The Investment Committee is composed of professionals selected for their experience in a variety of investment options. The group includes representatives with knowledge of equities, fixed income, private equity, venture capital, fund of funds, and other markets. All members are subject to approval by the Executive Committee. To ensure the selection of the best Investment Committee members, neither a giving minimum nor active fundraising is required.
Mr. Peter O. Jarman, MBA, serves as Managing Director at Cross Creek Advisors. He is part of the fund and direct investments team where he focuses on technology-related investments and is responsible for leading investment analysis and relationships with underlying fund managers. He joined Cross Creek in 2010 after four years as a Senior Investment Manager for Fort Washington Capital Partners Groups, where he assisted in managing its venture and private equity investment portfolios.
Prior to focusing on the investment side of private equity, Peter spent nearly 10 years operating in restructuring and marketing roles for venture and private equity funded companies. His experience includes senior roles at PTC, Ancestry.com, Campus Pipeline (now Sunward Higher Education) and Icon Health and Fitness. He also served as a Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Product Development for Roundy, Inc, and Senior Director for Corporate Development at Oculus Technologies.
Peter received his MBA from the Northwestern Kellogg Graduate School of Management and was a finalist for the Ewing Kauffman Venture Fellows Program. He earned his B.A. in Spanish and economics from the University of Utah.
Duane Madsen recently spent three weeks discovering his ancestors in Finland, homeland of his maternal grandparents. Now that he’s retired, Madsen’s greatest passion is genealogy, and he generally spends an hour a day on it. In addition to the relatives he discovered through research, the trip produced some unexpected discoveries. “On the boat from Sweden to Finland one night there was a lot of dancing and a lot conversation, and I met another couple that I’m related to,” he says.
Madsen spent his at career Goldman Sachs in San Francisco. “My greatest passion then was making money, and I was very good at it,” he says. He believes in hard work and rose at three a.m. for 25 years to put in long hours. “Those who are fortunate enough to be gifted mathematically have been blessed with a very valuable way of looking at the universe,” he says. “I’m clearly a numbers driven person.”
More recently, as chair of the UVU Foundation’s Investment Committee, Madsen headed up the effort to find a new firm to manage the Foundation’s investments. “I would say that our newest advisor, Meketa out of San Diego, is quite an outstanding firm. I think you will find that verified by the data as we move forward,” he says.
Asked why he would encourage others to join the Foundation Board, Madsen says, “It’s a strong board that’s getting stronger. I think this is going to be a fantastic ride, seeing the University succeed.”
“I think it’s pretty exciting what’s happening here,” says Madson. “The growth that’s occurring at the University is clearly remarkable. I think academically the University is surging.” UVU’s platform is more interesting in many ways than Brigham Young University’s, he says. BYU is more structured and less flexible, where UVU responds to the needs of the community. “I think UVU is a great institution, and I think its president has a vision that is in the process of being fulfilled.”
Madsen also likes the fact that UVU is willing to make an investment in young people even when they haven’t previously demonstrated academic potential. Most universities spend a lot of time evaluating how well a student did in high school, but that’s not necessarily an indicator of how well they will do in college, he says. “UVU will accept a lot of people who did not do well in high school, and some of those people will be huge academic surprises,” he says.
One of Madsen’s sons is currently attending UVU, considering a major in computer science. A second son previously attended, dabbling in a number of programs before heading to the BYU School of Accountancy. “I think he felt it was a good transition and a way to pick up some loose ends academically prior to getting deeply involved in the master’s in accounting program,” says Madsen.
In all, the Madsens have 10 children and 36 grandchildren scattered throughout the country. They also enjoy a six-acre berry farm in Mapleton, which boasts just about every kind of blackberry, raspberry and gooseberry extant.
Madsen’s commitment to higher education extends beyond UVU. He is a trustee of the State of Utah Educational Trust, a $2-billion fund for the public universities in the state—not including UVU, which didn’t exist when the fund was created. He chairs the Center for Law and Religious Studies at BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School, and he’s a member of the president’s advisory committee at BYU.
