric oversees all investment strategies and portfolio management activities at the firm. Prior to joining SpiderRock Advisors, Eric was the Derivatives Strategist and Portfolio Manager at RiverNorth Capital Management, managing both mutual fund and hedge fund assets. Eric graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Michigan with a B.S.E in Industrial and Operations Engineering and earned his M.S.E., with honors, in Industrial and Operational Engineering. Eric was enrolled in the Industrial and Operations Engineering PhD program at the University of Michigan before pursuing his career path with the Chicago Trading Company on the floors of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). After the trading floors, Eric was a senior trader and partner at Ronin Capital and Bengal Capital, both proprietary trading firms specializing in volatility arbitrage. Eric is a CFA Charterholder, a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Chicago.

Rob Pinkerton is chief marketing officer for Morningstar. An expert in consumer, business, and technology marketing, Pinkerton was previously chief marketing officer for HelloWallet, a leading provider of online financial wellness, which Morningstar owned from 2014 to 2017. Before joining HelloWallet, Pinkerton served in executive marketing and product roles for Adobe Systems, LexisNexis, and Siebel Systems (which was acquired by Oracle).   Pinkerton was also a legislative counsel with responsibility for technology and social policy issues in the U.S. Senate during the 104th and 105th Congress. Pinkerton holds a bachelor’s degree in economics, political science, and history from the University of Richmond, a juris doctor degree from the University of Baltimore School of Law, and a master’s degree in business administration with concentrations in information technology management, marketing, and strategy from Carnegie Mellon University.