Bill Salus is CEO and Founder of Paddock Consultancy and the Co-Founder of Paddock Capital Markets. He has more than 30 years of experience in executive management, business development, and relationship management in the investment and financial services industry both in the U.S. and abroad. Bill holds several Paddock engagement Advisory Board positions and is a domain and subject matter expert in mergers & acquisitions and other capital transactions. Bill consults with asset, fund, and investment servicing firms on engagements across the investment management ecosystem.Before founding Paddock Consultancy, Bill was the Global Chief Executive Officer for Apex Fund Services, where he oversaw management of global operations, execution of all strategic product initiatives, global marketing, and go-to-market efforts. Prior to Apex, Bill served as Director and Relationship Executive within the Asset Services group at BNYMellon, where he was a member of the pilot team for Global Financial Institutions, a bank-wide relationship management structure.Prior to BNYMellon, Bill was Executive Vice President at PNC Global Investment Servicing (formerly PFPC) where he was responsible for new business across 14 business lines and was on the management team that engineered the sale of PNC GIS to BNYMellon. Bill also held senior positions at KeyCorp, Security Pacific Bank, and SEI Investments, and was a member of the ICI International Operations Advisory Committee and the ICI International Committee.Bill serves on the Finance Committee for the Ronald McDonald House of Wilmington, DE, has served on the New York Chapter of Help For Children, and was named to Global Custodian magazine’s Securities Services Hall of Fame.Bill earned a B.A. degree from Wilkes University.
Ghassan Hakim is Senior Vice President Global Shareholder Services at Paddock Consultancy and has served in senior executive and senior advisory roles in financial services companies for more than 40 years. Ghassan is currently offering senior advisory services to several financial services and global technology firms in the global transfer agency, shareholder services, operations, and technology space.Prior to Paddock Consultancy, Ghassan was Senior Vice President at Franklin Templeton for 22 years, having first joined Franklin Templeton as a consultant to manage the conversion of 8 million mutual fund shareholder accounts onto a single platform, and then leading the team responsible for preparing the transfer agency for Y2K. Ghassan also held the role of Senior Vice President of the Services Bureau at Franklin Templeton, and for 11 years served as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board for Riva Financial Systems, a majority owned subsidiary of Franklin Templeton, where Ghassan oversaw the worldwide deployment of a global transfer agency solution. Simultaneously, Ghassan served as Chair to the Investment Company Institute’s International Operations Advisory subcommittee for 12 years and was frequently speaker at ICI and NICSA operations conferences.Early in Ghassan’s career he was responsible for strategic planning for BISYS Fund Services, was part of Continental Bank’s technology group, was senior systems advisor to a European consortium in oil operations, served as technology specialist to Kemper Funds where he internalized transfer agency operations and technology, led the initiative to relocate Kemper’s data center, and drove the effort that resulted in the purchase of the Multiple Asset System (MAS) and the growth of the company’s services.Ghassan earned a B.S. degree from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, and an M.B.A., Systems Management, from DePaul University, Chicago.
Elisa Colkitt is Senior Advisor at Paddock Consultancy and has served in executive and senior roles in banking, brokerage, and financial services companies for more than 30 years. Elisa is currently offering senior advisory services focused on strategic business planning and execution; complex change management; mergers, acquisitions, and system integrations; and risk, regulatory, compliance, and relationship management.
Prior to Paddock Consultancy, Elisa was Director, Institutional and Personal Retirement Operations for Bank Of America – Merrill Lynch, where she supported a $15M initiative to ensure efficiency while mitigating risk for over $1B in assets. Before joining Bank of America, Elisa was Senior Vice President, Mutual Funds Brokerage Operations for Wells Fargo Advisors, where she transformed processes and teams to drive Wells Fargo’s initiatives with industry partners and acted as business executive on cross-site regulatory initiatives for Money Market Reform, DOL Fiduciary Rule, and Swing Pricing. Prior to Wells Fargo, Elisa was Managing Director, Sub-Accounting for BNY Mellon where she directed service management and supported strategic relationships, tripling their sub-accounting business from $50M to $150M.
