Stuart founded Wealth Strategist Partners (WSP) as the successor to his family's investment platform, where he was co-Chief Investment Officer for many years following the sale of Carnation Company, the business founded by his great-grandfather.

Stuart has been an investment professional for over 35 years. In addition to his duties with WSP, Stuart is Chairman of the Investment Committee of National Public Radio and is a board member of the National Public Radio Foundation.

Stuart designed and leads the University of Chicago Booth School of Business's Private Wealth Management continuing education program, which has served over 500 individuals and families in the 12 to 14 years since the course’s inception. His book, Wealth: Grow It and Protect It (FT Press), has been published on three continents. He is the author of numerous articles on investing and wealth management, most recently "The 50% Rule" and "Pick Your Battles" (Journal of Wealth Management), co-authored with Alejandro Sanz. His latest book, "The Taxable Investor's Manifesto" (Wiley), will be published in early 2020.

Previously, Stuart was the Senior Managing Director of the Ultra-High Net Worth Group within Private Client Services at Bank One (now JP Morgan Chase), director of a multi-family investment office in Paris, France; General Manager of European operations of Wellington Management Company in London, England; and Assistant Portfolio Manager of a Forbes Honor Roll mutual fund.

He has a B.A. with honors from Dartmouth College, an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Merle Erickson studies the effect of taxes on the pricing and structuring of mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures; and the use of accounting information in valuation and contracting. He also studies, among other things, various aspects of accounting fraud. He teaches “Taxes and Business Strategy” at Booth and has taught the course for the last twenty five years.

In addition to numerous articles published in a variety of top academic journals, Erickson is a coauthor of the widely used Taxes and Business Strategy textbook (currently in its 6th edition) and is the author/editor of the casebook, Cases in Tax Strategy. From 2005-2011, he served as a co-editor of the Journal of Accounting Research.

Over the course of his career, Erickson has consulted on complex GAAP and tax accounting issues (e.g., debt versus equity, various ASC 740 related issues, intercompany accounting and consolidation, employee stock option accounting, accounting for mergers, acquisitions and divestitures (e.g., spin-offs, leveraged partnerships, reverse Morris Trust transactions), restated financial statements, etc.) in a variety of contexts (e.g., bankruptcy, mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, inversions, structured finance, investment planning, cross border and intercompany financing, partnership and LLC arrangements, tax sharing agreements, shareholder disputes, and various types of tax advantaged transactions). His clients have included, among others, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, Fortune 500 companies in various industries, international financial institutions, law firms, accounting firms, and individual taxpayers. He has also assisted corporations with SEC, IRS and whistleblower investigations. Erickson brings these real world experiences to his “Taxes Business Strategy” and executive education courses at Booth.

Prior to entering academia, he assisted the U.S. Government in its prosecution of the Lincoln Saving & Loan case. He subsequently published an academic article and teaching case relating to the audit failure associated with the Lincoln Saving & Loan case. That teaching case has been used by the Big 4 to train junior auditors. 

He has been given several awards from the American Taxation Association for his research and teaching. He has received the Outstanding Manuscript Award (twice) as well as an award for teaching innovation. In addition to teaching graduate students at Chicago Booth, Erickson has taught courses to Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, General Electric Capital Corporation, Baker McKenzie, Andersen Consulting, Accenture, CareerBuilder, and the IMCA (Investment Management Consultants Association) among others. He also was been named one of BusinessWeek's Outstanding Faculty at the University of Chicago.

Erickson earned a bachelor's degree in accounting from Rockhurst College in 1987, an MBA in 1989 from Arizona State University, and a PhD in accounting from the University of Arizona in 1996. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 1996.

In addition to his scholarly activities, Erickson is an avid fisherman. His angling pursuits have taken him from the pristine wilderness lakes of northern Canada to some of the remotest stretches of the Great Barrier Reef. He received the Angler Award from the Billfish Foundation in 2003 for releasing the most striped marlin worldwide that year.

Sara founded the Family Office Exchange (FOX) as an industry clearinghouse and peer network for family offices in 1989. Within a few years, Sara could see that families needed help developing their enterprise vision and managing their family transitions, in addition to overseeing their family offices. As a result, FOX became an advisor to family owners of the enterprise, in addition to sharing family wealth best practices and being an industry advocate for the importance of private enterprise in a global economy.

In her role as family advisor, Sara provides consulting advice to a select group of enterprise families and helps identify enterprise best practices for the FOX Knowledge Center. She supports the development of new FOX learning programs and delivers educational programs at the University of Chicago Booth School in Chicago and at VU University in Amsterdam. At the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Sara is an adjunct faculty member in the Private Wealth Management and Wealth Essentials courses.

As Board Chair for FOX, Sara oversees the values, vision, and mission for the firm; provides oversight for the strategic investments made by the business; and serves as an advocate and advisor to the unique membership community that FOX represents. FOX has a unique team of 20 subject matter experts who oversee 480 member relationships in 24 countries. The FOX management team is based in Chicago, New York, Denver, Richmond, Pittsburgh, So Florida and Madrid.

Sara is co-author of Family Legacy and Leadership: Preserving True Family Wealth in Challenging Times. Sara is on the international governing board for the Foundation for Advancing Impact and Sustainability in Bologna, Italy and the national governing board for Private Directors Association in Chicago.

Caren is principal of Croland Consulting, a private practice that guides athletes, celebrities, high net worth families, and social institutions in building a culture of purpose.

As President of Crown Family Philanthropies in Chicago, (2009-2016), she managed organizational redesign and growth, engaged multiple generations, and guided strategy in the U.S., the Middle East, and the developing world.

Caren built Oprah Winfrey’s philanthropies, as Executive Director (2000-2009) at the height of the Oprah Winfrey Show, a period that included Oprah’s Use Your Life Awards, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa and the Oprah Winfrey Boys and Girls Club in Kosciusko Mississippi where Oprah was born. She led disaster recovery and rebuilding in the Mid-South following Hurricane Katrina that put fourteen-hundred families back in homes. Caren was a member of Harpo’s Senior Management Team.

Caren chairs the board of The Poetry Foundation (a private operating foundation) and has guided it through a series of organizational changes with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is a member of the Board of Visitors at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University and at the Women in Philanthropy Institute (WPI).

She is a frequent keynote and podcast speaker at wealth management and estate planning conferences with a focus on family offices and impact investing. Recent keynotes and podcasts include: The Heart of Giving (BBB), Dentons, Family Business Magazine’s Family Wealth and Legacy Conference, Family Office World, Yale Philanthropy Conference, and FEW.

Caren is an adjunct professor at Tulane University, the University of Chicago Booth School in their Private Wealth Management program, the Spertus Institute, and the Sports and Entertainment Impact Collective (formerly part of Johns Hopkins).

Caren understands the social change landscape. Her engagement in the sector has spanned media (The Oprah Winfrey Show, Time Inc., WSJ, Country Living) and startups like Leading Edge, formed to build organizational capacity in nonprofits. She has developed economic and education programs in Africa in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela Foundation and through public private partnerships and worked extensively in Israel and the Middle East on cross boundary projects related to coexistence and the environment. She holds a degree in Broadcast Journalism from Emerson College, studied speech and language pathology at Mercy College, and has a certificate in Strategic Leadership for Nonprofit Organizations from Stanford University.

In her spare time Caren hosts salons that bring bold thinkers together for meaningful conversations. She has a passion for listening deeply, navigating challenges, and guiding people who have the potential to make the world a better place.