Leadership
Our Executive Team
Meet the leadership team guiding FundingShield’s fraud prevention and risk management solutions.
Ike Suri
Chairman & CEO of FundingShield LLC
Ike Suri serves as the Chairman & CEO of FundingShield, LLC, a loan-level fraud prevention & risk management company that provides technology-based solutions to help mortgage lenders manage the funding process and avoid wire fraud schemes. The firm has a unique loan-level verification approach that has been used on over $900 Billion of closings.Ike also is currently the Chairman and CEO of Pelican Point Investment Group LLC (“PPI”), a boutique Private Equity & Merchant Bank in Newport Beach, California. Prior to PPI, Ike was the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Pelican Point Capital Partners, LLC for three years. He also has served as a CEO, Chairman, board member and advisor to private and public companies and continues to advise companies as an adviser, principal & owner/operator.
Ike is a “serial entrepreneur” and a founding charter member of The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE- South Coast). He was Co-Founder and was Co-President and CFO for Options Group, a leading Wall Street-based executive search and consulting firm with offices in 11 countries. He served as CEO and Chairman of Paradise Multimedia, Inc., a spin-off acquired from Phillips Corp. of NA, and as Chairman and CEO of Pacific Rim Entertainment Inc., a prime-time animation production company of which he sold select assets to Disney.
Ike is also Managing Director of Azemuth, Inc., a Suri family office making principal investments since the mid-1990s. He attended Delhi University’s Sri Ram College of Commerce and further completed Undergraduate and Graduate course work in Finance and Marketing at Rutgers University.
Industry Involvement
- chevron_rightCalifornia MBA
- chevron_rightMISMO
- chevron_rightMBA Risk Committee
- chevron_rightMBA Fraud Committee
- chevron_rightMortgage Innovators
- chevron_rightUT Dallas Naveen Jindal School of Management — Advisory Board
Adam J. Chaudhary
President of FundingShield LLC
Adam serves as the President of FundingShield, LLC, a loan level fraud prevention & risk management company that provides technology based solutions to help mortgage lenders manage the funding process and avoid wire fraud schemes. The firm has a unique loan level verification approach that has been used on over $900 Billion of closings.Adam J. Chaudhary is currently the President of Pelican Point Investments Group LLC (“PPI”), a boutique Private Equity & Merchant Bank in Newport Beach, California. Prior to PPI, he was the Managing Director for Pelican Point Capital Partners, LLC, Vice President at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) responsible for US Dollar structured funding and managed the cross asset solutions team.
At RBS, he also conducted the successful workout and renegotiation of a USD 9 billion loan portfolio while living between London and New York and worked with Her Majesty’s Treasury risk consultants in defining the scope and need for portfolio insurance products. Previously, Adam was a trader in the Fund Derivatives Group at Greenwich Capital where he risk managed a USD 5 billion portfolio of loan and derivative products secured by fund equity for global hedge funds & fund of hedge funds.
Adam holds Series 7 and 63 licenses from FINRA and obtained a Bachelor of Science in Finance and International Relations from Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts. He has also obtained certificates in credit products & derivatives from the New York Institute of Finance.
Industry Involvement
- chevron_rightMBA Associate Advisory Council
Charles Epperson
Senior Vice President, Product and Technology
Charles Epperson has more than 25 years of technology leadership experience in mortgage and real estate fintech. A recognized industry leader and recipient of the MBA Tech All-Star and HousingWire Tech Trendsetter awards, his career has centered on advancing electronic transactions, e-closings, digital signatures, and the data infrastructure required to connect every participant in a real estate transaction, areas that align directly with FundingShield’s expanding platform and client commitments.As FundingShield continues to expand its embedded solutions and deepen integrations across leading loan origination systems, servicer platforms, and institutional data workflows, Charles’ background in building scalable, interoperable technology at the intersection of lending and settlement adds further depth as client demand continues to scale. His experience translating complex client requirements into executable product roadmaps, while maintaining platform reliability and performance, strengthens the organization’s ability to grow without compromising on execution.
Charles holds extensive leadership within the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO), where he chairs MISMO Education and the eMortgage Community of Practice, and has co-authored national real estate data standards including the MISMO Title Insurance Request/Response. FundingShield’s Chairman & CEO, Ike Suri, also serves on the MISMO Board, a shared commitment to trusted data standardization that is central to FundingShield’s approach to fraud prevention and risk management as the industry advances toward greater automation and AI-driven decisioning.
