People

Managing Members

  • Co-founder

    Mr. Mallozzi has over 50 years of insurance experience influencing the course and direction of the industry on two continents as well as Bermuda.

    Early in his career Mr. Mallozzi underwrote London Market Excess (LMX) and retrocessional reinsurance, which contributed to the stabilization of international reinsurance following Hurricane Betsy.

    He served as the President of Beitler Services, Inc, an insurance company management firm. In addition to Stronghold, Mr. Mallozzi has founded or co-founded: Dreward Management Ltd, Bermuda; Andone Insurance, a Bermuda Class 3 segregated account company; ANECO Reinsurance, the first publicly traded reinsurance company in Bermuda; Andrew Edwards and Company, which specialized in program business and captive management and Bankers and Shippers Insurance, where he headed reinsurance treaty underwriting.

    Mr. Mallozzi began his career with Public Service Mutual Insurance Company focused on reinsurance.

    He received his BBA degree, cum laude, in insurance and business administration from St. John’s University, New York (formerly the College of Insurance). 

  • Corporate Counsel

    Mr. Odell is a lawyer and member of several bar associations, including the New York bar. He has had an extensive career as a tax lawyer advising major national and international institutions in the tax aspects of financial transactions - many of which spanned multiple jurisdictions. He was the founding partner of the New York office of Morgan, Lewis and Bockius, the head of its tax department, and a member of its management committee. Subsequently, he became a partner in Dewey Ballantine, where he served as the head of its New York office tax department, founded its Latin American Practice Group, and served as the Senior Partner of its London office. Since retiring from Dewey Ballantine, he has served as Counsel to two major law firms and for two years acted as financial advisor to investors in natural resources and other businesses in Colombia, SA.

    Qualifications: Mr. Odell received a BS (in Economics) from the University of Pennsylvania, a JD (Cum Laude) from the University of Miami School of Law and an LLM (in Taxation) from New York University School of Law, where he graduated first in his class and served as an Adjunct Professor at the Law School for fourteen years.

  • Mr. Agas has 40 years of experience in finance, investment management, technology, and risk. In the early 1980s, Mr. Agas developed one of the earliest fully automated trading systems implementing information theory based algorithms optimizing portfolio risk vs return in the face of uncertainty. He managed the platform across long/short portfolios of commodities, financial futures, foreign exchange, and equity indexes, for his own account, private clients, and a private investment partnership.

    Mr. Agas has made significant contributions to the field of sequential decision making, including: the development of the first closed form analytic solutions to Universal Portfolio Optimization and Universal Data Compression. Additional applications of these approaches include optimizing global climate policy and as explanation of human brain structures modeled for general artificial intelligence.

    Mr. Agas has served as a thought leader in areas of systemic and technology risk and advised senior management at Credit Suisse and Barclays. Within the hedge fund industry, Mr. Agas has overseen technology, operational, and trading risk; designed multi-strategy fund models of portfolio derivatives comprised of: alternative strategies, proprietary cash management, synthetic asset class overlay providing multiple utilization of capital, and event-risk hedges; and led development of a trading and risk platform in conjunction with the National Stock Exchange of India. As CEO of TechCONOMY, Mr. Agas led the development of distributed high-speed processing technology targeting the computation of quantitative analytics for trading and risk management.

    Mr. Agas graduated from Western College with Honors in 1974 and serves on the Advisory Board of the New Vintage Baroque Orchestra.

Advisory Board

  • Mr. Labenski has over 30 years experience in the insurance industry as a financial and operational executive.

    Mr. Labenski currently serves as Chief Financial Officer at the New York State Insurance Department Liquidation Bureau.  

    Mr. Labenski has previously been CFO for National Colonial Insurance; Seneca Insurance and United Capitol Insurance, and COO for US Capital Insurance. He is a former director of American Millennium Insurance. Mr. Labenski began his career with Arthur Andersen & Co., a certified public accounting firm, specializing in the audits of insurance companies and brokerage houses.

