Seagate Advisors
Seagate Global has successful veteran advisors from different financial industries to help guide and develop our endeavors.
Gene Krinn, CFA
Senior Advisor
Mr. Krinn has over 30 years’ experience in the financial services industry, during which time he founded and led as Managing Director (for nearly 12 years) a 14-person single family office that served the various needs of a 32- member Chicago-based family spanning three generations.
Under Mr. Krinn’s leadership as CIO and COO, the family office team was responsible for structuring managing a multi-billion dollar portfolio with a wide range of investments including private equity, hedge funds, separate accounts, and cash management, and worked directly on seven major multi-million dollar construction projects for family members with their chosen relationships of architects, builders, insurance, security, legal and sub-contractors. This family office was recognized by Family Office Exchange (FOX) in its 2008 study of Best Practices.
Mr. Krinn is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and serves as a consultant advising on investment portfolio construction, risk management strategies, and compliance and fiduciary planning for corporate retirement plans, endowments, foundations and wealthy families.
Mr. Krinn received his BA in Classical Greek, from Concordia College in Fort Wayne Indiana and his Masters of Divinity/Counseling from Concordia Seminary.
Greg Dyra, CFA
Senior Advisor
Mr. Dyra advises Seagate principally on projects involving family businesses and ultra high net worth family office direct investments, as well as alternative asset investing, private equity, and hedge funds.
He is currently a senior financial advisor to members of an ultra high net worth family, and is the founder of the MidSouth Alternative Investment Association (http://www.msaia.org/home), an association of over 700 alternative investment professionals in Tennessee and surrounding states. Mr. Dyra previously served as Assistant Treasurer at Vanderbilt University, where as a member of the University’s investment team he covered investments in public equity/fixed income investments and hedge funds, representing over 70% of the University’s $3.0 billion endowment. He also served as a Portfolio Manager at Northwestern University, where he oversaw asset allocation modeling for the University’s $3.0 billion endowment.
Mr. Dyra is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), began his career as a CPA with Arthur Andersen & Co., and earned his BBA from Loyola University in Chicago and his MBA from The Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
Joel Jacobson
Managing Director, Fintech and Blockchain Innovation
Joel has an extensive background in investment management and decentralized finance. During his ten years at The TCW Group in the 1990s, his team started the Asset Allocation category, an innovation at the time. He conducted multiple new-technology and data implementations at TCW, as well as at Securities America, Kaspick-TIAA, and CalPERS.
In 2018, Joel turned his attention to integrating proven investment practices into the new world of decentralized finance, designing decentralized currency structures and global investment platforms at Seagate Global.
Joel graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a Bachelors of Economics and has a Masters in International Management from Thunderbird School of Global Management.
Michel de Vriendt
Sustainability Advisor
Michel De Vriendt, born in Belgium, was educated in Automotive Management and Business Marketing. He has previously worked in Belgium and Indonesia in vehicle production and in 1994 was appointed Deputy Managing Director of Daewoo Australia and then Managing Director of Motor Group Australia. Mr. De Vriendt lived in Sydney, Australia for 11 years with his wife Emiko and their 2 children.
Mr. De Vriendt later moved to Shanghai, China in 2005 with his firm Premium Finance Group (PFG), that specializes in advice for venture capital property development projects that deliver social impact in Asia. PFG’s core values are to create an environment to help clients achieve economic success and financial security through sustainable environmental projects.
Mr. De Vriendt has been a Rotarian for 15 years, joining The Rotary Club of Shanghai in 2005 where he has been on the Board, the Rotary Foundation Chair and now a member of the Environmental Sustainable Rotary action group. Over the last 10 years, Mr. De Vriendt has developed sustainable social environmental projects for the Kashin Beck Disease Foundation (KBDF), Qinghai Tree Reforestation project, E-Waste control, and Green IT Classrooms in Shanghai.