RAY JOSEPH
Ray Joseph is a results-driven financial professional with over 20 years of experience in investment management, asset allocation, internal and external public market portfolio management, and private market transactions. Ray’s recent role was the Chief Investment Officer for the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension Funds. Before his appointment at LAFPP, Ray was a vice president with Wilshire Associates and a director at Barclays in New York.
Ray received a Presidential Appointment as the Chief Investment Officer for the Office of the Special Trustee, managing assets with the U.S. Interior and Treasury Departments. Ray also served as the Deputy Chief Investment Officer and the Acting Chief Investment Officer for the State of New Jersey’s Division of Investment. Before New Jersey, Ray created and directed Idearc Media (Verizon Information Services spinoff) Pension and Defined Contribution investment programs based in Dallas, Texas.
He began his career in acquisition and development roles for Pacific Bell(AT&T), GTE Internetworking(Level 3), Nextel(T-Mobile), and Switch and Data(Equinix).
Ray is a member of the investment committee for Triphammer Ventures I and III, completed a B.S. in Finance at SUNY Buffalo, and an M.B.A. at Cornell University.
RICK MORENO
Rick Moreno is a Managing Director and Senior Advisor at BlackRock. He is a long-time finance executive with nearly 40 years of experience in the US Capital Markets. Rick was previously Director of Business Development and Client Experience at Aperio Group, which was acquired by BlackRock in February 2021.
Prior to Aperio Group, Rick established the Family Office business in the Western US for KKR & Co. Prior to that he was a Managing Director at BlackRock where he helped establish the firm’s Family Offices, Foundations and Endowments group. Before BlackRock, Rick served as Director of the Client Research and Strategy group at Goldman Sachs, and he was a member of the Steering Committee that established the Goldman Sachs Trust Company.
Rick began his investment career at Salomon Brothers, working as a Director in the Fixed Income Research Division. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Economics, with honors, from Santa Clara University.
Outside of BlackRock, Rick is actively involved in 10,000 Degrees, a non-profit organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area. 10,000 Degrees strives to achieve educational equity by supporting students from low-income backgrounds to and through college.
STACIE OLIVARES
Stacie Olivares is a board director, Chief Investment Officer, and advisor to founders, funders, and policy makers on capital markets, financial security, DeFi/Web3/NFTs, ESG, and DEI. She advances economic value and equity through innovation in finance, technology, policy, and media.
Olivares serves on the corporate boards of Core Scientific (NASDAQ: CORZ), Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA), and Mission Advancement Corp (NYSE: MACC), the nonprofit boards of the Latino Community Foundation and Hispanic Heritage Foundation, and the advisory boards of UC Berkeley’s College of Letters & Science, SUMA Wealth, and the California Emerging Technology Fund.
Nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the United States Senate to the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board in June 2022, Olivares oversees the world’s largest defined contribution plan, the Thrift Savings Plan, on behalf of its 6.5 million participants. From 2019 until 2022, she served as California Governor Gavin Newsom’s appointee to the board of administration of CalPERS, the largest public pension fund in the United States with $500 billion AUM and healthcare benefit provision for its 2 million members.
Olivares was Chief Investment Officer of Lendistry, a minority-owned CDFI and fintech lender from 2019 to 2020 and of the $29 billion California Organized Investment Network (COIN) insurer ESG investment fund from 2011 to 2018. She was also the Senior Advisor on blockchain to the 4th largest insurance market in the world, guiding its implementation of distributed ledger technology. Prior to working at Morgan Stanley from 2008 to 2011, Olivares led the State of California’s economic advisory board from 2002 to 2007 guiding the State’s leadership on economic strategy, bond issuance, global capital markets, and legislation on its $1.7 trillion economy. She joined the State from Palm, Inc. where she led 4 of Palm’s 5 major smartphone global accounts with $40B+ combined market cap value.
She is an alumna of the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University.
QIANA PATTERSON
Qiana Patterson is an experienced tech operator and investor, specializing in B2B SaaS in enterprise, fintech, healthtech, AI/ML and cloud. With her, she brings over 15 years of experience in the growth, operations, project/product management expertise in the technology industry.
She was the founding COO for Edlio, an LA-based K12 edtech company and prior to that she served as the Interim CEO and Vice President of Operations for Educational Networks, a leading content management software SaaS company. Additionally, she led strategic expansion for HopSkipDrive, a modern mobility tech company based in Los Angeles. Currently she is the Managing Partner at Nayah, leading operations and investments , focused on early stage founders who are building true community power, shared wealth and well-being. Qiana is passionate about building true community power and is currently the Chair of PledgeLA, founding investment committee member of The Cap Table Coalition and a mentor for organizations like Black Ambition and Techstars.
