Dennis Lewis Lord Santiago
Chief Executive Officer
and Managing Director

Dennis Santiago is CEO and Managing Director of IRA with responsibility for analytics, product development, and IRA's consulting services operations. He brings to the firm two decades of experience in the design and development of fixed income and equity analytics, business and financial news, and online transaction management systems.

Dennis oversees IRA's risk analysis, ratings methodology development and institutional consulting operations. He is the architect of the company's institutional research and ratings tools, including the  IRA Bank Monitor,  IRA Corporate Monitor and IRA SEC Catalog.  He holds a BSEE from the University of California at Irvine and an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management.

Dennis edits the company's technical blog Picking Nits and hosts a Risk Analytics discussion group on BankInnovation.net. He also contributes articles to SeekingAlpha.

History

Dennis worked in the aerospace industry beginning in 1981 as a military operations research analyst with Rockwell International's North American Aircraft division specializing in national policy, global stability and warfighting strategy. He authored early thesis research on the use of "imperfect defense architectures and technologies" for US missile defense and led research projects exploring the use of U.S. heavy bomber assets to support extreme range force projection operations.

Dennis transitioned to the finance industry in 1991. His appointments include serving as Vice President of Corporate Development for Data Broadcasting Corporation, now part of  Interactive Data Corporation (NYSE:IDC), where Dennis developed products such as the BondVu fixed-income securities analysis system and the InSite market data terminal for Capital Management Sciences. Dennis was one of the founding team members of DBC’s CBSMarketWatch.com venture. He also served as Chief Strategy Officer for Chicago-based Zacks Investment Research and was Chief Technology Officer of Houston-based Telescan, Inc. where he oversaw the support of CNBC.com, Forbes, American Express (NYSE:AXP), and others.

In 2001, Dennis joined Los Angeles based holding company CommonTech LLC to design and implement of eCommerce business models. Ultimately serving as President of CommonTech, he led the infrastructure expansion of LuxuryLink LLC, an online travel and eCommerce business and co-founded Cellar Marketing LLC, an online retailer of wine. Both businesses involved complex transaction and niche marketing systems designs. Dennis developed the business case research for and participated in the founding of CommonTech's Audit Integrity LLC, a corporate behavior screening service that focuses on the retail investing uses of fundamental analytics.

Learn more about Dennis Santiago at www.earlymaturity.com

Richard Christopher Whalen
Senior Vice President
and Managing Director

Richard Christopher Whalen is Senior Vice President and a Managing Director of IRA with general responsibility for sales and business development. Chris has worked as an investment banker, research analyst and journalist for more than two decades.

After graduating from Villanova University in 1981, Chris worked for the U.S. House of Representatives and then as a management trainee at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he worked in the bank supervision and foreign exchange departments. Chris subsequently worked in the fixed income department of Bear, Stearns & Co, in London.

After moving back to the U.S. in 1988, Chris spent a decade providing risk management and loan workout services to multinational companies and government agencies operating in Latin America. He provided due-diligence and credit workout services to a number of multinational clients operating in Mexico, including the Export-Import Bank of the US, Kroll Associates and Weyerhaeuser (NYSE:WY), and served as an adviser to the presidential campaign of Cuauhtémoc Cardenas Solórzano.

In 1997, Chris went back to Wall Street, working as an investment banker in the M&A Group of Bear, Stearns & Co. and later Prudential Securities where he focused on the technology sector. He then served as the managing director of The Free Internet Group Ltd., one of the largest independent Internet service providers in the UK.

In 2001, Chris returned to the investment world, working as an investment banker at Fechtor, Detwiler & Co. and an equity research analyst at Ramberg, Whalen & Co., where he followed names such as IBM (NYSE:IBM), Apple Computer (NASDAQ:AAPL), Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO).

Chris edits IRA’s popular newsletter, The Institutional Risk Analyst, and heads IRA's financial advisory operations.  He contributes to such publications as the American Banker, The Financial Times  and GARP Risk Review. Chris has appeared before the US Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission to testify on various types of financial issues and appears regularly on venues such as Bloomberg Television and CNBC to speak on topics such as investing, risk management, Basel II  and the banking and financial sectors. 

Chris is a member of Professional Risk Managers International Association (www.prmia.org) and volunteers as a regional director of PRMIA's Washington, DC chapter. 

Learn more about Chris Whalen at www.rcwhalen.com