Jeffrey Wernick

Jeffrey Wernick is a seasoned independent private investor in various sectors across the global economy. Mr. Wernick started his career trading options and futures on the CBOE, CBOT and the CME. In 1971 when President Nixon suspended converting dollars into gold at $35/ounce, a 15-year old Mr. Wernick invested his then life savings of $5,000 into gold stocks, which grew to approximately $250,000 in 1974 when he entered the University of Chicago and began trading. After graduating, he went to Salomon Brothers to do quantitative research and trade the firm’s and partners’ capital. Following Salomon Brothers, Mr. Wernick became the Senior Financial Economist at the National Bank of Detroit (NBD). As the Bank’s youngest Senior Officer, he chaired the Risk Management Committee, the Loan Pricing Committee, the ALCO, the Credit Committee and Mortgage Finance. He implemented the earliest known private placements of structured securitization including underlying assets of mortgages, credit card receivables, auto loans, commercial real estate, office buildings and retail real estate. Following his 18-month tenure at NBD, Mr. Wernick started his own company, AVI Portfolio Services Company, Inc. AVI specialized in risk management, transaction consulting, credit insurance and market maker in tailored, exotic derivative products. In 1984, he sold AVI to the largest insurance company with diversified financial interests. In 1984, he began focusing on developing the real estate accumulated and opened up a venture capital company specializing in all areas of technology. He also created a hedge fund to manage his own personal wealth and invested in distressed and bankrupt companies, precipitating changes in the operations of the enterprises and the restructuring of their balance sheet. Some of his notable investments have been in the sharing economy, bank transactions, lending platforms, Bitcoin and Blockchain, biomedical, human genome project, payment systems and biotechnology. Mr. Wernick is a frequent presenter on finance and economics having spoken at the OCC, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, among others. He has also advised governments stressed by economic crises, financial system architecture, legal reforms, pension reforms, tax policy and government finance. Mr. Wernick is a graduate of the University of Chicago with degrees in economics and finance.