Our Company
Derivative Logic is an independent hedge advisory firm combining financial derivative market expertise with proven hedge structuring and execution capabilities in interest rate and currency derivatives and Defeasance Services.
Our company provides a full range of independent, unbiased hedge advisory services to corporations, real estate, tax-exempt, Native American, not-for-profit and municipal borrowers. Derivative Logic excels in consistently realizing the highest cost savings and best hedging terms for our clients regardless of financing complexity.
The firm prides itself on its independence, having no affiliations with any other firm providing legal, accounting, underwriting, investment advice or derivative products.
Derivative Logic’s commitment to tracking and analyzing the sectors we serve enables us to better serve our clients in rapidly changing capital markets. As an independent firm, we can objectively advise our clients, as is our central mission. Advising that a hedging transaction is illogical is as important as advising one that succeeds on logic.
Derivative Logic, Inc. is SEC, MSRB and NFA registered as an advisory firm that helps borrowers of all kinds manage market risks. We serve as an Independent Municipal Advisor (“IRMA”) for nonprofits, municipalities and Obligated Persons as mandated by Dodd-Frank regulation. We also act as Designated Evaluation Agent (“DEA”) for non-Special Entities or a Qualified Independent Representative (“QIR”) for Special Entities.
Affiliations
Leadership Team
With over 50 years of experience, trading interest rate and currency derivatives at the world’s largest banks, the principals at Derivative Logic have executed hundreds of hedging transactions in excess of $500 billion.
Jim Griffin
Managing Director, Founder
Jim Griffin is a Managing Director of Derivative Logic. Jim has over twenty years experience trading interest rate, currency, and commodity derivatives at major banks, including UBS, Wells Fargo, Wachovia, and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. Jim has built and managed trading teams that provided bespoke hedging and payment solutions for clients in the energy, manufacturing, technology, commercial real estate, and entertainment industries.
Jim holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Southern California, and a BSBA in Finance & International Economics from the University of Arizona.
Rex Evans
Managing Director, Founder
Rex Evans is a Managing Director of the Walnut Creek, California office of Derivative Logic. Prior to joining the firm, he served for eight years as the co-founder and partner of Cardea Partners West, a debt and derivative advisory firm. Prior to founding Cardea Partners, Mr. Evans spent seventeen years at Bank of America in their capital markets group advising corporate and private clients in both interest rate and foreign exchange hedging. During his tenure at the bank, he managed the Latin American foreign exchange trading desk and was a currency trader taking proprietary positions for the bank. Before beginning his career in banking, Mr. Evans worked for West Coast Continental Securities providing investment solutions for middle market corporate pension plans.
Mr. Evans has a BS in Business Administration from the University of San Francisco.
Chris Hunt
Managing Director
Chris Hunt is the Managing Director of our Cleveland office. His roles include modeling interest rate hedging alternatives for clients, pricing and execution of trades, documentation review and ASC valuation, and acting as execution liaison for derivative counterparties on behalf of our east coast clients.
A Northeast Ohio native and graduate of Cornell University, Chris also holds Masters degrees in financial engineering, business administration, and golf architecture. Prior to joining Derivative Logic, Chris owned his own derivatives advisory firm, Cardea Partners. Prior to Cardea, he spent several years in interest rate and energy derivatives structuring and sales roles at KeyBank, focusing on the middle market, real estate, and not-for-profit clients using both taxable and tax-exempt structures. Before entering the world of finance, Chris helped design and build golf courses around the world. Chris’s professional affiliations include the Urban Land Institute and the Association for Corporate Growth, and he is a board member of the Outpost Foundation, Food Conscious Cleveland, and the Cornell Club of Northeast Ohio.
Kevin Morse
Managing Director
Kevin Morse is the Managing Director of Derivative Logic, Inc.’s Denver, Colorado office. His 21 years of derivatives experience at Wells Fargo and KeyBank, included trading and managing the bank’s internal derivative portfolios, pricing and hedging the customer derivative positions, as well as over 15 years of advising, structuring, and providing customized hedging solutions to the bank’s commercial banking clients. Kevin’s commercial clients span every line of business in commercial banks, including commercial real estate, large corporate, public finance, and commercial banking.
Prior to joining Derivative Logic, Kevin helped launch Lever Real Estate Capital, a national C-PACE capital provider, focused on financing energy efficiency, renewable energy, and resiliency upgrades in commercial buildings. His non-profit work includes being Chapter Director of E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs) and a Board member of Energy Smart Colorado.
Kevin earned his MBA at the Weatherhead School of Management of Case Western Reserve University, and his B.A. at DePauw University.
Carol Ng
Managing Director
Carol Ng is a Managing Director of Derivative Logic. Her prior experiences include assisting commercial real estate firms, regional banks, credit unions, and private equity firms with managing interest rate and FX exposures at both Chatham and Derivative Path. She also spent time at Western Union as part of the capital markets team managing FX risk for their money transfer business.
She is passionate about fintech, capital markets, and client services.
Outside of work, she enjoys golfing, hiking, spending time with her daughter and dog.
Carol graduated from Brigham Young University with an M.B.A. and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Scott Croul
Managing Director
Scott Croul is a Managing Director of Derivative Logic. He has over 30 years of commercial real estate finance experience in various leadership roles as a lender, intermediary and fund manager. Previously, Scott was Managing Director and Head of Production at Veleta Capital Partners, a multifamily bridge lender which launched as a joint venture with Oaktree Capital Management.