    Mr. Labenski holds a B.S. in Accounting from Wilkes University,  a Master Degree in Financial Management from Iona College, and served in the United States Marine Corps.

  • Dr. Sokoler has specialized in the fields of Macroeconomics, Monetary Economics, Money and Banking. He currently serves as a present, Member of the Administrative Enforcement Committee of the Israeli Security Authority and as external advisor for the International Monetary Fund performing technical assistance missions to various Central Banks.

    At the Bank of Israel, Dr. Sokoler served in various capacities including as Senior Economist, Research Department; Deputy Director of the Research Department; Alternate governor on behalf of Israel at the I.M.F.; Director, Tel Aviv Stock Exchange; Director of the Monetary Department; Deputy Governor; and Acting Governor.

    In academia Dr. Sokoler served as Visiting Associate Professor, City University of NY at Hunter College, Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology; Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Connecticut at Storrs; and professor at New York University and Keans College. 

    Dr. Sokoler received his B.A, M.A., and PhD from New York University.

    Selected publications include: "Inflation Targeting and Exchange Rate Regimes; Evidence from the Financial” Markets (coauthored with Menachem Brenner), Finance Review, vol 14, number 5, April 2010; "Approaching a Decade of No Foreign Exchange Intervention––Lessons from Israel," Foreign Exchange Market Intervention in Emerging Markets: Motives, Techniques and Implications, BIS Papers No. 24, 2005; "Globalization and its Effects on Monetary Policy: The Case of Israel," Globalization and Monetary Policy in Emerging Markets, BIS Papers No. 23, 2005; and “The Interaction between Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Israel," Fiscal Issues and Central Banking in Emerging Economies, BIS Papers No. 20, 2003.

  • A recognized leader in creative business strategies for the financial services and insurance industries, Mr. Valentino’s experience spans marketing, interactive commerce, information technology, insurance and annuity operations, savings products and pensions.  

    Mr. Valentino served as the Financial Services Strategy Leader at AGENCY.COM, an Omnicom-owned interactive services provider, where he advised and consulted to industry leaders including: Allstate, First Union Bank, GMAC, CIGNA, Answer Financial, Travelers Corp., Countrywide Financial, Ford Financial, AEGON and others.  

    Mr. Valentino served as Senior Vice President of MetLife. Reporting directly to the President, he led Corporate Marketing for all of MetLife's business lines, created and chaired both MetLife's enterprise-wide Market Strategy Board and the Interactive Commerce Committee. He launched the MetLife Trust Bank, for which he served as Chairman of the Board.  Under his marketing leadership, total sales revenue grew from $10 billion in 1993 to $17 billion in 1999-a 70% increase. Earlier, as head of Individual Savings Products, Mr. Valentino increased annual sales revenue from $1 billion to $3 billion over the course of three years. As head of Corporate Marketing, he held responsibility for the conception and launch of MetLife's enterprise-wide Life Event Marketing Strategy, based upon extensive consumer and agent education. In addition, he launched MetLife's Small Business Center, Worksite Marketing, Mature Marketing, Bank Financial Services, "Retail" Financial Stores, and Senior Financial Centers.  Prior to his MetLife senior marketing tenure, Mr. Valentino served in a leadership position in information technology and operations for over 20 years.

    Leveraging over twenty years of experience in information technology, Mr. Valentino co-founded and served as Chairman of the Board for eComForum, a Washington, D.C. based e-commerce advocacy group. eComForum works with the United States Congress to promote the creation of industry - and technology- neutral federal regulatory policy. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of the American Institute of Financial Gerontology and as an advisory board member for the National Blood Foundation, a cause about which he is particularly passionate.

    Mr. Valentino, a Fellow in the Life Office Management Association graduated of the M.I.T. Sloan School Senior Executive Program.

  • Mr. Wilson’s has served in senior leadership positions, within operating companies and, as an investment banker, led some of the world’s largest telecom transactions.

