Edward Atorino has been a media analyst for over 30 years, covering publishing, broadcasting, advertising, business services, and related companies. He joined Benchmark in June 2005, having spent several years at other firms, including Smith Barney, Salomon Brothers, Oppenheimer & Co., Dillon Read and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.
Ed has won numerous awards over the course of his career, foremost having been named to Institutional Investor All-American teams 20 times. He has also been recognized by Thomson Reuters Starmine and The Wall Street Journal’s Best on the Street analyst surveys, and he appears on CNBC, Bloomberg and CNN frequently.
Ed received his MBA and Bachelor of Science degrees from New York University. He holds a CFA Charter and is a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts, CFA Institute and the Media and Entertainment Analysts of New York (M.E.A.N.Y.).
Mark Gilman has been an oil analyst for more than 25 years. His coverage has focused on the major integrated oils, primarily, but also includes selective work within the exploration and production, and independent refiner sectors. Mark joined Benchmark in February 2004, having been at First Albany the prior two and a half years. His other Wall Street affiliations include ING/Barings, UBS, NatWest Securities, Eberstadt Fleming, EF Hutton, Lehman Brothers and Salomon Brothers. On several occasions, Mark has been recognized by Thomson Reuters Starmine and The Wall Street Journal analyst surveys, having achieved #1 and #2 rankings for stock picking, respectively, in 2008. He has also appeared on CNBC frequently, as well as Bloomberg TV. In addition to Mark’s research analyst responsibilities, he has consulted for several of the major oils on business-strategy issues.
Mark received his S.M. degree from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and S.B. degree in Electrical Engineering, also from MIT, in 1973. He was awarded his CFA certification in 1979.
Mark Schappel joined Benchmark as an equity research analyst in early 2007, covering small-and mid-cap names in the enterprise software sector. Prior to Benchmark, Mark spent over seven years on Wall Street, principally with KeyBanc Capital Markets, a division of McDonald Investments Inc., where he was a vice president and equity research analyst. His research has focused on the software industry, covering leading companies in the content management, specialized applications, and technical design & engineering software categories.
Mark’s research work builds on his extensive experience delivering IT solutions to meet user requirements. Prior to Wall Street, he spent several years leading large enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain management (SCM) implementations in the chemical industry for a Big Five consulting firm. As a former engineer and plant manager in the chemical industry, Mark was involved with computer aided design (CAD) and engineering software, as well as customer relationship management (CRM), ERP, and SCM applications.
Mark earned an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh in 1991 and a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from Geneva College in 1987.
Before joining Benchmark in March 2007, Brent Williams spent eight months as Managing Director of Research at Hapoalim Securities USA, a US-based startup division of the largest bank in Israel. Brent’s 12 years experience as a Wall Street software analyst includes six and a half years at KeyBanc Capital Markets and three years at Needham & Company. His coverage list has included database vendors such as Oracle and Sybase; middleware/connectivity vendors, including BEA Systems and Tibco; operating system vendors, including Microsoft, Citrix, Red Hat, Novell and Wind River; and leading business intelligence software vendors. He also managed other senior analysts focusing on enterprise applications and other infrastructure software segments.
Brent has been involved in the software business since the late 1970s. He has built innovative, groundbreaking products, ranging from manufacturing and financial applications to medical diagnostic software on a variety of platforms from PCs to mainframes. For several years, he was an engineer at Ingres Corporation, which was once the second largest developer of relational database software. Having obtained several years of marketing experience at Ingres and at startups, Brent became an industry analyst at IDC, leading the PC software research team when Microsoft was introducing Windows NT, its initial enterprise operating system. After IDC, Brent moved to Gartner Group, where he was a senior analyst in the software development research group, covering software development tools and technologies.
Brent was once named the #2 stock picker in The Wall Street Journal’s All-Star rankings for the software industry.
He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California at Berkeley.
Derek Taller, Ph.D., is Benchmark’s Biotechnology and Specialty Pharma analyst. Prior to joining Benchmark, Derek spent several years in fund management at Stratix Asset Management and Xmark Funds. He was also an analyst at Tradition-Asiel Securities and Cathay Financial.
Derek’s science experience includes extensive research in oncology, neuroscience, osteoporosis, infectious disease, and diabetes.
Derek holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Molecular Biology from the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, Immunology and Molecular Therapeutics from the Cancer Institute of New Jersey-RWJ Medical School.
