Management Team

Gerard Michael

President, CEO, director, and co-founder
Jerry has led the company’s growth and guided product development from Smartleaf’s conception. Jerry’s commentaries on tax-efficient investing and technology have appeared in publications that include The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Barron’s, Fortune, Forbes, Investment Advisor and Wall Street & Technology.
g.michael@smartleaf.com


Mark Nitzberg

CTO, director, and co-founder
Mark was a principal at Viaweb, which built the world’s leading e-commerce platform. Viaweb’s scalable, distributed browser-based system, now Yahoo! Store, is used by over 10,000 merchants to build, maintain and run online retail stores. Mark has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Harvard University.
m.nitzberg@smartleaf.com


Jim Kelley

Director
Mr. Kelley oversees private equity investments in various business sectors including: Financial Services; Airborne Communications; Transportation; Health Information Services; and Alternative Energy. He is also on the Board of Directors at Rainforest Maker, a non-profit organization focused on re-establishing environmental balance.
jmk@bostoncommerceventures.com


James Taylor

VP of Operations and co-founder
Jim has been involved with start-ups since he left a high energy physics lab at MIT to become a founder and officer of First Data Corporation of Waltham MA. Jim’s most recent start-ups were Flash (sold to Microsoft) where he was Director of Operations and Valent Software (supplier of technology for Lycos Clubs) where he was Vice President of Operations. Jim has a BS in Economics (physics minor) from MIT.
j.taylor@smartleaf.com


Todd Smurl

Chief Investment Officer / Director of Advisory Services
Todd has over 15 years experience in the financial services industry, including a decade long career in the bank trust industry. Prior to joining Smartleaf, he was an Executive Vice President at Compass Bank’s Wealth Management Group where he led the development of SmartPath, a Unified Managed Account (UMA) platform. Prior to joining Compass in 2003, Todd was a Senior Vice President with the Private Bank at Bank of America, holding several positions including Director of Alternative Investments, Regional Investment Strategist, and Portfolio Manager. He holds a B.B.A. from University of Central Arkansas and an M.B.A.from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
todd@smartleaf.com
6750 West Loop South Suite 500, Houston, TX 77401
tel: (713) 314-5818   fax: (713) 314-5918   cell: (501) 348-1107


Robert Thau

Chief Architect
Robert is the principal author of the widely used Apache web server, for which he and the other members of the Apache development team were awarded the 1999 ACM Software System Award. He has designed and implemented Internet systems that support medical decision making for W3Health Corp, as well as massively-parallel data-retrieval systems for Thinking Machines Corp. Robert has a Ph.D. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from MIT.
r.thau@smartleaf.com


Robert McKinley

VP of Operations
Robert has over 20 years’ experience at director and executive levels in operations and finance at a range of software and technology companies, including Shiva, NEON and Teradyne. Robert has an M.B.A from Harvard Business School.
rjm@smartleaf.com


Justin Van Til

VP of Business Development
Justin formerly led business development initiatives at Bullrun Financial and Asset Sciences. Previously, Justin worked at DALBAR Inc, providing market research and ratings on the quality of financial services providers. Justin has an MBA from Babson’s Olin School and a BA in Economics from Colby College.
jvantil@smartleaf.com


Daniel Terry

VP of Engineering
Prior to joining Smartleaf, Daniel directed research and development at Blindsight Corp. Previously, Daniel was a management consultant at Mars & Co where he worked with executive teams at Fortune 50 companies to improve performance and strategy. He received his B.A. in Computer Science from Cornell University.
daniel@smartleaf.com


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