Our Team

Peter Levant, Managing Director

Peter Levant has more than 25 years of professional experience in finance. He is Managing Director at Northern Advisors.

In 1991, Peter began his career in trade execution with Dean Witter Reynolds in Chicago. In 1993, he was an Investment Associate with Morgan Stanley where he executed trades for Hedge Funds and HNWIs. While at Morgan Stanley, Peter managed bespoke research projects for hedge funds. In 1995, Peter was a Senior Research Associate with Optima Investment Research Inc. At the time, Optima was a futures and options research firm serving institutional investors. Optima produced daily quantitative and technical financial market research. While at Optima, he opened the account for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

In 1997, Peter was a Trade Desk Manager with the commodity futures firm Braymore-Oak Brokerage Services, a guaranteed introducing broker for First American Discount Corp which was later acquired by MAN Financial.

In 1998, he founded Northern Advisors, an independent institutional investment research business.

Peter has a Masters in Finance from London Business School and an MBA Summa Cum Laude from EDHEC Business School in France. He completed the Commodities Institute at the Chicago Board of Trade and the Professional Traders Institute at the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

Peter has been a speaker at financial conferences around the world. Peter has been a speaker at the DePaul University Business School, ETF.com Index Universe Conferences and on Bloomberg Television. He has travelled to more than forty countries on four continents meeting with institutional investors and businesses.

Kenneth N. Chakiris, Advisory Board Member

Ken taught at the University of Iowa and Harvard. He has spent more than 30 years helping make organizations and people more effective.

He has worked successfully with the full range of organization types and sizes, from Fortune 500 companies such as Motorola and Harley Davidson to medium and small businesses. Ken started his career as a research scientist in Mathematics. He has learned to design, teach and implement programs to develop business acumen.

He applies a unique blend of practical business savvy, excellent people skills and a scientific mindset to help solve the challenges confronting organizations. He co-authored the book: Change Management: A Model for Effective Organizational Performance.

Ken's interests include Computer Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Columbia University in New York.

Simke Simovic, Advisory Board Member

Simke has more than two decades of experience with software and technology. He has been an entrepreneur launching new companies, as well as an executive helping existing businesses become better.

He has extensive experience managing teams of computer programmers in multiple global locations writing and developing software, in addition to experience with business development, client acquisition and business strategy.

Simke's strengths are his analytical skills, perseverance and ability to find solutions to complex problems. He has successfully steered and guided the merger and acquisition of several multinational technology companies.

Simke has lived and worked in numerous countries and he speaks three languages. His interests include Jazz music composition and travelling. Simke studied Physics and Philosophy and received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Belgrade.

Jaime Pinto, Advisory Board Member

Jaime has more than 20 years of technology experience. He spent 7 years in the semiconductors industry, and then 13 years in the mobile and internet industries as a serial entrepreneur.

Prior to founding two successful technology start-ups in France and India, Jaime designed integrated circuits for the mobile telecoms, VLSI Technologies, Philips Semiconductors and STMicroelectronics.

Jaime speaks five languages and has lived in six different countries. He feels at ease in multicultural and complex environments. Innovation, entrepreneurship, strategy and competition analysis are his main interests.

Jaime holds an Electronic Engineering degree from Polytecnico Di Torino (Italy), a Micro-Electronics Engineering degree from the Institute of Sciences of Montpellier (France) and an MBA from EDHEC Business School (France).