Cullen Roche – Founder and Chief Investment Officer
Mr. Roche founded Orcam Financial Group in 2012 to help investors obtain better access to personalized and reasonably priced financial help.
Mr. Roche’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, Mr. Roche worked at Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management where he worked on a team overseeing $500MM+ in assets under management. Upon leaving Merrill Lynch, Mr. Roche managed a private investment partnership which took advantage of accounting 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 Group in 2012 to help better serve the much needed retail space with sophisticated but low fee asset management and financial planning services.
Mr. Roche 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 Mr. Roche 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.
Mr. Roche is a Georgetown University alumnus, growing up in the DC area and now living in Southern California with his family, troublesome collie Cal and 5 irritable laying hens. In addition to being a financial dork Cullen is an avid outdoorsman, mediocre gardener, proficient complex carbohydrate consumer (i.e., loves brownies and cake) and finisher of one of the most difficult IRONMAN races at Cabo in 2015.
Erica Fries – Chief Executive Officer
Erica Fries is a forensic accounting 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.
Mrs. Fries has extensive experience providing business consulting, commercial damages, forensic accounting, and intellectual property services to her clients. Her scope of involvement includes discovery assistance, damage quantification, and the preparation of expert testimony in federal courts and arbitrations. Mrs. Fries’ industry experience includes aerospace & defense, energy & utilities, hospitality & gaming, insurance, media & entertainment, real estate, technology, banking & financial services, retail & consumer, and pharmaceutical, among others.
Mrs. Fries graduated Magna Cum Laude from Georgetown University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Finance. Prior to joining Orcam, Ms. Fries provided consulting services at Torrey Partners, LECG, the Kenrich Group and Tucker Alan. Mrs. Fries is active in her community, and tries to spend as much time outdoors enjoying the beautiful Southern California weather.