Overview
Perspective and curiosity. Those are the qualities that set us apart.
Our consultants bring myriad viewpoints to every engagement. Applying lessons learned from the past is important; however, experience earned through doing is only one part of the equation. Our desire to understand clients and their reality is critical. Every engagement begins by seeking to understand the present before working toward the future. Whether we're providing guidance on the application of best practices or rolling up our sleeves and tackling projects from start to finish, we endeavor to see all facets and provide holistic solutions.
Perspective
We understand our clients and their stakeholders. We have experience sitting in those seats. Our legal, governmental, operational and regulatory perspectives were earned through hands-on experience. Our consultants have worked in international tax and accounting firms; publicly traded and venture capital funded companies; healthcare delivery systems; numerous state and federal government agencies; and trade associations. We have taught graduate, undergraduate and paralegal students at multiple universities and colleges. We are accomplished authors and speakers, having authored and delivered hundreds of papers and presentations.
Our collective knowledge and experience inform our approach to problem-solving and help us generate creative solutions.
Curiosity
Coupling perspective with understanding is powerful. What worked for one organization may or may not work for another. Every client is different. The people, processes, situation and goals are unique. Before recommending anything, we first seek information to inform potential solutions. We invest time to understand as much as possible to ensure our advice is applicable and actionable.
Consider the perspectives informing your strategy. We stand ready to empower your next step forward.
Pension Services
In the pension arena, we provide consulting services to public, non-profit, university and private retirement and welfare plan administrators, endowments, sovereign wealth funds and other institutional investors.
Our service to the boards, committees and staff of these clients includes:
- orientation and related training materials
- terms of reference and charters
- governance and related policies and procedures
- content for member handbooks, summary plan documents, personnel policies and other communication material
- fiduciary, governance and management training
- investment process education
- monthly education training calendars
- Self-Assessment Surveys
- Education Needs Assessment Reports
- NQTL Comparative Analyses Reports
- internal compliance reviews
- implementation of Fiduciary Audit Reports
- best practices for data security, hiring, recruiting and performance management
- collection and review of Non-Quantitative Treatment Limitation (NQTL) standards
- workplace investigations
Consultants
Our team of professionals is experienced in all manner of opportunities and issues confronting the pension and transportation sectors. We look forward to putting our experience to work for you.
Meet our team:
Julia Botezatu
Allison Callaghan
Brandon Davis
Ashley Dunning
Yukiko Kojima
Michelle McCarthy
Yuliya Oryol
Geoffrey Yarema
Julia Botezatu
Consultant
Julia provides advice and counsel to public and private employers on issues including hiring and termination, employee classification, leaves of absence, workplace safety and employee handbooks. Julia conducts workplace investigations and is an effective trainer. Julia is available at jbotezatu@nossaman.com or 213.612.7818.
Allison Callaghan
Consultant
Allison is co-chair of Nossaman's Employment Group. She regularly advises public and private employers on a broad array of management issues, including discipline, terminationsand layoffs, reasonable accommodations, classification, family and medical leave and personnel policies and procedures. Allison conducts workplace investigations and provides training on management best practices, harassment prevention, diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, among other topics. Allison is available at acallaghan@nossaman.com or 916.442.8888.
Brandon Davis
Consultant
Brandon guides public agency clients through all elements of the procurement, construction contract drafting and contract implementation processes for their most important and complex projects. His experience ranges from first-of-a-kind highway, bridge and tunnel projects to high-speed trains, commuter rail, people movers, airport terminals, Major airport rental-car facilities, toll service centers and administrative office structures. He has represented agencies on their use of various delivery methods, including design-bid-build (DBB), design-build (DB), progressive design-build (PDB), pre-development agreements (PDAs), construction management at risk (CMAR) and various forms of public-private partnerships (P3s). Brandon offers clients a unique prospective on project delivery because he has helped various state and local agencies create alternative delivery programs, including work on the first two availability payment P3 transactions in the U.S. Brandon is available at bdavis@nossaman.com or 213.612.7894.
