Bios

Chip Kispert – Founder & Managing Partner

“Our vision was, and is, to establish the leading Industry Consulting and Research Group with rich relationships including broker dealers, solutions vendors and clearing firms. Beacon is dedicated exclusively to the broker dealer and advisor channel. Our services cater to firms that are interested in better understanding their industry, peers, and themselves. Our core strengths are to deliver innovative thinking with excellence in industry research, strategic and tactical broker-dealer evolution, marketing and communications support, and business acquisition linking. Our client base ranges from Fortune 1000 companies to modest firms. As a trusted advisor we provided our clients with advances in thought, process and relationships that have added dollars to their bottom lines.”

With access to hundreds of C-Level broker dealer decision-makers, most C-Level executives at solutions vendors, and many senior managers at clearing firms, our reach is broad and filled with complex interpretation.  Our interpretation takes each of the preceding groups, with their own unique perspective, and identifies the best of innovation while side-steeping the pitfalls. Our delivery mechanisms for thought-leadership and solution provider intelligence are The Beacon Reports, which supply broader thought-leadership on topics impacting broker-dealers, The Beacon 360 Solution Provider Reviews, which supply in-depth review of solution providers, and our Northstar Reports for those clients desiring a greater degree of specificity on focused subject matter. Of course, we also provide counsel to a great many firms in the broker-dealer marketplace.

Marshall Levin – Senior Partner

Marshall has more than 30 years of strategy & product development experience across the financial services spectrum. He has successfully exploited technology to create significant business opportunities and substantial value propositions for customers in consumer credit, institutional trading, retail brokerage, securities clearing, and both life and health insurance.

Marshall has held Series 7, 24 and 63 licenses dating back to 1983. He has achieved success in roles ranging from a P&L owner in a Fortune 10 financial services organizations; Merrill Lynch, American Express, Dean Witter to C-Level responsibility for venture funded start-ups. His innovative thinking received a US Patent in 1993 for a health insurance processing system.

For the four years immediately prior to joining Beacon Strategies, Marshall focused his business acumen and entrepreneurial skills on developing a vision for how Broadridge can best serve the independent broker dealer market. This culminated in his leading Broadridge’s acquisition of Investigo and his creating the Broker-Dealer Business Solutions unit of which he was General Manager. Marshall holds an AB from Franklin & Marshall College and an MBA from NYU.

Larry Paley – Partner

Larry brings a broad and extensive complement of business, operational and technology experiences to the Beacon family. Over his 30+ year career, Larry has held a variety of corporate roles and has been involved in consulting initiatives and engagements with US-based and global firms, software & product development companies and professional services-consulting organizations.
As a consultant, his experiences have included strategic advisory support, go-to-market strategy development, joint venture and partnership assessments, market research and competitive analysis, process/workflow analysis, project management, requirements definitions, application/vendor evaluations, selection and implementation.
Larry’s expertise spans a variety of disciplines and areas of focus, e.g., trading & portfolio management, pre and post-trade compliance-surveillance, portfolio accounting and performance measurement, fee/commission billing and new account opening and related workflow analysis, data management and integration. He’s been involved in a variety of business and technical conversions to new clearing platforms and the development & deployment of enhanced front-end broker/advisor desktops.
As a Broker-Dealer CTO, Larry’s responsibilities included technology strategy development, implementation & operational support, business, data and technical architecture design and the process and controls design supporting the ongoing delivery of the firm’s products and services.
As a Business Line Executive for a global financial services firm, his team delivered DDA & Liquidity Management related product, financial management, technology and operational support across the various client segments. Initially as a consultant, this team also successfully developed and launched a new outsourcing channel that provided enhanced private-label capabilities to financial services institutions.
As a Director of Information Technology for a de novo US Primary Dealer, Larry supervised the development, implementation and support of the firm’s technology strategy and Fixed Income trade processing support. In this capacity, he led the business and technical teams in a vendor co-development of one of the industry’s leading fixed-income trade processing systems.
On the operational side, Larry was VP of Settlements and Operations at one of the leading Wall Street firms where he was responsible for their securities clearance and money settlement related activities and related back-office operations.
Larry is a former member of the Dean’s Business Advisory Council for the John H. Sykes College of Business & Graduate Studies at the University of Tampa, and a current Advisory Council member for the school’s MIS/FSOS (Financial Services Operations & Systems) programs. Larry is a PMI credentialed Project Management Professional.
Larry and his family currently reside in Tampa, FL