January 2025 Chapter Meeting

DATE: Thursday, January 16, 2025
TIME: 1:00 PM – 6:30 PM
LOCATION:  Fox Cities Stadium | Appleton

Join us at our January Event!

Event Timeline

• 12:30 - 12:55 PM
  Event registration
  
  
• 1:00 - 2:00 PM
  Brown & Brown Insurance Professional Development Presentation
  
  
• 2:00 - 2:15 PM
  Break / Networking
  
  
• 2:15 - 3:15 PM
  von Briesen Professional Development Presentation
  
  
• 3:15 - 3:45 PM
  Networking & Business Announcements
  
  
• 3:45 - 4:45 PM
  Keynote Presentation
  
  
• 4:45 - 6:30 PM
  Social / Dinner
  
  

Location

Fox Cities Stadium
2400 North Casaloma Drive
Appleton, WI 54913

Keynote Presentation Time
3:45 - 4:45 PM

Keynote Topic

Ethical Leadership in Finance: Balancing Profit & Principle

Summary 

Sachin will explore the critical role of ethics in financial leadership, focusing on how values-based decision-making can shape not only individual careers but also the broader corporate landscape. Drawing on his experience as CEO of a manufacturing company and as an educator in business ethics, he will discuss the tension between profit-driven motives and ethical imperatives, and how financial leaders can navigate this complex terrain to drive both organizational success and social responsibility.

Learning Objectives

• Understanding fiduciary responsibility: how financial leaders can uphold their fiduciary duties while navigating the tension between maximizing shareholder value and maintaining ethical standards.
  
• Ethical corporate governance practices: ethical implications of corporate governance decisions and how to implement governance frameworks that promote transparency, accountability, and long-term stakeholder trust.
  
  
• Balancing profit with ethical integrity: strategies to address real-world ethical dilemmas where financial pressures conflict with ethical decision-making, ensuring that profitability does not come at the expense of integrity.

Keynote Presenter & Biography

Sachin Shivaram
CEO | Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry

Sachin Shivaram is CEO of Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry, a 115-year-old family-owned manufacturing company based in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Sachin was born and brought up in Milwaukee, his parents having immigrated from India.

He earned his B.A. at Harvard University, majoring in History & Literature. After college, Sachin received a master's degree in political science from the University of Cambridge. He worked at McKinsey & Co. in Chicago before moving on to Yale for law school, where he earned a J.D. He is bar-certified in Wisconsin.

While in law school, he was inspired to work in the metals industry rather than pursue a law career. He joined a steel company in Mexico where he and his wife Lipi lived for four years. He later worked in Brazil and across North and South America at various steel companies.

A desire to return to Wisconsin where he grew up led Sachin to join Samuel Pressure Vessel Group as President, based in Marinette, WI in 2016. In 2019, Sachin was recruited to join Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry as the company’s first non-family CEO.

Sachin and his wife have been together for 22 years. They have two young boys. Sachin is active in the community and serves on various public and private boards, including Broadwind Energy, Lodge Cast Iron, and Vollrath Company. He is chair of the Governor’s Council on Workforce Investment and the Wisconsin Center for Manufacturing & Productivity. Sachin also teaches a course on “Business Ethics & Values-Based Leadership” at St. Norbert College. In his free time, he enjoys running long distances and after his kids.

Brown & Brown Insurance Professional
Development Presentation
Topic: Risk Pool Management: How to Develop a Health Plan that Wins Financially
Time: 1:00 - 2:00 PM

Presented By:

Summary & Learning Objectives

Eye-opening and strongly contrary to conventional wisdom, this foundational seminar establishes the critical thinking necessary to effectively manage a health plan. This seminar is for CFOs and other finance professionals that are serious about minimizing cost, while optimizing recruitment & retention. Topics include:

• Why employers are failing at health plan management
• How “best practices” are repelling the best talent and souring corporate culture
• Why the industry benchmarks are wrong and are driving the costs of your health plan higher
• How to structure your medical offering to increase the value of benefits and reduce cost

Presenter & Biography

Josh Rydberg
Senior Vice President, Underwriting | Brown & Brown Insurance

Josh is a thought leader in the field of data and analytics and utilizes his experience as a national resource in the Underwriting Department, where his primary function is to develop and implement financial tools and methodologies that assist in effectively managing employer-sponsored health plans. He also speaks to employer groups about developing winning medical plan strategies by leveraging a broad background in insurance pricing, which includes group benefits as well as homeowners, automobile, workers’ compensation, and various other Property & Casualty coverages. By focusing on the basics of effective pricing and consumer purchasing behavior, he can educate employers on opportunities to improve health plan structure and financials. Josh also utilizes his diverse background to engage with customers interested in evaluating enterprise risk and cost.