Ashley Dunning
Consultant
Ashley is co-chair of Nossaman's Pension, Benefits & Investments Group and serves on the Firm’s Executive Committee. She has been providing fiduciary governance services, including training, to retirement systems and their boards, as well as trustees of non-profit entities, since 1998. Ashley works with boards of some of the largest and smallest, retirement systems and other institutional fiduciaries, including universities, across the country. Her governance consulting engagements include providing trainings on best practices for boards on system governance, fiduciary compliance, organizational health, prudent delegation, oversight and monitoring, conflicts management and avoidance, ethics for public officials, implementation of fiduciary audits, self-assessments and crisis management. Ashley also has served as an expert consultant and expert witness with respect to such matters in litigation involving claims of fiduciary breach by trustees and staff. Collectively, the retirement systems Ashley counsels hold more than $1 trillion in trust assets. Ashley is available at adunning@nossaman.com or 415.438.7228.
Yukiko Kojima
Consultant
Yukiko offers clients unique experience with highly innovative alternative delivery strategies for large-scale infrastructure projects stemming from her deep knowledge of Canada’s mature P3 market as well as U.S. best practices. Yukiko has served in leadership roles in her field, including as a member of the national board of Design-Build Institute of America and founding chair of its P3 Committee. Before joining Nossaman in the U.S., Yukiko was part of a leading P3 practice in Vancouver where she assisted successful and shortlisted bidders on numerous award-winning P3 projects throughout Canada. Yukiko was one of two professionals P3 Bulletin shortlisted for their Leading Women in Infrastructure Award. Yukiko is available at ykojima@nossaman.com or 213.612.7895.
Michelle McCarthy
Consultant
Michelle advises clients of all types – from governmental plans to Fortune 100 companies. With more than 20 years of experience specializing in employee benefits and taxation, Michelle advises clients from both the private and public sectors. She has vast experience advising plan sponsors in the private sector with respect to the design, implementation and administration of their retirement, health and welfare benefit plans. Michelle’s experience in the retirement plan space includes working with defined contribution, defined benefit and hybrid plans. She frequently advises plan sponsors and administrators on issues pertaining to plan governance, administration and compliance. Specific to governmental plans, Michelle advises on tax and fiduciary issues, plan design, pension and health benefits administration and policy development. She frequently advises governmental plan administrators and their Boards of Trustees on issues pertaining to plan governance, administration and compliance. Michelle is available at mmccarthy@nossaman.com or 213.612.7841.
Yuliya Oryol
Consultant
Co-chair of Nossaman's Pensions, Benefits & Investments Group, Yuliya has more than two decades of experience counseling institutional investors on a broad range of investment matters. She advises public retirement systems, endowments, family offices and other institutional investors in connection with public market and private fund investments in different asset classes. She regularly appears before boards of trustees to conduct training sessions and present on issues related to investments and works with chief investment officers, investment staff and in-house counsel across the country on investment transactions. Yuliya is the current Chair of the Investment Section of the National Association of Public Pension Attorneys (NAPPA), member of the Alternative Investments Affinity Group at Pension Real Estate Association (PREA) and contributor to educational materials and forums organized by the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA). In addition to her experience in the U.S., Yuliya spent three years working in Seoul, South Korea where she represented American, Asian and European entities, including South Korean institutional investors. Yuliya is available at yoryol@nossaman.com or 415.438.7256.
Geoffrey Yarema
Consultant
Geoff has spent more than three decades developing national best practices for innovative procurement, contracting and financing structures that successfully move large transportation projects from concept to reality. A two-time recipient of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association’s Entrepreneur of the Year award, Geoff was also named the most important private sector professional to the advancement of P3s over a two-decade history in the national transport arena. He is often called to testify as an expert before the United States Congress and state legislatures on alternative delivery and financing of the country’s most important projects. State departments of transportation, regional airport authorities and metropolitan transit agencies regularly rely upon Geoff’s counsel in optimizing project delivery of airport facilities, bridges, tunnels, rail transit and major highway improvements balancing risk transfer and commercial rights and obligations between public sector owners and private counterparties in the entire spectrum of models, including all forms of early contractor involvement and fixed price design-build, design-build-operate-maintain, toll concession, availability payment, pre-development and other types of public-private partnership contracts. Geoff is available at gyarema@nossaman.com or 213.612.7842.