Leadership Team - a team that gets it

Clint Coghill

Chief Executive Officer

Clint Coghill co-founded Backstop Solutions Group in 2003 as the Founding Chairman and has helped guide the company as Chairman of the Board for the last 10 years. Clint now leads the Backstop Executive Team as CEO.

Prior to joining Backstop in an executive role, Clint was CIO of Coghill Capital Management, a successful Chicago-based hedge fund management company he started in 1995. Among his other professional pursuits, Clint was the Founding Chairman of NFTE Chicago’s Regional Advisory Board, which provides entrepreneurship programs to young people from low-income communities and reaches more than 2,000 youth per year. He is also the founder of two charitable Organizations, the Coghill Family Foundation and the Environmental Impact Initiative.

Clint received his Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Arizona, and his Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the London Business School.

Jim Schuler

Chief Financial Officer

Jim Schuler has 20+ years of experience in the financial services industry, specifically focusing on finance, accounting, legal, operations, deal structuring, project management and evaluating financial and operational results. Prior to Backstop, Jim was a Principal and the CFO at Coghill Capital Management, with previous financial leadership roles at Goldman Sachs, The Hull Group, LLC, and accounting group Schultz, Chez and Jesser, LLP. He also serves on various private company and charitable boards.

Jim is a Certified Public Accountant with a Bachelor's degree from Arizona State University and an MBA with a concentration in Finance from DePaul University's Kellstadt School of Business.

Mike Porter

SVP of Global Field Operations

Mike Porter is the SVP of Global Field Operations for Backstop Solutions. In this role he leads Backstop’s dedicated team of people across sales, marketing, relationship management and field operations. He’s responsible for building and executing the company’s strategy and ensuring it aligns to the most pressing needs of Backstop’s existing customers and the overall institutional investment community.

As an experienced sales and business executive of over twenty years Mike has helped numerous technology companies transform their businesses to accelerate growth and long term, sustainable success. Most recently Mr. Porter was Vice President of Americas at Progress Software, a global software application development platform provider, where he assisted in rebuilding the organization and go to market plans to achieve the strategic objective of becoming a leading PaaS vendor. Prior to Progress, Mr. Porter served as Vice President of Central US Enterprise Sales at Juniper Networks. He spent 14 years at Microsoft in a variety of leadership roles including US Central Region General Manager, Asia Pacific Enterprise Sales Director, and Enterprise Sales and Partner Manager for Gulf States District. A graduate of Purdue University, Mike currently resides in the Chicago area with his wife and three children.

Marguerite Peters

VP, Client Services

As the VP of Client Services, Marguerite Peters is responsible for overseeing Backstop client support across all products. Marguerite has more than 20 years of experience in the financial services industry, specifically in brokerage and trust operations, and client delivery of services and software. Prior to joining Backstop, Marguerite held several executive leadership positions at SunGard. Marguerite graduated from Ohio State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Communication.

Beth Hayden

SVP, People & Development

As SVP of People & Development for Backstop Solutions, Beth Hayden is responsible for aligning business and talent strategies, and creating a world-class employee experience that advances the company brand and culture. With over twenty years’ experience as a human capital executive Beth has helped various companies transform their people practices and earn recognition as a best place to work. Most recently, Beth was Chief Human Resources Officer, Americas at JLL, a global commercial real estate services organization. In this role, she provided leadership for the dynamic people function, in alignment with significant organizational growth plans. Prior to JLL, Beth served as Vice President of Human Resources at RIC and Trizec Properties, and held a global HR role at Morton International.

Beth earned her MBA from the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern, and holds a BS in Psychology from the University of Illinois. She serves on the Executive Committee of the YWCA and the Development Board of PAWS. Beth is a certified yoga teacher and a longtime resident of Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood, where she lives with her husband and beloved dog.

Jeffrey Axelrod

Chief Technology Officer

Jeffrey Axelrod has spent the past 20 years building bridges between the financial services and technology domains—conceiving, designing, and guiding technology and the teams that build it, in areas such as general ledger accounting, portfolio management and analytics, partnership accounting, and corporate actions and pricing.

As CTO of Backstop, Jeffrey leads the engineering team, ensuring our application and infrastructure development is aligned with our financial services’ business strategy and growth. Jeffrey joined Backstop when the company acquired Cogency Software in 2015, where he served as CEO. In this and in prior roles— as vice president of development and chief architect at TenFold Corporation, and as CTO at Financial Technologies International (now GoldenSource), he led teams of engineers and product managers in the development of enterprise-scale applications.

An expert in developing strategic technologies for the alternative investment market, Jeffrey has written and spoken widely about the role technology can play in portfolio and performance analytics, risk management, compliance, and liquidity management. Jeffrey holds a BA in Anthropology from Beloit College in Wisconsin and advanced certification in Computer Technology from Columbia University, where he also held a teaching post at the University’s Computer Technology and Applications division for six years.

Michael Neuman

VP, Information Security

Michael Neuman is responsible for Backstop’s data and information systems security. Prior to joining Backstop in 2015, Michael served in various IS leadership roles, most recently as the Director of Security for Textura Corporation and the CISO for major mortgage company in the Chicagoland Area. Michael holds an MS in Communication Systems from Northwestern University and BA in Political Science and History from Purdue University. Michael’s Information Security Certifications include: CISSP, GISP, GCCC and GCIH.

Craig Rowland

VP, Institutional Sales EMEA

As VP of Institutional Sales, Craig Rowland leads operations in the EMEA region. Craig brings more than 20 years of experience in the software industry in both North America and EMEA. Prior to joining Backstop he spent the last 15 years successfully helping U.S based software and technology companies set up and grow their operations in the EMEA region. Craig received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen’s University in Canada.

Robert Goldbaum

SVP, Product & Market Strategy

Robert Goldbaum brings more than 22 years of experience with alternative investments and technology innovation to Backstop’s product development and client/partner management efforts. Prior to joining Backstop, Mr. Goldbaum was a Director and Head of Fund of Funds Services at Citadel Solutions, now part of Northern Trust. Before Citadel, Mr. Goldbaum founded FundRunner investor servicing and manager due diligence software, which he sold in 2005. Previously, he was the Operations Manager at Robertson Stephens Investment Management where he automated the back office, supported the first liquid alternative fund, and launched one of the first mutual fund websites. Mr. Goldbaum has a degree in Accounting from Michigan State University.

Richard Hegan

VP, Professional Services

Richard Hegan has worked in the IT/finance field for 23 years, holding positions at a pension company, financial regulator, bank and a number of financial software providers within the alternative financial sector. Originally focused on the business analysis and engineering side of things, Richard transitioned to professional services when he moved to New York 10 years ago to help open an office for a London-based software company. Originally targeted for a six month stay, he ended up never going back...