von Briesen Professional Development Presentation
Topic: Community Development Opportunities, Challenges & Tools
Time: 2:15 - 3:15 PM

Presented By:

Summary & Learning Objectives

The past few years have brought intense fluctuations to the commercial real estate market. Many communities simultaneously face increasingly limited housing options and those pressures extend to the local employers. What are some options that the business community can consider to address these issues? Chris Smith and Brion Winters of von Briesen & Roper, s.c. will discuss development strategies, including tax incremental financing, community planning, and workforce housing. They will address how the recent changes under 2023 Wisconsin Act 16 provide communities an opportunity to reexamine their zoning ordinances and take advantage of new residential housing opportunities. Learning objectives are as follows:

• What and how the business community can do to help with the workforce housing        shortages in Wisconsin.
• An increased understanding of TID and how TIDs work, including the tax aspects.
• Understand what the Wisconsin Legislature passed to incentivize workforce housing development and how those State programs work.

Presenters & Biographies

Christopher Smith
Shareholder | von Briesen

Chris Smith is a Shareholder and co-Chair of the Real Estate Section. He focuses his practice on real estate development, eminent domain and property tax. He has significant experience in all phases of real estate development with a particular emphasis on drafting

and negotiating development agreements, Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and public-private partnerships. He represents both public and private entities on eminent domain matters and property tax assessments. Chris is a frequent presenter on land use and tax issues.

Chris is also a member of the Government Law Group. In addition to working with counties and municipalities on real estate and development issues, Chris has experience conducting investigations, developing intergovernmental agreements, Police and Fire Commission hearings, and transactional matters. He currently serves as City Attorney for South Milwaukee and as Village Attorney for Mount Pleasant. Chris is a frequent presenter on land use and tax issues. He also provides the monthly case law updates to the American Planning Association – Wisconsin Chapter.

Outside of the office, Chris serves as the President and Founder of the Da Crusher Foundation, a 501(c)(3) that successfully led the effort to create and install the famous Crusher Statue and continues to oversee the annual Crusherfest celebration in South Milwaukee.

Brion Winters
Shareholder | von Briesen

Brion is a Shareholder and co-Chair of the Real Estate Section at von Briesen. He has a unique background and skillset that service the diverse needs of his clients, which come in all shapes and sizes from closely-held businesses, start-up companies and individuals to well-established financial institutions and municipalities. Brion’s commitment to customer service, attention to detail and unending desire to provide value serves his business, banking, developer, municipal and individual clients well.

In 2008, Brion joined von Briesen from M&I Wealth Management where he worked as a staff attorney and compliance analyst. At M&I Wealth Management, Brion touched every area of M&I Wealth Management’s service platform, including high-level legal and compliance projects for the trust department (personal and institutional), broker-dealer, investment advisor, Marshall Funds and the bank.

Brion has leveraged his prior experience into a bourgeoning business, banking/finance, real estate and estate planning practice. Brion is well-positioned to assist his business clients in facilitating mergers and acquisitions while also understanding, negotiating and drafting the financing documents necessary to get the deal done. Brion is dedicated to helping his business owner and individual clients with their estate planning, trust administration and succession planning needs.

One of Brion’s passions is being involved in real estate transactions. Much like his client base, his real estate experience is diverse and multifaceted. Brion represents businesses, developers, banks, municipalities and individuals on a wide variety of real estate-related issues ranging from drafting custom purchase agreements, condominium documents, development agreements and easements to creating or expanding tax incremental financing districts, negotiating and drafting complex lease agreements and advising on various zoning and land use issues.

Brion routinely speaks at seminars for the Wisconsin Bankers Association on various bank regulatory and compliance issues. His compliance background and understanding of how compliance works in the corporate setting is a unique value-add that not many attorneys can provide to their clients.

Brion lives in Franklin with his wife, Amy, and three sons, Braun, Griffin and Jordan. Brion is a member of Tuckaway Country Club and loves to spend time out on the golf course.

CPE Credit

Brown & Brown Professional Development Presentation from 1:00 - 2:00 PM = 1 credit
von Briesen Professional Development Presentation from 2:15 - 3:15 PM = 1 credit
Keynote Presentation = 1 credit

Registrations, Cancellations, or Questions?

Michelle Weiss
920.750.9110
michelle@mwcommunications.org
Register and send cancellations by noon on 1/9/25.

Register Now