Friends of the Fund.
SMIF hosts alumni, faculty, and industry experts to participate in class discussions and offer insights into the market. The Fund benefits from a talented and intensely loyal group of successful alumni.
Our Team
Joe Mazzella
Joseph Mazzella was a Managing Director/Head of Commodity Index Trading for Goldman Sachs. With over 25 years of experience in trading commodities, Joseph possesses the unique ability to synthesize information and analyze risk in a fraction of the time it takes others. This skill set and his fearless but far from reckless trading style, made him and makes him to this day, one of the most skilled traders in the world.
Brian Jacobs
Brian Jacobs, CIMA is the President of Green Harvest Asset Management and has over 30 years of experience in global asset management. Brian is the former President of Direxion ETFs and the CEO of the Hatteras Alternative Funds. Previously, Brian led distribution organizations at Eaton Vance and Allianz/ PIMCO where his distribution teams raised over $200 billion in AUM. He started his career as a Financial Advisor in New York City. Brian earned a B.A. in Economics from Montclair State University and completed the Allianz Global Leadership Program at the International Institute for Management Development (I.M.D.) in Lausanne, Switzerland. Brian also is an Adjunct Faculty member at the Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University where he teaches a graduate-level class: Disruption in Financial Services.
Mario DiFiore
Mario DiFiore is Senior Assistant Dean, Director of Student Managed Funds, Adjunct Professor of Finance and Business Economics at Fordham University's Gabelli School of Business, Co-Director of the Corporate Compliance Institute, and a three (3) time winner of the top adjunct professor award at the Gabelli School of Business (Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching Among Adjunct Faculty). Mario also serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Financial Compliance, an internationally peer-reviewed academic and professional journal devoted to best practices in the field of Compliance. He is the former Co-Global Head of Compliance Training for Deutsche Bank AG's Commercial and Investment Bank and a former senior staffer at the Federal Reserve. Mario is an international consultant providing extensive training and consulting in Compliance, Risk, Financial Markets, and Behavioral Finance and has taught in Asia, Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Africa. Mario holds a BA in Economics, summa cum laude, and an MBA, both from Fordham, and is a PhD Candidate at the NEOMA Business School in Paris, France.