Cullen Roche – Founder and Chief Investment Officer
Mr. Roche founded Discipline Funds to help investors obtain access to low fee, diversified portfolios that help them stay the course and meet their financial goals.
Cullen’s primary areas of expertise include global macro portfolio construction, quantitative risk management, monetary economics, financial accounting and behavioral finance. Prior to establishing his own business, Cullen worked at Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management where he worked on a team overseeing $500MM+ in assets under management. Upon leaving Merrill Lynch, Cullen managed a private investment partnership which took advantage of reporting irregularities ahead of major corporate events. The strategy generated substantial positive alpha (high risk adjusted returns) without a single negative year of returns from 2005-2011. He formed Orcam Financial Group in 2012 to help better serve the much needed retail space with sophisticated but low fee asset management and financial planning services.
Cullen is also a prolific writer. In addition to the weekly musings on his website Pragmatic Capitalism, he is the author of the popular book Pragmatic Capitalism: What Every Investor Needs to Know About Money and Finance as well as “Understanding the Modern Monetary System,” one of the top 10 all-time most downloaded research papers on the SSRN academic research network. He is also the author of the popular white paper “Understanding Modern Portfolio Construction.” He was named one of the “Top Wall Street Economists, Experts and Opinion Leaders” of 2011 by Wall Street Economists and was named one of the “101 Best Finance People” by Business Insider, where he was described as “one of the most influential economic thinkers today.” In 2015, Cullen was named one of the “40 Under 40” most influential people in finance by InvestmentNews. He is regularly cited in the Wall Street Journal, on CNBC and in the Financial Times.
Cullen is a Georgetown University alumnus, growing up in the DC area and now living in Southern California with his family, troublesome pup Callie and flock of chickens.
Erica Fries – Chief Executive Officer
Erica Fries joins the Discipline Funds team with a strong analytical and consulting background. Erica is an economic and damages expert with over 15 years of experience providing clients with business consulting and economic loss analysis in both the public and private sectors.
Erica has extensive experience providing business consulting, commercial damages, forensic accounting, and intellectual property services to her clients. Erica has worked with a variety of industries including aerospace & defense, energy & utilities, hospitality & gaming, insurance, media & entertainment, real estate, technology, banking & financial services, retail & consumer, and pharmaceutical, among others.
Erica graduated Magna Cum Laude from Georgetown University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Finance. In addition to her work at Discipline Funds, Erica is a Principal at Torrey Partners, where she provides consulting services to longstanding clients. Erica loves to travel and spend time with her children when she’s not listening to Cullen lecture her about the monetary system.
ETF Architect – Back Office
ETF Architect serves as the back office for the Discipline Funds fund operations. Along with providing general administrative functions such as vendor management and regulatory disclosures, ETF Architect has a fully dedicated compliance team, supported with external counsel, that assists in maintaining a robust compliance regimen. Personnel directly involved in the team’s operations include:
Wes Gray, PhD
Patrick Cleary
Jessica Leighty
CBOE – Listing Exchange
Discipline Fund lists products on CBOE, one of the top U.S. exchanges for the listing and trading of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). CBOE is a leader in market share of traded volume and depth of liquidity across U.S. exchange-traded products (ETPs). CBOE also has among the narrowest quoted spreads and quotes the most time at the best prices across all U.S. ETPs.
Charles Schwab – Broker and Custodian
Charles Schwab is one of the largest low cost brokerage platforms in the world. They offer a wide range of low cost ETFs and $0 commissions on a wide range of products. Discipline Funds is proud to custody our assets with one of the most trusted names in the brokerage space.