Kara Duckworth, CFP®
Duckworth Wealth Advisors
LIFEvest Chairperson

Kara is a wealth manager and the firm’s Managing Director of Client Experience and Client Advisor. She manages client relationships, provides financial planning services and serves on the firm’s investment committee. Think of her as a friend who will tell you the truth. Kara also manages the firm’s personal office services. To Kara, seeing a client achieve a dream is the most rewarding part of her job.

Named a “5-Star Wealth Manager” by Orange Coast magazine, Kara attended UC Riverside and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix. She is a Certified Financial Planner® and a member of the Financial Planning Association. Kara sits on the board of the Center for Investment and Wealth Management for the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. As if that doesn’t keep her busy enough, she also chaired the steering committee for the school’s Financial Literacy Summer Residential Program for five years.

Tere Segarra
Pacific Life Foundation

Feroz Ansari
Compak Asset Management

Senior Principal and Portfolio Manager. He is a CFP® (Certified Financial Planner™) certificant. He holds an MIM (Masters of International Management) degree from ASU - Thunderbird, Graduate School of International Management, Arizona, and an MBA from the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi, Pakistan. He has completed risk management, trading, portfolio management, leadership and financial management programs at The Oxford University in England, INSEAD in France, Citibank Training Center-Singapore, Euromoney in New York and Emirates Bank Training Center in Dubai. Feroz Ansari published a research paper dealing with dual exchange rate mechanisms and has conducted training programs for treasury management and foreign exchange.

Prior to joining Compak, Feroz worked in banking and treasury management. He held positions at Banque Indosuez, Faysal Bank and Emirates Bank International. Feroz has over 22 years of experience in banking, treasury management, asset allocation and asset management. He started his career in 1993 as a Treasury Associate at Banque Indosuez and held the Position of Treasurer, Head of Treasury & Corporate Banking and Deputy General Manager at Emirates Bank.

Feroz enjoys playing golf with his two boys and he loves to read and stay informed. He likes to travel to different places to play golf with his boys. He has had one “hole in one” and his lowest score was 79, but that was 15 years ago! Now he is happy to break 90. Feroz has a passion for reading and learning. He belongs to a local book club that is mostly comprised of his close friends.

Feroz has also been selected to serve on the Client Advisory Council of Wealth Advisor Services at Fidelity Investment Institutional Service Company. He is also active in the local community. He serves on the Board of Advisors of University of California-Irvine’s Center for Investment and Wealth Management (CIWM). At CIWM he serves on numerous “Financial Literacy” sub-committees.

Chad Bollenbach
Canterbury Consulting

Chad Bollenbach is an investment consultant to families and institutions and assists clients with asset allocation, portfolio construction and wealth strategies. Prior to joining Canterbury, Mr.Bollenbach was a senior wealth advisory analyst for Capital Group Private Client Services focusing on asset allocation and investment planning. He previously worked at Trenwith Securities as an investment banking associate and at AXA Advisors as a financial consultant. Mr. Bollenbach received an MA in Latin American studies and BA in international relations from Stanford University.

Stuart Blair
Canterbury Consulting

As the director of research and a shareholder of the firm, Mr. Blair is responsible for all functions related to research on investment managers, asset classes, and capital markets. Mr. Blair oversees the activities for all five of Canterbury’s Asset Class Committees, serving as chair of the Hedge Funds and Private Equity Manager Research Committees, as well as the Capital Markets and the Canterbury Outsourced CIO Committees. Prior to joining Canterbury, Mr. Blair was the director of public equity and research at Sobrato Capital, the securities investment platform of The Sobrato Organization. There his responsibilities included broad asset class research, manager due diligence on public and private assets, and tax optimization of both taxable investment pools and a large charitable foundation. Prior to Sobrato Capital, Mr. Blair was a senior analyst at Canterbury, where he focused on asset allocation, manager research, and capital market assumptions. Mr. Blair holds a Bachelor of Science in finance from California State University, Long Beach and is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst.

Ashley Bleckner
Ellevest

Ms. Bleckner is an Financial Advisor at Ellevest. Prior to Ellevest, she joined RS Crum in 2015, Ashley spent nearly four years with a wealth management firm based in Toledo, Ohio serving as a Client Relationship Manager where she helped develop, coordinate, and implement financial plans and manage day-to-day client requests. Ashley takes great pride in her client relationships.

Actively involved in the community, Ashley is a member of ProVisors, the Orange County FPA, the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA), and CalCPA. Ashley has volunteered her time on a number of philanthropic projects, including the Center of Investment and Wealth Management at UCI (LIFEvest), “It’s Your Money,” Alzheimer’s Association, and is a co-founder of the Austin Kudzia Scholarship.

Ashley has previously studied in Florence, Italy and has taught several college classes in Economics. Ms. Bleckner has a Bachelor of Science in Business Economics from Miami University and a Masters of Arts in Economics from Bowling Green State University.

Ashley lives in Capistrano Beach with her two dogs, Ella & Fitzgerald, and her fiance. Her hypo-allergenic pups sometimes even grace the office with their presence. She spends her weekends with them at the beach and exploring the beautiful outdoors that California has to offer. Ashley also has a passion for travel, education and the arts.

Wendy Chen
Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management

Wendy Chen is a relationship manager in CIBC Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management's Newport Beach office, with more than 16 years of industry experience. In this role, her primary focus is to manage client relationships and implement strategies designed to help clients achieve their financial goals.

She also works closely with clients and their advisors to create and implement tailored wealth management solutions and contributes to several of the firm’s employee engagement and women’s initiatives.

Wendy earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in legal studies from the University of California, Berkeley and volunteers with the German Shepherd Rescue of Orange County. Additionally, she sits on the advisory board for the Center of Investment and Wealth Management at the University of California, Irvine's Paul Merage School of Business.

Marleny Cheshire
BNY Mellon

Chris Lum
PAAMCO Prisma

Kevin Wiest
Windes

Kevin has nearly 20 years of experience in public accounting and is a partner in the firm’s Tax & Accounting Services department. Prior to joining Windes in 2019, Kevin was a partner with an established regional public accounting firm, where he specialized in Estates & Trusts.

Kevin’s professional focus is helping high-net-worth individuals and their families minimize taxes through his extensive knowledge of individual income tax, estate and transfer taxes, fiduciary income tax, gift tax, generation skipping transfer tax, as well as postmortem planning, and estate and trust administration.

Kevin also has experience in fiduciary accountings prepared for trusts and estates and filed with courts of law supporting mediation and litigation where beneficiary disputes have arisen.

Hyun Swanson
UC Office of the President

Hyun is a seasoned benefits professional with over 20 years of experience. Early in her career, she was a consultant at Arthur Andersen and Ernst & Young, helping clients design and implement competitive benefit programs. She then moved into an internal HR role as global benefits manager at AES Corporation, overseeing health and retirement plans strategy and administration.

Hyun joined the University Of California’s Office of the President in 2013 and now serves as the Director of the UC Retirement Savings Program. Among her many responsibilities is managing the systemwide program operations and communications/education initiatives, which feature robust resources to help UC faculty and staff build retirement readiness. “Success” to her means that employees understand UC’s generous retirement benefits, as well as make smart financial decisions that will ensure that their money lasts through retirement.

Hyun holds a BA in Economics from Johns Hopkins and a MPH from Yale. An East Coast native, she currently lives with her husband and two kids in beautiful Irvine, CA.