Hanlon Advisory Board and Committee

Hanlon Advisory Board

Sean Hanlon '80, Chairman
Chairman, CEO and Chief Investment Officer, Hanlon Investment Management

Sean Hanlon is the founder and CEO of Hanlon Investment Management, an innovative asset management, services and fintech company that provides a wealth/managed accounts platform for clients, advisors, family offices, broker-dealers, banks and institutions. He has served on the Stevens Board of Trustees since 2010 and chairs the advisory board for the Hanlon Financial Systems Center at Stevens. He earned a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Stevens in 1980. Through their Foundation, Sean and Cathy Hanlon support many worthy causes and proudly support Stevens and its mission.

George Calhoun, Director
Professor, School of Business

George is an industry professor of finance at Stevens who directs the undergraduate Quantitative Finance program. He spent 25 years in the high-tech wireless communications industry. He co-founded InterDigital Communications Corp., where he pioneered the development of digital cellular technology. He later served as vice-chairman of Geotek Communications and as chairman of the company's engineering joint venture with the Rafael Armament Development Authority to develop a spread-spectrum, frequency-hopping radio system for fleet radio communications. Most recently, George chaired and served as CEO of Illinois Superconductor Corp., a public company focused on applying high-temperature superconducting materials and advanced signal-processing techniques to suppress interference in wireless networks.

Chris Ferreri '77, Vice Chairman
Chief Operating Officer, Hartfield, Titus & Donnelly

Chris has spent more than 30 years designing, developing and deploying electronic trading systems for capital markets. He is currently the chief operating officer of Hartfield, Titus & Donnelly and president and CEO of R.W. Smith. After receiving his B.E. in Electrical Engineering from Stevens, he worked at E.I. DuPont de Nemours before joining Garban’s U.S. Treasury division, where he was eventually charged with organizing a business line for hybrid electronic and voice trading and began developing ICAP’s hybrid e-commerce solution, ETC. He was the inaugural chairman of the Wholesale Markets Brokers Association, Americas, has been active in the legislative process of regulatory reform and is often called upon as a market structure subject matter expert.

Steve Joachim, Board Member
Executive Vice President, FINRA

Steve created FINRA's Transparency Services function in 2002 and has served as its executive vice president since 2003. He oversees TRACE, which provides real-time pricing information for fixed-income products and the OTC Bulletin Board, the OTC Reporting Facility and the trade reporting facilities. Before joining FINRA, he was chief operating officer and chief strategy officer of Plural, a custom interactive software and technology strategy business serving the investment banking business and he also worked at Merrill Lynch. He has served as chairman of the International Forum for Investor Education and as a member of the CFTC Technology Advisory Committee, the board of governors of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, the board of directors of Merrill Lynch Specialists and the board of directors of Wilco Inc. He also served on the Nasdaq Industry Advisory Committee and the American Stock Exchange Upstairs Member Advisory Committee.

Andrei Kirilenko, Board Member
Associate Professor, Cambridge Judge Business School

Andrei is an associate professor of finance at the Cambridge Judge Business School, the Founding Director of the Cambridge Centre for Finance, Technology and Regulation and a research fellow in the Financial Economics Programme of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). Previously, he worked at Imperial College Business School and MIT Sloan. His experience also includes serving as chief economist at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and spending 12 years working on global capital markets issues at the International Monetary Fund. In 2010, he received the CFTC Chairman's Award for Excellence, its highest honor. He earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in financial markets.

Brain Nigito, M.E. '26, Board Member
Senior Technologist, Jane Street

Brian Nigito is a senior technologist at Jane Street. In this role, he has worked on all aspects of trading systems and currently leads a group focused on low-latency systems. Brian is a 25-year veteran of the financial services industry. He has held several high-level positions, including Chief Software Architect at Island ECN, Chief Technology Officer at Inet ATS, Inc., and Director of High-Frequency Trading at Citadel. He also built and developed the trading systems used at Instinet Inc. and Chi-X Europe Ltd. At GETCO, he led and managed the firm’s New York operations, where he played a key role in expanding the firm’s involvement in U.S. equities options. Brian received a B.S. in Computer Science and M.E. in Computer Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology. He has served on NASDAQ’s Quality of Markets Committee, NYSE’s Electronic Traders Advisory Committee, CBOE’s Equity Advisory Committee, and as a board member of the Members Exchange.

Gregory P. Prastacos, Board Member
Professor, Stevens School of Business

Gregory was the Dean of the Stevens School of Business from 2012 to 2024. Before joining Stevens, he was a professor of management science and rector of Athens University of Economics and Business in Greece. He studied at Columbia University, where he received a bachelor's and master’s in computer science and a doctorate in operations research. He previously taught at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the Business School at Columbia University. He has also held visiting appointments at several international universities and research institutes. His professional interests include using management science and information technology to drive innovation. He has published five books and approximately 70 papers in international academic journals and edited volumes.

Frank Sorrentino '08, Board Member
Managing Director, FIG Investment Banking at Stephens Inc.

Mr. Sorrentino received a B.S. in Business & Technology from Stevens Institute of Technology. He is also a CFA charterholder and a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts. Frank Sorrentino joined Stephens in mid-2019 as a member of the firm's Financial Institutions Group in New York, where he covers investment banking for banks and thrifts in the Northeast region of the United States. Prior to joining Stephens, Mr. Sorrentino spent four years in the investment banking division at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods and nearly seven years before that at FinPro, Inc., a community bank consulting and M&A advisory firm. Throughout his career, Mr. Sorrentino has been involved in more than 40 M&A and capital-raising transactions totaling more than $5 billion.

Hanlon Committee

The Hanlon Financial Systems Center Committee is the key decision-making body of the center, and works closely with its Board of Advisors and Stevens faculty to identify key areas of research and establish short-range and long-range goals in pursuit of center's mission.

Dr. Chris Asakiewicz
Director, Business Intelligence & Analytics program
School of Business

Dr. George Calhoun
Executive Director, Hanlon Financial Systems Center
Director, Quantitative Finance program

Dr. Ionut Florescu
Director, Financial Analytics master's program and Hanlon Financial Systems Labs
School of Business

Nicole Malantchouk
Corporate Outreach Manager
School of Business

Dr. Gregory Prastacos
Dean
School of Business

Dr. Michael zur Muehlen
Associate Professor
School of Business