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Team Bio

Christine Kwak

Christine Kwak

Investment Committee, Strategy Execution, Advisor/Operating Partner, Decagon Advisors

Christine provides value-added expertise to the Steward investment process, primarily during diligence and post execution implementation of both fund and co-investment opportunities. As an Operating Partner she primarily after the initial investment to help portfolio investments execute with speed and agility.

Previously, Christine served as Managing Director at the Shorenstein Company, Vice President at Goldman Sachs as well as roles at Boston Financial and E&Y Kenneth Leventhal. She has led teams on due diligence and has deployed more than $4.0 billion of acquisition and disposition transactions and $2 billion of financings.

In addition to her role at Steward, she invests in partnership with Dr. Peter Linneman, retired Chairman of the Real Estate Department and Center at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School which include KL Realty, AOZA and American Land Funds I and II.

She holds a B.A. in Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and is also a member of the Urban Land Institute.

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Team Bio

Christine Egan

Christine Egan

Partner, Operations

Christine leads the firm’s operations and reporting as well as the ongoing value-add engagement with portfolio investments. She supports the path to successful partnership engagement so that anchored firms reach their full potential as the next generation of alternative asset management leaders.

Previous roles include a senior role at Maritime Capital, where she was responsible for new partnerships and products. Prior to that, as a Partner at Kaufman Rossin Fund Services, she focused on business development with an eye toward the negotiation and onboarding of newly forming funds across the full breadth of private market strategies. She held business development and operating roles at HSBC, Morgan Stanley, and Wellington Management while starting her career at Coopers & Lybrand.

In addition to her role with the Steward team, she is currently Senior Vice President of Client Administration at Mittleman Brothers Investment Management.

She holds a B.A. in Accounting from Simmons College. Additionally, she is a Director of the Safe Center Long Island which focuses on assisting and sheltering victims of family violence.

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Team Bio

Erin Shippee, CAIA

Erin Shippee, CAIA

Chief Operating Officer

Erin leads the firm’s operations, accounting, reporting and execution. She works to maintain a sound control environment on the basis of strong fiduciary practices.

Most recently, she was a Managing Director in the Alternative Assets Group at RBC Capital Markets where she was responsible for the Counterparty Services Group. She also served on the U.S. Diversity Leadership Council at Royal Bank of Canada. During her long tenure at RBC, she was responsible for managing counterparty relationships and structuring complex transactions.

She received a B.A. from Boston College and holds the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designation.

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Team Bio

David Reiss

David Reiss

Investment Diligence

David contributes to fund and co-investment transactions. He brings broad knowledge of the capital markets and deal analysis to the team.

Prior to joining Steward, David was Principal at Brookville Advisory and Managing Director and Portfolio Manager at Morgan Stanley following their acquisition of a fund which he co-founded. Previously, he was a Managing Director of Bankers Trust Company, with responsibility for both credit and equity portfolios; during his tenure, he was awarded a 5-star rating by Morningstar.  Earlier positions include Portfolio Manager at Kidder Peabody and analyst roles at Goldman Sachs and Salomon Brothers.

He holds a B.A. in Mathematics and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School, both from the University of Pennsylvania. He is an auxiliary professor of finance at Molloy College and is an avid athlete having completed more than forty triathlons including “Escape from Alcatraz.”

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Team Bio

Sheryl Mejia

Sheryl Mejía, CFA, CPA CA

Managing Partner, Investment Committee Chair

Sheryl leads sourcing, diligence, execution, and monitoring of investments targeting private equity funds and co-investment opportunities. She specializes in building deeper strategic partnerships with smaller and debut private equity managers.

Most recently, she was the Director of Emerging Managers at the New York State Common Retirement Fund, overseeing over $7 billion in commitments to more than 120 small, diverse and emerging firms.  She is passionate about supporting the incubation of owner-manager entrepreneurs, those with a strong record in buyout, growth equity, and other private market strategies.

Previously, she was the Managing Partner of Decagon Advisors, a consulting firm providing due diligence as well as launch advisory to newly forming firms.  Decagon was formed as a direct result of the evolving needs in her previous role as Macroeconomic and Due Diligence Analyst at KCS Funds, a Fund of Funds. Prior to that, she served in asset management and client-facing roles as a Director at Deutsche Bank (formerly Bankers Trust Asset Management) after beginning her career at KPMG in the Financial Services practice.

She holds a Bachelor of Commerce, Honors, from Queen’s University in Canada and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She is a CFA charterholder and a Canadian Chartered Accountant. In addition, she serves as Director of the Levy vonWald Foundation, which primarily focuses on literacy initiatives in New York State.

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Team Bio

Leroy Cody

Leroy Cody

Business Development

Leroy leads business development with a focus on sourcing transactions as well as the needs of the firm’s institutional limited partners. He brings decades of industry experience in product strategy and delivery across a range of private fund strategies.

His previous roles include long tenures as a Director of Alternative Investment Marketing at Lazard Asset Management and Managing Director of Alternative Investment Marketing for American Express Asset Management. He has also held leadership positions at NexTier Companies, Loomis Sayles, Shearson Lehman Hutton, among others.

Leroy has served on the Board of Trustees of Colgate University, his alma mater, and is one of the founders of the Whitney M. Young Jr. Memorial Conference at the Wharton School, an annual event designed to inform, empower, and support Black business professionals and students.

He holds a BA from Colgate University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.