Kurt Kluth
Vice President of Technology
Kurt Kluth is the Vice President of Technology – Senior Data Administrator at FundingShield where he leads the data management and modeling team to deliver optimal process models, fraud prevention, and ensure transactional data integrity.Prior to FundingShield, as the Data Architect for CloudVirga, Kurt delivered key improvements that significantly increased performance as well as underlying extensibility for SaaS customers in a highly regulated environment. Previously, Kurt was a Sr. Database Administrator for First American Title Corporation. During his storied tenure with the Title Products Group, he managed a dynamic environment of fast-paced data integration and ingestion projects as the business rapidly expanded.
Kurt enjoys the outdoors with his family and is a big music fan. At times Kurt has contributed his talents in construction for a variety of organizations such as the Girl Scouts of America and Habitat for Humanity.
Kabir Suri
Vice President
Kabir Suri is a strategic leader at FundingShield, where he drives operational efficiency and risk management initiatives as Vice President. With a strong background in financial services and human capital management, he plays a key role in optimizing workflows, implementing best practices, and leveraging technology to enhance fraud prevention and compliance within the mortgage industry.He earned his degree in Business Administration from Chapman University and began his career refining workforce strategies at Options Group, gaining valuable insight into Wall Street and organizational development. His experience as a Case Manager at Northwestern Mutual further sharpened his skills in client relationships, risk management, and operational strategy.
Committed to innovation and industry advancement, Kabir is focused on strengthening FundingShield’s position as a leader in Compliance & Fraud Prevention technology.
Jerry Halbrook
Senior Board Advisor
Jerry brings with him 34+ years of leadership experience in mortgages, banking, title and technology running large scale businesses as a senior executive around the country.Mr. Halbrook’s leadership experience includes his role as CFO of Prudential Home Mortgage, Chief Information Officer of Bank of America consumer real estate, Managing Director of Citi Mortgage in the Capital Markets area, Co-founder and COO of Nexstar Financial, President of Black Knight Inc. Origination Technology and Business Intelligence Divisions and many years with Deloitte & Touche in senior roles.
Most recently he was CEO of Lender Price where he brought strategic clients and investors to help facilitate the firm’s technology product development and delivery while increasing enterprise value.
Karthik Kumar
Senior Board Advisor
Karthik Kumar is a fintech leader and mortgage banking executive with over 25 years of experience driving innovation at the intersection of technology, operations, and strategy. As Co-founder and COO of LendArch, he is architecting a revolutionary digital fulfillment platform set to transform the way mortgages are originated, integrating automation, cognitive intelligence, and seamless user experiences.A former senior leader at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Karthik brings a business-first mindset to technology adoption, consistently harnessing the latest advancements (AI, cloud, data, and automation) to solve complex industry challenges. His ability to translate cutting-edge tech into scalable enterprise solutions has earned him multiple industry awards, including HousingWire Vanguard and Mortgage Titan by NMP.
He is a Chartered Accountant and Stanford Graduate School of Business LEAD alumnus, certified in COPC, Six Sigma Black Belt, and CRU (MBA). Karthik serves on the boards of Pelican Point Investments, FundingShield, and Sky Schools, and is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council at UT Dallas.
Former Advisory Board
Giorgos ``Terry`` Theologides
Founder & CEO, Quail Hill Advisors LLC
Giorgos ``Terry`` Theologides
Founder & CEO, Quail Hill Advisors LLC
Terry brings more than 20 years of experience as an executive overseeing mortgage regulatory and risk management issues and developing technology and data-driven products and techniques to manage them. Terry is Founder and CEO of Quail Hill Advisors LLC. He previously served as SVP, General Counsel of CoreLogic, Inc., where he was part of the leadership team that launched CoreLogic as a standalone public company.Mr. Theologides’ leadership experience includes General Counsel to The First American Corporation’s Information Solutions Group, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Morgan Stanley’s U.S. Residential Mortgage businesses, and EVP-Corporate Affairs and General Counsel to a large, national mortgage originator.
Terry has served on the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council and in leadership roles across the Housing Policy Council of the Financial Services Roundtable, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the American Financial Services Association, and as Chair of the Consumer Data Industry Association. He received his law degree from Columbia University and his undergraduate degree from Princeton.
