Our Team


Sidney A. Blum | Kevin Paulsen | Nancy Tani | Stephan Metzger | Efrén González | Johann Haraldsson |
Leslie Ransom


Sidney A. Blum, CFP®, CPA/PFS, ChFC
Founder

Sid graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in accounting and has been practicing as a CPA since 1975 and financial advisor since 1987. Sid received the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM certification in 1987 and in 1988, received the AICPA Certificate of Education Achievement in Personal Financial Planning. In 1989, Sid received the designation of Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) and in 1991 the AICPA specialty designation of Personal Financial Specialist (CPA/PFS).

View Sid's full bio.







 


Kevin Paulsen, CFP®, RPA

Kevin graduated from Northern Illinois University with a degree in computer science. He has worked for over ten years in the area of executive deferred compensation, as well as consulting on life, disability, and long term care insurances. During that time he developed systems to track investments for deferred compensation plans and dealt directly with corporate human resources, finance officers, and individual plan participants on a variety of plan design, interpretation, funding, and tax implication issues.

Kevin is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM practitioner and a Retirement Plans Associate (through the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans and the Wharton School of Business). He is also a member of the Financial Planning Association, the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, and the Roscoe Village Chamber of Commerce.


Kevin served on the Financial Planning Association - North Shore Council board in 2011 as co-director of programs. He also served as a USW officer in the early '90s.



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Nancy Tani, CFP®, JD, MBA

Nancy earned her law degree from the University of Chicago in 1978, as well as her MBA with a concentration in Finance. She has worked at two major law firms (Winston & Strawn and Schiff Hardin LLP) in Chicago for a number of years, concentrating on corporate transactions. Nancy continued to work in corporate development at the headquarters of a large diversified company in Chicago, whose specialties included retail and hotel development and management. She used both her legal and financial background in analyzing prospective acquisition candidates and start-up businesses created in-house.

Prior to that, Nancy worked at Hewitt Associates where she specialized in executive compensation. She was responsible for reviewing existing benefit programs, interviewing top management and designing and presenting performance incentive programs for them. She has also done financial analyses and feasibility studies in her capacity as senior loan officer at the Illinois Housing Development Authority.

Nancy successfully completed the Certified Financial Planning program at Northwestern University in January, 2010 and sat for and passed the CFP® exam in March, 2010. In October, 2010 she became a CFP® certificant. She is a member of the FPA (Financial Planning Association), and the Chicago Bar Association. She has worked at GreatLight since January, 2010.

Nancy is currently serving on the Financial Planning Association - North Shore Council board as co-director of programs.




Stephan Metzger, MBA, CFP®

Stephan earned his MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management with major emphasis in Finance and Economics; and a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Illinois Institute of Technology. He graduated from Lane Technical High School, Chicago, with honors.

Before joining GreatLight, Stephan gained extensive experience as a financial consultant/financial planner with emphasis on retirement planning, education funding, portfolio analysis, and estate planning and administration.

Prior to full time financial planning Stephan has had extensive engagements with major corporations, the latest as the manager of application systems development for a Fortune 500 insurance company developing applications for consumer and financial institution insurance needs. Prior financial services experience also includes: insurance (life, accident and health), investments (mutual funds, and commodities and futures), and real estate.

Stephan has been awarded certification by the CFP Board and is a member of the FPA, Financial Planning Association.




Efrén González, BS

Efrén earned his B.Sc. Eng. from Universidad Autonóma Chapingo, México, with honors. Prior to coming to GreatLight, Efrén spent more than 15 years advising worldwide clients on real estate portfolios and investment opportunities. Working at Cushman & Wakefield, Efrén developed real estate investment and credit portfolios for Mexican and American Institutions – one of them was worth more than $620 million in assets.

Additionally, Efrén has worked with diverse companies, such as La Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec (the pension fund company of the province of Quebec), BEA Credit Suisse and American Express, applying his knowledge of finance and real estate. Through these positions, as well as professional exchanges in Venezuela and United States, he has developed a great understanding of the global marketplace. Currently, he is attending the Financial Planning Certificate Program at Northwestern University.



Johann Haraldsson, BS, MBA

Johann graduated from The University of Iceland with a BS degree in Business Administration with a major in Marketing. He also has a MBA degree from The Copenhagen Business School in Denmark with a major in International Marketing. Johann worked for Northwestern University for over fourteen years as a Manager of Administrative Services. For 10 years prior he worked in the corporate world for Shell Oil Co as a Manager of Automotive Retail; Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) as Duty Station Manager and Cargo Manager and then as a Marketing Manager for a Car Dealership and finally as a business analyst. Johann thus has an extensive experience in management, marketing, finance, and accounting.







Leslie Ransom, BS

Leslie graduated with honors from Pomona College with degrees in Economics and French. She worked for over 20 years in sales, distribution and marketing in the music industry. In that time she coordinated budgets and projections for various artists and their releases. As the music industry changed with the onset of digital media and mp3s, she continued to work with artists to develop new targets and affordable marketing options to maximize exposure and income.

In 2011, Leslie began the Certified Financial Planning program at Northwestern University. She hopes to sit for the CFP exam in 2013.

Leslie is a member of the Financial Planning Association.






Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. owns the certification marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM and federally registered CFP (with flame design) in the U.S., which it awards to individuals who successfully complete CFP Board's initial and ongoing certification requirements.