About Us

Founding Member of the Treasurers and Insurance Roundtable

Sassan Cyrus Parandeh is the Treasurer of ChildFund International, an international child development organization. During his tenure he volunteered to serve as ChildFund’s Country Director in Kenya where he oversaw the welfare of 1,200,000 children. While there, Sassan used his Treasury expertise to introduce the first ever large-scale institutional use of mobile-money. This technology provided financial services to regions of the world that were previously “unbanked.” For this, ChildFund won the 2014 Grand Pinnacle Award from the Association for Financial Professionals.

Sassan also is a regular contributor to the AFP Exchange Magazine and the Global Treasury blog “gtnews.” He has been published extensively in academic peer reviewed journals such as The Journal of Business Continuity and the Journal of Corporate Treasury Management. He is quoted frequently in the Wall Street Journal and the Economist’s Treasury Perspectives Magazine. In June 2018, he was aired on the BBC’s Storyworks. Mr. Parandeh is a Certified Treasury Professional (CTP) with global experience from Dole Food Company, Litton Industries Inc., The City of Long Beach in California, and Platinum Equity LLC.

He has a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, and possesses a Master of Public Administration (MPA), as well as a bachelor’s degree in Mathematical Economics from California State University, Long Beach.

Founding Member of the Treasurers and Insurance Roundtable

Steve Perry has directed global treasury operations for Catholic Relief Services at HQ and in over 100 developing programming countries for 29 years. He is responsible for establishing agency-wide best practices, treasury strategies, policies and procedures. He supervises a treasury staff of three, which is responsible for liquidity and banking with 300 international accounts with 30+ global bank relationships. He oversees insurance and foreign currency risks and conversions in 40+ major and exotic currencies. He enforces security and compliance with federal and international regulations on terrorist vetting and OFAC.

Steve is a Certified Treasury Professional, Certified Public Accountant and holds an MS in Taxation.

Founding Member of the Treasurers and Insurance Roundtable

Kathryn Powers is the Global Treasurer of World Vision International (WVI), a Christian relief, development, and advocacy organization with revenues of $3.2 billion and operations in nearly 100 countries. Kathryn joined WVI in 2006 and has led the organization through the process of globalizing treasury and insurance including the development of services, policies and standards as well as implementing and leveraging technology. Before joining WVI, Kathryn held numerous treasury positions at AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and EDS.

Kathryn holds an MBA from the University of Chicago. Prior to graduate school, Kathryn served in the financial and administrative management of rural “bush” health clinics and medical facility in Blantyre, Malawi.

Tobias is an experienced finance professional and held various financial and treasury management positions in the private sector (specialty chemicals, fast moving consumer goods and oil industry) in Africa, South America and Europe and more recently in the development sector. Currently working for The Global Fund, an international organization active in global health, with approximately 4 billion USD disbursements per year to about 100 countries.

Tobias is a board member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers in Suisse Romande, certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM) and holder of an MBA from HEC Paris.

Rich Yamashita is the Treasurer of UCLA. He is responsible for liquidity management, planning and analysis, investment allocation of surplus funds, internal bank/financing strategy, global banking operations and payments strategy on behalf of the multiple academic, auxiliary and health system institutions across the university. Rich is also responsible for strategic advisory services and analytics related to capital structure, financial risk management, strategic initiatives and global operations support for UCLA in collaboration with the UC system.

Prior to joining UCLA in 2014, Rich served over 20 years in various senior global Treasury leadership roles at large publicly traded multinational companies including Amgen, Herbalife International and Dole Food Company where he was responsible for capital market activities, foreign currency, commodity and interest rate risk management, global insurance and cash operations.

Rich received his BA in Economics from UCLA and later earned his MBA in Corporate Finance from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. He is a Certified Treasury Professional. In addition to his UCLA responsibilities, Rich currently serves on the Board of Directors and as Vice Chairman of the Asset – Liability Committee at the University Credit Union and volunteers as a local youth leader for Scouts BSA.