Bill Acheson joined Benchmark in July 2008 to cover the REITs sector. Bill’s 17 years experience prior to joining Benchmark spans three major real estate cycles. Most recently, Bill was a senior Apartment REIT analyst with Merrill Lynch for four years. Before joining Merrill Lynch, Bill spent four years as an Apartment/Retail REIT analyst with Smith Barney and three years an Apartment/Retail/Industrial REIT analyst with Prudential. In 2008, he was ranked the #3 real estate stock picker in The Wall Street Journal’s Best on the Street survey. In 2007, he was ranked the #2 Apartment REIT analyst by Institutional Investor in the “Use of Analyst” category.
Bill's specialty in the REIT arena includes Multi-Family, Student Housing, Manufactured Home, Shopping Center and Malls, with added experience in the Industrial and Office sectors.
Frederick Moran heads the Internet, Media & Communications research team at Benchmark. His research coverage focuses on Internet merchants, diversified entertainment companies and outdoor advertising vendors.
Prior to joining Benchmark, Fred headed the Internet, Media & Communications research teams at Stanford Group Company and at Jefferies & Company. Earlier, at Furman Selz LLC, Fred built a 25-person Internet, Media & Communications team that became one of the firm’s biggest revenue producers. Prior to Furman Selz, Fred served as Vice President at Salomon Brothers where he ranked as an Institutional Investor All-Star for both the Cellular Telephony and Cable Television industries. Fred began his career as a Media & Communications stock analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and Drexel, Burnham, Lambert.
In 2008, Fred was named to The Wall Street Journal All-Star Analyst team for the eighth time, with recommendations that delivered a positive return versus a 38% plunge for the peer group and the S&P 500 Index. He was also named one of the three most accurate Media sector earnings estimators by Thomson Reuters Starmine, and was once named the top Internet analyst in The Wall Street Journal All-Star poll with a 492% portfolio return.
Fred holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics with a concentration in Finance from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and is a graduate of the Fieldston School. His certifications include Series 7, 16, 63, 65, 86 and 87.
Frederick’s current coverage includes: AMZN, BIDZ, EBAY, EXPE, GSIC, NILE, OWW, PCLN, VITC, CCO, LAMR, TWX, VIA.B
Clay Moran serves as a senior analyst on Benchmark’s Internet, Media & Communications team, covering Internet advertising and infrastructure companies, and wireless tower companies. Prior to joining Benchmark, Clay spent five years as a senior analyst on Stanford Group Company’s Internet, Media & Communications research team. In 2005, Clay was named the #5 overall stock picker in North America by Forbes.com/Starmine.
Prior to Stanford Group, Clay served as Chief Financial Officer of VDC Communications, a telecommunications company listed on the American Stock Exchange. Prior to VDC, Clay worked as a stock analyst at Smith Barney.
In 2008, Clay ranked as the top stock-picking All-Star Analyst by The Wall Street Journal in Advertising & Publishing with a 61% positive return in his coverage universe versus a 34% plunge in his peer group and a 38% decrease in the S&P 500 Index.
Clay graduated from Princeton University in 1993 and The Horace Mann School in 1989. His certifications include Series 7, 63, 65, 86 and 87.
Gary Mobley’s research coverage focuses on semiconductor device and intellectual property companies. In total, he has spent more than 15 years covering technology stocks on both the buy and sell side.
Prior to joining Benchmark, Gary worked at Noble Financial Group, and prior to that, Piper Jaffray and AG Edwards. He also spent nine years on the buy side as an analyst with Banc of America Capital Management and Kennedy Capital Management. For his stock-picking ability, Gary was named to The Wall Street Journal’s Best on the Street Survey in 2006 and ranked first in the Starmine-Yahoo! poll in 2004. Gary has made numerous appearances on CNBC and Bloomberg TV in addition to having been quoted in print media frequently. Over the years, he has been ranked by Institutional Investor (II) magazine.
Gary holds a BSBA from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and a Masters of Finance from St. Louis University. His certifications include Series 7, 16, 63, 65, 86 and 87.
Mobley’s coverage universe includes ARMH, ATHR, MIPS and MOSY
Ms. Millward covers small-to-mid cap defense and homeland security technology stocks and Washington policy impacting defense/homeland security spending priorities. Her research universe includes companies that provide technologies to the government related to military modernization, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), force protection, as well as threat detection for airport, port, border security and critical infrastructure protection.
Prior to joining Benchmark, Millward worked most recently at Dougherty and Company and prior to that Stanford Group Company and JP Morgan. She received her MBA from Georgetown University and bachelor’s degree is business administration from the University of California, Riverside.
Millward’s current coverage universe includes: ASEI, ICXT, OSIS