Prior to Veleta, Scott was Executive Vice President and Managing Fund Director at Partners Capital Solutions, a private commercial real estate debt fund with $350MM AUM which he joined from Red Capital where he was Senior Managing Director and Head of Production, responsible for pricing strategy and all loan origination activities nationally.
Before joining Red Capital, Scott was Senior Managing Director at Freddie Mac Multifamily serving as Head of Production and Sales for the Western Region after several years as Head of Underwriting and Credit. During this tenure, Scott was responsible for over $65 Billion in multifamily capitalizations.
Scott’s broad background also includes leadership roles as a commercial real estate lender at national commercial mortgage banking and life insurance firms.
He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Economics and holds a Real Estate Brokers license from the California Department of Real Estate.
Steve Morus
Director of Defeasance Services
Steve Morus leads our Defeasance Services team. He has a deep background in the systems and processes to control risk in alignment with a client’s interest risk appetite. As Derivative Logic grows, he also spearheads upgrades to our enterprise-wide risk management and risk governance framework, procedures and automated systems.
Steve has a sharp eye for identifying opportunities that deliver value to clients. He balances data, logic and intuition to create sound risk/reward decisions, and proposes practical solutions to translate strategy into execution.
Steve graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with Honors in Economics. He was a Research Associate at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, leading to a Graduate School Fellowship at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in Economics. Before joining Derivative Logic, Steve was a long time Risk Management manager for MUFG Union Bank, N.A., serving as a founding member of their Executive Market Risk Committee.
Rebecca O’Brien
Director
Rebecca is an entrepreneur, foreign exchange, interest rate and international financial markets expert. She is relationship focused and dedicated to providing clients and partners with strategic and tactical solutions that mitigate business risks and optimize revenue growth, efficiency and profitability. Prior to joining the firm, Rebecca co-founded two consulting firms focused on clients in the financial (venture capital and private equity firms, mutual funds, banks), technology, entertainment, media, gaming, and biotech industries. Before that, she established and managed the Global Capital Markets department at Square 1 Bank, growing it into a highly profitable business including revenue streams from foreign exchange, letters of credit, trade finance and international banking services. Prior to Square 1, Rebecca spent five years on Comerica Bank’s foreign exchange corporate trading desk, managing a portfolio of venture capital, private equity and mid-market clients.
Rebecca holds a BA from UCLA and an MBA in Finance and Entertainment from the University of Southern California.
Board of Advisors
David Bovee
Managing Partner at Zenith Capital
Greater Seattle Area Investment Banking
Zenith Capital is real estate investment group specializing in delivering comprehensive finance, development and advisory services for commercial real estate developers.
Zenith provides development and financial services that transform big ideas into big successes. Our team moves a project from the idea stage through the entire development process, while providing a broad range of capital stack solutions.
To date, Zenith’s team has funded nearly 200 projects totaling more then $1.7 billion for a broad range of asset classes.
World Trade Center of Tacoma (WTCTA)
Director – Starting March 2013
Roger Bulloch
Senior Partner
Brightstar Capital Partners
Las Vegas, Nevada
Brightstar Capital Partners invests in closely-held middle market U.S. companies. Brightstar provides active value creation strategies by focusing on sourcing, executing and creating proprietary private equity investments through its network of relationships. These networks extend from the Brightstar team to investors to its portfolio companies to third party advisors. This connectivity is a key source of opportunity and, therefore, value for all partners.
Daniel Lewis
President & CEO
Native Insight
Phoenix, Arizona
Developing tribal, private-public sector partnerships to strengthen Indian-reservation economies.
Co-Chair, Board of Directors
2017 Phoenix Final Four Local Organizing Committee
March 2016 – Present (5 months)
The Phoenix Local Organizing Committee is an non-profit organization that is hosting the 2017 NCAA Men’s Final Four.
Board of Directors, 2016 Arizona Organizing Committee
College Football Playoff
January 2015 – January 2016 (1 year, 1 month)
Board Member
Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee
2012 – March 2015 (3 years)
Board Member, Native American National Advisory Committee
Boys & Girls Clubs of America
2000 – Present (16 years)
Michael J. Olsen
CFO, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary
Globe Corporation
Scottsdale, Arizona
Mike serves as Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary for Globe Corporation and its subsidiaries. A long-time Scottsdale, Arizona resident, Mike obtained both his B.S. in finance and an M.B.A. from Arizona State University. Mike spent 16 years with Bank of America, where his career involved financial analysis, commercial real estate finance, corporate banking, investment management and trust administration for the bank’s high-net-worth clients. Prior to joining Globe, he was the Chief Financial Officer for a high-tech manufacturing company in Scottsdale and has worked in the insurance industry managing portfolio investments, and carries the CFP designation. He is the past board chair of Florence Crittenton Services of Arizona, which, under his chairmanship, formed Girl’s Leadership Academy of Arizona, the only public all-girls high school in Arizona. Mike is active with Arizona State University as a member of the Dean’s Council of 100, a board member of the W.P. Carey School’s Investment Management Fund, and actively assists in activities related to the Sun Angel Foundation.
John Ziegler
President & CEO
STG Asset Management
The STG Group is a privately held and funded Commercial Real Estate investment group of companies. Our philosophy is based on asset appreciation which is augmented by pursuing value-oriented investment that focus on enhancing strategies such as property rehabilitation, renovation, lease-up and hands on management.
