ALBERT J. BRENNER, CFA

“Investors do not have ready access to the sort of information they need to help them make the most important decision in managing their money, namely, how best to diversify their portfolio to enhance returns and reduce risks. Investors spend much too much time trying to pick stocks, mutual funds, or money managers when they should be spending their time understanding their risk position and studying the best allocation strategy to fit that position. Our mission is to provide investors with the education, information, and analysis they need to feel confident about how to diversify their portfolios to achieve their risk and return objectives.”

“We have a mission to democratize finance. The Asset Allocation Advisor is part of this mission along with our consulting practice and seminars. Investment information and analysis should not be treated like secrets of the temple, available only to the privileged or moneyed few. No doubt, much of the information and analysis requires expert judgment, but the investment management industry has not done enough to educate the public or even its clients. And why not? Because the current arrangement is too lucrative and helps maintain the illusion that finance experts are masters of the universe worthy of earning rich compensation for average performance."

Brenner was one of the principal speakers at The Southern New England Endowment Management Conference at the University of Hartford in late January. This free conference for non-profit organizations was cosponsored by Asset Allocation Parametrics with the law firm of Reid & Riege and the accounting firm of Blum Shapiro. Brenner spoke on the subject of how to set risk tolerances for endowment portfolios. At a May 2008 seminar for individual investors sponsored by Asset Allocation Parametrics, Brenner spoke on Good Investments in a Bad Economy. He was invited to Shanghai, China in September 2008 and spoke on the role of commodities in a diversified investment portfolio.

Prior to founding the Asset Allocation Advisor, Brenner worked in finance in the non-profit and banking sectors. He spent twenty years in banking before deciding to put his finance expertise to work in education. His last banking position was as treasurer and executive vice-president of one of the nation’s largest multi-state thrift institutions (now a part of the Bank of America) where he managed $2.2 billion in investments and $700 million in borrowings. As the director of finance for a girls secondary boarding school in Connecticut, he managed a tax-exempt bond issue and the development of the school’s excess real estate holdings. It was while looking for expert asset allocation guidance for the school’s endowment that he realized such guidance was not easy to find, much less at a reasonable price, and the idea for the Asset Allocation Advisor was born.

Brenner is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Notre Dame and holds masters degrees from Oxford and Yale. He earned the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) in 1991. He was the recipient of the Willis D. Nutting award at Notre Dame by election of his fellow students and teachers as the student who contributed the most to the education of his peers in the Program of Liberal Studies.

Brenner has been a long-time student and teacher of finance and brings his love of teaching to his firm’s mission. Over his career, he has made presentations at a variety of national conferences and has taught a wide range of subjects to students of various kinds: from Money and Banking to supervisory-level banking personnel, through the American Institute of Banking, to Corporate Finance to MBA students in Connecticut and Massachusetts. For the past seven years, he has taught in the adult degree program of Albertus Magnus College (New Haven, CT), focusing primarily on finance and economics in the BS and MBA programs. A native of Ohio, he now lives in West Hartford, Connecticut with his wife and step-daughter.