Madsen is also an ecclesiastical leader of about 80 young people who run a summer camp at the Aspen Grove Family Camp & Conference Center in Provo. And he recently spent five years at the Missionary Training Center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Provo, preparing missionaries to serve in Russia and Ukraine.
Brian P. Murphy is a founder and managing member of Portfolio Advisors, a registered investment advisor and Qualified Professional Asset Manager (QPAM) that specialites in delivering customized private equity, real estate, and credit solutions. Additionally, he is a member of the Portfolio Advisors Management Committee, several investment committees, and co-heads the advisory services practice. Brian has served or is serving as a director of nine client portfolio companies and as an advisory board member of twenty-four private equity partnerships. Additionally, he is a member of UVU's WSB National Advisory Board and BYU's Entrepreneurship Founders Advisory Board.
Brian earned a BA from Brigham Young University, an MBA from Columbia University, and completed a CFA program. He and his wife, Louise, are the parents of four children and grandparents to at least twelve grandchildren. They currently reside in Gilbert, AZ.
Seth T. Sunderland is an investor, entrepreneur, and former investment banker. Currently, Seth is the chief executive officer of Spring Canyon Capital, a privately-owned real estate investment and asset management company focused on Utah and the Intermountain West. Additionally, he is an adjunct professor of finance at the University of Utah.
Seth previously worked for UBS Investment Bank from 2004 until 2018 where he executed merger and acquisition transactions with a cumulative value of over $35 billion. From 2011 to 2018 he was based in Asia where he most recently served as head of Southeast Asia mergers and acquisitions for UBS, where he led merger and acquisition efforts in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, India, and Vietnam. During his time in the Asia Pacific region, he originated and executed buy-side, sell-side, joint venture, minority investments, management buy-outs, and special committee advisory transactions. From 2004 to 2011 Seth was based in San Francisco as a member of the UBS U.S. Merger and Acquisition Group, where he advised clients in the Technology and Media sectors.
Seth graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Brigham Young University and holds a Master of Science in Global Finance from New York University. Seth has significant experience advising clients on cross-border merger and acquisition activity, including negotiation strategy and tactics, valuation, transaction structure, due diligence, and process management. He is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in California (Inactive) and holds a Series 7 License. Seth and his wife Amy currently reside in Salt Lake City, Utah, and are the parents of four children.
Michael Thornton has over a decade of investment experience and is currently managing director of Millcreek Asset Management LLC, an investment management firm offering quantitative, research-based investment strategies to qualified clients. Prior to Millcreek, he worked for LP Capital Advisors consulting large institutional clients on private equity investments. Prior to LP Capital Advisors, he worked for Credit Suisse's alternative investments division in New York, as well as the Utah Fund of Funds and the University Venture Fund.
Thornton holds a B.A. in Finance from the University of Utah, graduating cum laude as a research scholar, with both university and departmental honors. Thornton holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) designations.
Jeffrey S. Tolk has more than 25 years of experience in international banking and asset management. He began his career as a corporate lawyer on Wall Street. He subsequently worked for Moody’s Investors Service in the Structured Derivatives group. Following Moody’s, Tolk joined the Structured Credit group at HSBC, which transferred him to Hong Kong in 2003 as managing director and Asia head of structuring.
In 2008 Tolk moved with his family to Singapore to be a portfolio manager and head of research at a hedge fund focusing on distressed debt, special situations, and private equity in Asia. While in Singapore, Tolk also worked at Standard Bank as Asia head of institutional and corporate solutions, and at Resource Capital Markets. He is currently the owner of Eastgate Advisors Pte. Ltd., a Singapore-based consulting and advisory firm.
Jeff holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, a law degree from Harvard Law School, and is a CFA charterholder.
The Investment Committee is responsible for monitoring and balancing the Foundation's endowment within the guidelines of the investment policy. It also selects and oversees the Foundation's asset managers. It is tasked with the following:
