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Derek Bryson Park is an American Investment Portfolio Manager and Banker.^[1]  Park served as Managing Director in the Fixed Income/Structured Finance Division at Lehman Brothers^[2][3][4][5] Preceding Lehman, he was President of Mahler & Emerson Inc., (an affiliate of Brean Murray, Carret & Co., with JP Morgan serving as clearing partner), Managing Director of Rafferty Holdings, LLC and President of Cohane Rafferty Capital Markets, Inc. specializing in the mortgage banking and financial institutions industries.^{[2][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]} He served as Director of the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York in the Clinton and Bush Administrations from March 1999 to December 2002 and as Vice Chairman and Chairman (pro tem) of the New York Industrial Development Agency (IDA) in the Giuliani and Bloomberg Administrations.^[12]

Derek Bryson Park is currently Principal at Wilmington Capital Securities, LLC with the Royal Bank of Canada (“RBC”) serving as clearing partner. With the vast majority of assets managed on a discretionary basis, he is responsible for a multitude of individual accounts, trusts and foundations. 

Early Life and Education

He attended Bishop’s College School, Lennoxville, P.Q., Canada; Croydon Country Day School, Jamaica Estates, NY; P.S. 99 Kew Gardens School, NY; and The Kew-Forest School, Forest Hills, NY. After completing his secondary education, he attended Western University in London, Ontario, Canada, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1977. In 1979, he obtained an MPA from the New York University Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, followed by a Ph.D. from the New York University Graduate School of Arts and Science in international and developmental administration, with a focus on public finance, in 1982. He also successfully completed the International Housing Finance Program at The Wharton Real Estate Center, University of Pennsylvania, in 2001. He graduated from the Lubin School of Business, Pace University, with a Diploma in the CFP Examination Qualification Program, awarded on January 9, 2002. In 2007, he furthered his education by receiving a post-graduate degree from the General Theological Seminary.

Early Career

In 1982, Derek Park joined the California-based Callon Petroleum Company,^[7][17] marketing publicly-traded drilling, income and royalty limited partnership funds and tasked with the management of a nationwide broker-dealer syndicate which included over 120 firms with Merrill Lynch serving as the lead underwriter.^{[5][7][18][19]} In 1983 Park took a leave of absence from Callon to serve as Statewide Campaign Manager for the then Attorney General of Mississippi Bill Allain for whom he fundraised and campaigned in his succession run and election to Governor.^[20] In 1984, he returned to Callon Petroleum Company reporting directly to the Chairman and CEO, John S. Callon. After 3 years of service Park returned to New York City in 1985 and worked for the largest advertising conglomerate in the world, the Interpublic Group of Companies/SSC&B: Lintas as a member of a team of executives on the “Account Management” side of the business.^[7]

Lehman Brothers and Cohane Rafferty Capital Markets

Derek Park served as Managing Director in the Fixed Income/Structured Finance Division at Lehman Brothers. Preceding Lehman, Park was Managing Director of Rafferty Holdings, LLC (the holding company of Cohane Rafferty Securities, Inc. and other entities) and President of Cohane Rafferty Capital Markets, Inc. Recognized as one of the nation’s preeminent experts in mortgage finance, Cohane Rafferty had completed or evaluated over 4600 transactions involving more than $1.5 trillion of mortgage servicing rights, mortgage and consumer loans, credit card portfolios and mortgage banking companies.

Park also served as a Managing Director of the Potomac Funds, a leading provider of leveraged index and alternative-class mutual fund products (which was renamed Direxion Funds in 2006).