    From 1980 to 1988, Mr. Wilson held senior officer roles including Chief Financial Officer and Director of Imasco USA – the parent company of Hardees Food Systems and Grisanti’s. During that time, Mr. Wilson also served as Chief Executive Officer of Imasco USA Real Estate, overseeing the operations, finance and administration of more than 1,500 company restaurant and excess property locations.

    After Imasco, Mr. Wilson served as Chief Financial Officer for Bell CableMedia. He later acted (while at Credit Suisse), as lead advisor to that company during its US $8 billion simultaneous merger with three UK companies and four years later the $23 billion de-merger through bifurcation.

    Mr. Wilson has also served as advisor to many restaurant companies, including Burger King and I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt as well as a number of country governments. He also served as Chief Financial Officer and Board Member of Source Perrier’s foods group in the US from 1988 through 1989.

    On Wall Street, Mr. Wilson served in leadership positions at Salomon Brothers and Credit Suisse First Boston. He advised companies on transformative transactions including AT&T’s acquisitions of TCI ($70 billion), Teleport ($12 billion) and MediaOne ($64 billion). He arranged debt and equity financings for his clients, including the $10 billion IPO of AT&T Wireless and advised Sprint on their unique franchise program. He conceived of and advised on the simultaneous roll-up for Carlos Slim of six Latin American communications companies resulting in America Moviles becoming the largest Pan Latin America communications company. He has also consulted to Boies, Schiller and Flexner as well as Millberg, Weiss, Bershad and Schulman as an M&A due diligence expert.

    Mr. Wilson has served on a number of Boards of Directors, both public and private, in the US, the Netherlands, and the UK. He has extensive experience in foreign markets including advisories in Canada, Malaysia, Thailand, The People’s Republic of China (including Hong Kong), Russia, Pakistan, Egypt, India, Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador, Panama, Brazil, Argentina, France, UK, Denmark, Austria, Canada, New Zealand, and Germany.

    Mr. Wilson received a Master of Arts in Applied Economics from The Bryan School of Business and Economics of the University of N.C. at Greensboro and a Bachelors of Arts in Economics with Philosophy Minor from N.C. State University.

Co-Founder

  • 1935 - 2016

    Co-founder

    "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

    - John Maynard Keynes 

    Stronghold's solutions came about because the company's founders assembled a depth of experience across: insurance, finance, investment banking, investment management, economics, law, accounting, regulation, and knowledge of the specific advantages provided by Bermuda.

    Stronghold's formation team, led by the late Douglas A. Love forged unprecedented synergies between these industries and concerns.

    In remembering his life and history, we honor his legacy.

    Dr. Love served as:

    • Senior Advisor and Chief Investment Officer to Ryan Labs,

    • CEO and co-founder of Devonshire DARWIN, a quantitative, algorithmic hedge fund,

    • Visiting Professor,  Tianjin University of Finance and Economics (China),

    • Chairman of the Investment Policy Subcommittee, New Jersey Investment Council,

    • Founder and Chairman, Buck Investor Services, Inc. (now Buck Consulting),

    • CIO of Investors Guaranty Fund of Bermuda,

    • Senior Management Consultant, Arthur D. Little,

    • Managing Director of fixed income, options and futures, Matrix Capital Management.

    Dr. Love’s public service included serving on:

    • President Reagan’s Grace Commission investigating Federal Government fiscal waste,

    • Council of Economic Advisors under Presidents Reagan and Ford;

    • Advisory Board, Director, Investment Management Institute,

    • Consultant to the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC), and

    • Chairman, Employee Benefits Research Institute Technical Committee.

    • Dr. Love authored or co-authored numerous academic papers and served Adjunct Professorships at the NYU and Rutgers business schools.

    Dr. Love held a Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University, MBA and MS degrees in Finance and Statistics from New York University, and a BME from Cornell University in Industrial Engineering.