Selim Aissi
CEO & CSO, Arbor Global Advisors
Selim Aissi
CEO & CSO, Arbor Global Advisors
Selim Aissi is CEO and Chief Security Officer of Arbor Global Advisors, as well as an investor and advisor to various technology, security, and financial services companies. Previously he was Senior Vice President & Chief Security Officer at Ellie Mae (up to and through the acquisition by Intercontinental Exchange) where he was responsible for Ellie Mae’s Security Engineering, Operations, Strategy, Cyber Resilience, and GRC.Selim has held various roles including Vice President of Global Information Security at Visa where he transformed Visa’s information security program into the industry leader. He led critical security programs including product security innovation, and enabled global growth and datacenter expansion. He also led technologies for protecting Visa’s data, networks, data centers, digital wallets, applications, end-point devices, and other core capabilities.
Selim spent over 11 years at Intel where he held senior management and technology roles and championed several security technologies for Intel’s server, desktop, and mobile products. Prior to Intel, Selim held senior engineering positions at General Dynamics – Land Systems Division, General Motors, and Applied Dynamics International.
Selim earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. engineering degrees from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Senior Member of IEEE, and member of ACM and ISACA. He holds over 100 patents in various areas of computer and information security.
Selim has been recognized for security innovation and leadership and received several awards including the 2019 CISO of the Year Award, Top 100 Global CISOs, and Most Influential CISOs.
William Klumper
CIO, CISO & Privacy Officer, FirstStep Software Systems
William’s career has focused on driving best practices and technological innovation for the mortgage industry in the information security, risk and technology forums. He serves as Chief Information Officer, Chief Information Security Officer and Privacy Officer at FirstStep Software Systems. Earlier he was Chief Information Officer of First Mortgage Company LLC in Nebraska, where he also assumed the Chief Security Officer & Chief Privacy Officer roles facilitating governance and controls during the firm’s rapid growth.He currently has several Mortgage Industry wide leadership roles including MISMO where he is Vice-Chairman of Residential Governance and Residential Governance Committee Member elected lender representative and Co-Chair of the Council of Chairs. Further, he is an active participant and thought leader in the MBA CIO & MBA Residential Technology Forums. William was invited to join the Michigan Financial Industry Cyber Council (MIFICC) where he has drafted a significant portion of the legal framework including their intellectual property and antitrust statements.
He is a graduate of Creighton University Law School, Cum Laude, and is admitted to Practice in Nebraska and has worked as a Patent Attorney and was registered to practice before the USPTO. Education includes a Masters in History and a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Creighton University.
He served in the National Guard and Army Reserves as a Transportation Corps Officer with highest rank of Major in the USAR(RET). He has founded a number of different companies over the years with his first one being in 1984, FirstStep Software Systems which provides programming and consulting services to manufacturing, meat packing, construction and the financial services industry.
John Hedlund
Vice Chairman at ICE and at the Mortgage Bankers Association
John is Vice Chairman at ICE and at the Mortgage Bankers Association. He previously founded Adanac Advisory Group (AAG), a boutique advisory and consulting firm to share his knowledge and industry expertise, leveraging his broad relationships to support the “optimization of leaders and businesses vision.” AAG focuses on providing concrete, tangible recommendations to improve your business.John served as Senior Advisor to FundingShield, a fintech providing live, plug-n-play, scalable and source-data driven compliance and risk management solutions to combat wire fraud, title fraud, and other 3rd-party and supplier risks.
John recently retired from AmeriHome Mortgage, where he was Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director. He was one of the original founders (2013) of AmeriHome, which grew from inception into the 2nd-largest Correspondent Lender in the United States. In April 2021, John and the executive team completed the sale of AmeriHome to Western Alliance Bank.
Prior to AmeriHome, John spent 7 years as an executive with Bank of America Home Loans, joining Bank of America (previously Countrywide) in 2007 as Executive Vice President of Correspondent Lending Operations. He began his career with the Royal Bank of Canada and relocated to the United States in 2002 as Chief Operating Officer of RBC Mortgage.
Faith Schwartz
Founder & CEO, Housing Finance Strategies
Faith brings a wealth of experience and relationships stemming from her leadership in the lending, fintech, non-profit and advisory space, and she is Founder and CEO of Housing Finance Strategies. Faith joined the FundingShield advisory board in 2018.Schwartz received the HousingWire HW Vanguard Award™ for her career contributions to the housing finance industry in 2018 and was recognized as one of mortgage banking’s most powerful women by National Mortgage Professional magazine the same year. Other awards include HousingWire’s HW Women of Influence™ award and a lifetime achievement award from the Five Star Institute.