NextGen Strategic Advisors Senior Leadership Team
Gary Mandelblatt
Gary is a Managing Partner at NextGen Strategic Advisors with over 35 years of experience working with financial institutions in managing market, credit, and operational risks, handling regulatory relations, implementing regulatory requirements, defining strategies, and building businesses. Gary was the Chief Risk Officer for Nomura Americas and Chairman of Nomura’s Global Dodd-Frank Implementation program.
Prior to Nomura, Gary was a Managing Director at the Lehman Brothers Estate, where he was responsible for building the valuation capabilities for 1.2 million derivatives contracts and hedging open risk exposures. Before that, Gary was the Global Head of Fixed Income Strategy at Lehman Brothers and played a role in building the commodities and emerging markets businesses.
Before joining Lehman, Gary was a Managing Director at Smith Barney, Salomon Smith Barney, and Citigroup. He served as a senior Market Risk Manager for Fixed Income and contributed to numerous regulatory efforts. Prior to that, Gary worked as a consultant with Coopers & Lybrand and First Manhattan Consulting Group.
Willem van Rijn
Willem is a Managing Partner at NextGen Strategic Advisors with over 40 years of management consulting and managerial experience working with financial institutions. He is a senior executive with broad experience in strategy, general management, operating and technology management, and consulting. Willem has a proven track record in analytics, business building, and leadership, with a particular focus on strategy formulation, financial risk management, and operations management in the capital markets sector.
Willem has demonstrated his business building and leadership abilities as a managing partner at PwC in New York and Tokyo, as well as a Member of the Management Committee and Partner of Corporate Strategy at Capco. Previously, he held the position of Senior Vice President at Bank of America. With an international background, Willem has held senior management positions in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He spent four years with PwC consulting financial institutions in Japan.
Donna Parks
Donna is a Principal Consultant with 30 years of comprehensive risk management and banking experience. Her global experience spans across the Americas and Asia, covering all aspects of risk management, including enterprise, credit, market, and operational risks. She has expertise in managing regulatory relations, implementing regulatory requirements, defining strategy, building businesses, and governance.
Donna previously held the position of Chief Risk Officer for Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) in the Americas, where she was the accountable executive for the implementation of Section 165 of the Dodd-Frank Act. Prior to this role, she served as the Senior Regional Credit Officer for SCB in Asia, based in Hong Kong. In that capacity, she was responsible for managing 70% of SCB’s credit portfolio and contributed to the development of the global commodities and hedge fund businesses.
Before joining SCB, Donna was a Managing Director at Citigroup, where she served as a senior Credit Risk Manager for Banks and non-Bank Financial Institutions. Additionally, she managed a Governance team responsible for regulatory relations and the implementation of various regulatory projects.
John Monaghan
John is a Risk and Regulatory Compliance Leader with global expertise, delivering strategically aligned and profitable, regulatory-compliant solutions for clients in the Financial Services Industry. He has a demonstrated track record of success in leading major capital markets and regulatory compliance change programs, including Basel II, Dodd-Frank CFTC SD and SEC SBSD, MiFID II, FRTB, LIBOR transition, and CFTC SD Capital and Reporting rules.
As a strategic program manager, John has led and delivered business and regulatory-driven transformation initiatives that have resulted in multimillion-dollar savings through effective risk avoidance and operational loss reduction. He has been instrumental in driving change and operational excellence by setting a vision for influencing the business and functions, while fostering stakeholder engagement across business lines to achieve business and regulatory objectives.
John possesses leadership competencies such as a drive for results, strategic thinking capabilities, change management expertise, and a commitment to high standards. He creates a culture that promotes accountability and collaboration across diverse, multi-functional teams on a global scale.
Miloš Marinković
Miloš is a Principal at NextGen Strategic Advisors with over 25 years of experience advising and working with leading global financial institutions. He has a proven track record of providing strategic vision, planning, and execution of initiatives such as target operating models, IT and operational transformations, large-scale system development, data warehousing, data architecture/governance, business process re-engineering, cybersecurity, and business analytics.
Most recently, Miloš served as the Chief Information Officer and Chief Information Security Officer for two unique FinTech firms catering to top-tier investment banks. Prior to that, he held the position of Vice President at Goldman Sachs, where he managed a global team focused on strategic transformation and change projects across operations. Before joining Goldman Sachs, Miloš worked as a Senior Managing Consultant with IBM Global Services, Capital Markets practice, providing advisory services to numerous global buy-side and sell-side institutions. Additionally, he contributed to strategic initiatives for the discount brokerage business at the Bank of Montreal in Canada.
Greg Eickbush
Greg is a Principal Consultant at NextGen Strategic Advisors with over 25 years of experience in financial services consulting and the Capital Markets. Most recently, he served as a Managing Director at Mizuho, where he held the positions of Head of Capital Markets Operations, Head of Client Services, and Chief Operating Officer of Mizuho Capital Markets. During his tenure, Greg was responsible for managing Mizuho’s Operations function, overseeing the replatforming of technology for the Swap Dealer, Security-Based Swap Dealer, and OTC Derivatives Dealer, as well as rebuilding the client onboarding program.
Prior to his role at Mizuho, Greg was the Chief Operating Officer at Shaolin Capital Partners, where he successfully established a new institutional hedge fund. Before that, he worked as a Managing Director at Société Générale/Newedge, serving as the Global Head of Brokerage and FCM Operations. Greg has also held various COO and senior operations positions at Infinium Capital, Lehman Brothers, and Deutsche Bank.
Elena O’Donnell
Elena has over 25 years of experience working in the Financial Services industry. She served as the former Chief Credit Officer of North America and Global Head of Systemic Risk at Barclays Bank. During her time at Barclays, Elena established a global team with a multi-disciplinary structure, including Operations, Compliance, and Risk, to develop policies, procedures, and controls for clearing organizations and exchanges worldwide.
Prior to her role at Barclays, Elena held the position of Global Chief Credit Officer of Capital Markets and Trading at Citigroup. In that capacity, she managed a portfolio exceeding $750 billion, providing lending to financial institutions across the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Elena was also a member of Citigroup’s Global Credit Policy and Procedures committee, which was responsible for updating and enhancing policies in response to regulatory changes and in accordance with industry best practices.