Leadership

John has nearly three decades’ worth of experience in the origination, analysis, structuring and trading of asset-backed securities and private investments backed by a wide variety of consumer and commercial asset classes, as an analyst, banker, trader and investor. He has executed transactions large and small in all market conditions, employing innovation and technical ability to develop transactions that satisfy both the counterparties’ capital needs as well as the capital providers’ investment objectives.

John started his career in the structured finance advisory unit of a top accounting firm, learning the business from the bottom up through data analysis and the reverse engineering of practically every type of asset-backed and mortgage-backed transaction. During this time, he earned his CPA license.

After several years of learning the business in this manner, John attended Columbia Business School, where he focused on corporate finance. During the Summer following the first year of business school, John interned at Bear Stearns where he gained exposure to the structuring and trading of securitized products and high yield bonds.

The next phase of John’s career entailed roles as a trader and banker at Bear Stearns, Salomon Smith Barney (later Citi) and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he increasingly focused on the aggregation and structuring of various off-the-run asset classes.

This path eventually led to an investment role at a global hedge fund, where he further refined his investment approach working alongside a leading specialty finance investor, and later expanded the depth and breadth of his market and product knowledge while at a leading alternative asset manager prior to co-founding J2.

John earned a BS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

John’s 25+ years in finance encompass multiple facets of the industry, including legal, banking and investing. During his career, he has amassed considerable product knowledge and expertise in a variety of financial products, from secured and unsecured lending to asset-backed securities and private equity investments. This multi-faceted background allows John to optimize each financing opportunity in order to provide the type of funding that best suits each capital-seeker’s specific needs.

Starting out at a major law firm focusing on complex tax matters, John developed a strong understanding of the transactional aspect of the financial markets. As such, he transitioned to a banking role at Lehman Brothers, where he eventually rose to the position of head of esoteric ABS banking, a role that saw him lead a team that executed cash and synthetic financing transactions for a variety of counterparties involving various asset classes that included corporate loans, credit-linked notes, legal fees, structured settlements, commercial aircraft, cell towers, FCC licenses, intellectual property rights and utility rate reduction bonds.

Capitalizing on the knowledge acquired and the network of issuers and investors developed while a banker, in 2005 John commenced his investment career, first serving as chief investment officer of a Florida-based family office, and then founding North Fork Partners, a private investment vehicle through which he executed a variety of direct loan transactions, portfolio purchases and private equity investments, spanning multiple asset classes and industries.

John holds a B.S. in Physics from Virginia Tech, a J.D. from William & Mary and an L.L.M. in Taxation from New York University. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the Virginia Tech Foundation and is an active member of the Foundation’s Investment Committee.