Early in Elisa’s career she was President of Elisa C. Colkitt Financial Services Consulting, working with large asset management and broker/dealer operations on omnibus processing and organizational re-engineering specializing in transfer agency conversions, and spent 23 years at Delaware Investments where she served as Vice President, Brokerage Operations, directing expansion of Broker Services, Broker Relations, Administration and Commissions, Sales Administration, Project Management, Communications, and Training and Development operations.
Elisa was Chair of Back Office Business Continuity Committee for the ICI, member of ICI Broker Dealer Advisory Committee, Board Member of NICSA, committee member for DTCC Advisory Board, former panelist in various mutual fund industry conferences, and was an active participant in NICSA, ICI, and SIFMA. She acted as executive sponsor for Bank of America Diversity and Inclusion and Employee Engagement.
Elisa is a former board member of The Children’s Village in Philadelphia, and former chair of RoseTree Media Relay for Life American Cancer Society.
Elisa earned a B.A. degree in Mass Communications from Bloomsburg University, currently holds Series 99, and formerly held Series 6 and 26 Principals Licenses.
Jeff Solomon is Senior Advisor, Capital Markets at Paddock Consultancy. Jeff has more than 15 years of experience in investment banking and management consulting. In each of his prior roles, Jeff was instrumental in driving M&A transactions to completion by providing founders and CEOs guidance in navigating the deal-making process. Since 2011, Jeff has advised on more than $65 billion in transaction volume.
Before joining Paddock Consultancy, Jeff was Executive Director at Moelis & Company, where he worked hand-in-hand with management teams to design high-touch, customized M&A sale processes. On each process, he “quarterbacked” the construction of marketing materials (including marketing presentations and financial forecast models) and the assembly of a dataroom to house due diligence documents. He was the point person for all initial buyer inquiries and helped to facilitate the bid process. Once bids were gathered, Jeff worked with sellers to determine strategy for negotiating the optimal deal.
Prior to Moelis & Company, Jeff was with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he provided both buyside and sellside M&A advisory services to large corporate clients and private equity funds. During these mandates, Jeff was responsible for delivering fairness opinions on major public company transactions that would later be published in SEC filings.
Early in Jeff’s career he worked for Accenture, where he served as management consultant to a broad spectrum of industries. During engagements, Jeff interfaced with subject matter experts to re-design business processes and implement software solutions to streamline operations.
Jeff is a Board member of the New York City cooperative building where he resides with his family, and served as the President of the Board in his prior residence cooperative building.
Jeff earned a B.S., Industrial Engineering degree from Purdue University, and an M.B.A., Finance & Accounting, from Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business.
Erin is a strategic thinker and designer with a decade of experience in building things from the ground up. She currently works as the founder and principal of Matter, a design firm that solves problems that span from brand to digital experiences and the built environment.
She has worked extensively in the Venture and start-up space in the Northeast, with both start-ups and funds on design, visual and narrative strategy, and brand development. Her practice, Matter, has completed award-winning work n architecture, product, and brand design and has been recognized globally for its work.
Erin has taught and coached extensively in architecture and design at universities, including Harvard, Cornell, Parsons, The City University of New York, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. She holds an M.Arch II from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University, and her MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology.
Paddock Consultancy’s mission is to bring expertise and resources to clients in the asset servicing space who are facing challenges of growth, expansion, and changing operating environments, through short-term mission critical engagements, and long-term advisory relationships.
How We Got Here
Paddock Consultancy was brought together to assist asset servicers in rethinking growth strategies and unlocking investment opportunities. We recognize that fund administrators and other service providers require deeply experienced partners to help them define, plan, and execute strategic, corporate, investment, acquisition, and divestiture initiatives.
At Paddock, we view every client relationship like a partnership, immersing ourselves in your business to provide value, insights, and actionable plans to help you get to where you want to go.