Significant M&A and portfolio transactions specific to Derek Park include: Securing the sale of Wells Fargo Mortgage Bank to General Motors Acceptance Corporation; Structuring a strategic partnership between Cendant Corporation and Homeside Lending, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of National Australia Bank; The sale of Capstead Mortgage Corporation to GMAC/RFC; M&T Bank in their joint venture acquisition with KeyBank of Goldome Federal Savings Bank from the FDIC; and  Capstead Mortgage’s acquisition of 16 portfolios which, in aggregate, amounted to $26.3 billion, which included product sourced from Citicorp, Fleet Bank, Source One, Crossland, Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (“CDC”), FBS and Weyerhauser;

Clinton, Bloomberg, and Giuliani Administrations

Park was appointed as Director of the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York by the Clinton administration^{[5][7][8][11][21][22]} in January 1999 and served into the George W. Bush administration until 2002.^[3][10][23] Park was also appointed by the Giuliani Administration; and, the Bloomberg Administration as Chairman (pro tem) of the New York Industrial Development Agency ("IDA"),^[24][25][26] Vice-Chairman of the NYC Capital Resource Corporation ("CRC"),^[27] and Director of the New York City Economic Development Corporation ("EDC")^[28] principally attending to overseeing the structural expansion of the New York Stock Exchange; the designing and planned construction of two baseball stadiums for the Yankees and the Mets;^[26] and the monitoring of the country’s largest urban redevelopment project in US history with the renovation of Time Square.^[28] In 2006, Park together with Randy Levine, the President of the New York Yankees Baseball Club, and David Cohen, the Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer of the New York Mets, received the “Bond Buyer’s Deal of the Year Award Award” for the IDA’s sale of $1.6 billion of bonds to finance new baseball parks for both teams.^[26][29]

From 2000 to 2014, Park served as Commissioner of the New York City Commission on Human Rights in the Giuliani, Bloomberg,^[31][32] and de Blasio Administrations. In this role, Park worked to protect the rights of New York City residents (primarily minorities and immigrants^{[33][34][35][36][37][38]}) regarding housing, mortgage and other abusive consumer-related bank practices. He was accused in 2014 of a misdemeanor while serving on the New York City Commission on Human Rights, and the case was summarily dismissed and expunged by the Office of the District Attorney of New York County.^[39]

Arbitration

Derek Park was appointed to and served as an Arbitrator, Board of Arbitrators, National Association of Securities Dealers ("NASD") [otherwise known today as "FINRA"]; the New York Stock Exchange; and, the Chicago Board of Trade (1992-2002).^[7]

Other Activities

From 2004 to 2005, Park was appointed (and reported directly to) the Apostolic Nuncio (Senior Ambassador) of the Holy See (“The Vatican”), H.E. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, joining the ranks of the five-member delegation allotted to each nation-state within the United Nations. In this role, he focused primarily on the adoption and implementation of a worldwide resolution specific to “Preventing, Combating, and Eradicating the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects.”^[40][41]

Personal Life

Derek Park was born and raised in New York City. His father was a Doctor of Internal Medicine, psychotherapist and a senior Madison Avenue advertising executive, his mother was a health care professional, and his brother is a double board certified physician.

His hobbies include tennis, squash, baseball, extreme travel, bank note collecting ("notaphilist"), history (political, financial and military) and a love for comedy genres in virtually all its forms.

Selected Writings

• Contributing Editor, Servicing Mortgage Portfolios - Strategies and Applications for Buying, Selling, and Managing Mortgage Loan Portfolios, Chicago, Illinois: Probus Publishing Co., 1991
• Contributing Writer, Researcher’s Digest Department, “National Civic Review.”

1. Review of Technology Policy Analysis: Bridging the Technology Gap, by Barry Hyman. (April, 1981).
2. Review of Town-Country Relations in Virginia, by Mary Jo Fields and Sandra H. Wiley. (January, 1981).
3. Review of Small Towns, Big Grants: Federal Aid and Nonmetropolitan Local Governments in Illinois, by Alvin D. Sokolow. (April, 1980).
4. Review of Illinois Municipalities: Where Have All The Voters Gone?, by Oliver Walter and Albert Karnig. (December, 1979).
5. Review of Public Employer Turnover in State Government: Costs and Benefits, by C. Meyer, M. Beville and T. Magedanz. (May, 1979).
6. Review of Taxpayers Associations: The “Opposition: in Government Finance", by Alexander Walker. (December, 1978).