Len is a former Fulbright Fellow with extensive experience in banking and finance, internationally in Asia, Europe and Latin America, and domestically in both New York and California. He ran country relationships for Japan and Korea as Deputy General Manager of the Tokyo branch of Bankers Trust and managed California business as President of Bankers Trust Pacific Corporation. For Bear Sterns, he served as Regional Director in Hong Kong for business development in Asia, focusing on Indonesia, China, Hong Kong, Korea and the Philippines, developing corporate finance, debt, equity and securities relationships with many major Asian conglomerates.

Back in the States, he organized, managed and became President of Republic International Bank of New York. He then initiated the purchase of the assets of West Coast Bank from the FDIC to establish Safra Bank of California under a charter from the State of California and served as Director on its Board. As Regional Director for American Express Bank, Len established and managed branch offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Beverly Hills with responsibilities for strategic planning, financial, business and operational activities, overseeing a staff of 70 professionals and support staff.

Len is serving, or has served, on over a dozen corporate and nonprofit Boards, including Comerica Bank’s Asian Business Advisory Board, Chairman of the Audit Committee and Member of the Credit Committee of American Premier Bank’s Board of Directors (appointed at the direction of the Department of Financial Institutions of the State of California), Member of the Board and founder of Safra Bank of California, Chairman of the Finance Committee and Board Director of Gridcore International Systems in California and Agriboard Industries, Dallas, Texas.

His nonprofit and public service experience includes appointment by Mayor James Hahn in 2003 to serve as Vice Chairman of the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on Infrastructure, service as Member of the Advisory Board of the College of Business at Loyola Marymount University, Director and Treasurer of the Los Angeles Theater Center, Board Member of the Latino Theater Company, Member of the Board of the American Express Philanthropic Foundation and Member of the Board of Shelter Partnership, a consortium offering services and financial support for organizations assisting the homeless.

Currently, Len is Managing Director and founding partner of Asia Development Partners – a consulting firm serving major Asian clients and their companies in venture capital, direct investment and real estate investment in the United States. Major advisory clients include labor union pension funds, real estate development companies, and significant cultural institutions in California. He also is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Finance, Graziadio School of Business of Pepperdine University and in the School of Business of the University of Redlands teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses in international finance, M&A, Management of Financial Institutions, Management Strategy, etc.

Steve is a former philosophy instructor at several east coast colleges, including Rutgers University and various campuses of the City University of New York, and was an Assistant Professor at William Paterson State University of New Jersey, specializing in ethics, symbolic logic and philosophy of science.

He put his logic training to more practical use and joined the high technology world at Bank of America as an IBM mainframe computer programmer. After several years, he decided that working with people is more interesting than with machines, and moved into technology consulting, progressing from technical consultant to senior consultative sales positions at several international computer software and hardware companies, including NCR, Informatics, Cullinane Database Systems and Peregrine Systems.

Unable to resist the entrepreneurial impulse, he founded Communigraphics, a marketing services firm providing computerized text processing, customized data base management, typesetting and graphic arts services to local small and medium-sized businesses and corporate clients nationwide.

After selling Communigraphics and semi-retiring, Steve became an independent consultant, taking on projects that captured his interest, including advising several “dot com” start-ups. For a couple of years, Steve worked with The Grantsmanship Center, the oldest and largest nonprofit fundraising training firm in the country, and developed an appreciation for the financial difficulties facing nonprofit service agencies. Most recently, his focus has been on the challenges facing seniors and their families. As a Director of Partnerships for Posit Science, a world-leading research-based cognitive training organization for seniors, Steve helped introduce “Brain Gyms” to residential communities for seniors throughout Southern California.

The Catalyst Group is a comprehensive administrative services company that takes responsibility for collecting, organizing, verifying, documenting and managing the myriad details of a senior’s life, to bring order out of chaos, and restore peace of mind to seniors and their families in preparation for, or in response to, life’s inevitable transitions.