Lalat Pattanaik | Managing Partner

Mr. Pattanaik is the founder and Managing Partner of Apheta. Apheta is recognized as an independent resource to the legal and CPA communities as well as several national banks and trust companies with regards to complex insurance & estate planning matters. He serves as the primary liaison between the internal team and Apheta’s institutional affiliates.

Mr. Pattanaik brings 36 years of technical experience in areas of structured finance, product development, performance analytics, and sophisticated insurance arrangements. Over the past 27 years, he has collaborated with the professional advisors of ultra‐high net worth families, their businesses, and family offices to critically evaluate, develop, and administer high impact insurance and estate planning solutions. His consultative approach, based on his deep understanding of generational wealth – derived from several decades of serving some of the most prominent families in the U.S. – not only preserves wealth, but also safeguards family values and priorities. He quarterbacks a multi-disciplinary team which balances financial engineering and tax strategies with empathy for family governance and other soft issues our clients face. He has helped dozens of families develop meaningful succession plans for generational wealth.

Mr. Pattanaik draws on his early career with two visible global institutions, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Northern Trust Company. These organizations provided a glimpse into the psychology as well as the multi‐disciplinary expertise needed to address the complex planning needs of domestic and international UHNW families. Since then, he has served on the product development boards of numerous global insurers and speaks regularly at insurance industry and tax conferences. He has developed Continuing Education curriculum for tax attorneys and CPAs as well. He currently serves as faculty for Hawaii Tax Institute and has been a guest speaker for the California Lawyers Association Taxation Section for nearly two decades.

Mr. Pattanaik is a graduate of the University of Michigan, (Ann Arbor), where he received his degrees in International Economics and MBA in Finance. Outside of work, he is involved with several charitable organizations including the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Concern Foundation, and currently serves on the Board of Private School AXIS. Lalat & his family reside in Los Angeles and are avid fans of L.A. sports.

Lalit Pattanaik | Senior Partner

Lalit Pattanaik, JD is a California licensed attorney and Senior Partner at Apheta. Mr. Pattanaik has years of experience in reviewing and structuring complex wealth and estate planning strategies. He is currently responsible for developing Apheta’s Foreign Nationals business, targeting ultra high net-worth families and business owners in India and the Middle East.

Prior to joining Apheta, Mr. Pattanaik co-founded RN India, an international healthcare staffing organization with offices in the U.S. and India; and founded the full service law firm of Pattanaik & Associates. During the course of his career, Mr. Pattanaik has represented Fortune 500 companies, health care employers and employees, and foreign nationals in a wide variety of occupations.

Mr. Pattanaik has practiced law with several prominent regional and national law firms including Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati in Silicon Valley.

Mr. Pattanaik earned his J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and participated in the Management Development Program for Entrepreneurs at the UCLA Anderson School. He is a member of the American Bar Association and California Bar Association, and is regularly cited for his expertise in immigration, cross-border business and entrepreneurship. Mr. Pattanaik holds an undergraduate degree in Business Economics from University of California, Santa Barbara.

Mr. Pattanaik, his wife and son split their time between Los Angeles and Mumbai.

Laban Pattanaik | Senior Partner

Laban Pattanaik is co-founder and Senior Partner of Apheta. Mr. Pattanaik spearheads Apheta’s Corporate Strategy and is responsible for evaluating and creating valuable long-term opportunities and relationships domestically and internationally for the firm. Mr. Pattanaik also builds value in the enterprise as an advisor to high net-worth families, physicians, business owners, professional athletes, entertainers, and their professional advisors, in the area of structured finance and insurance. The company acts as a service provider to numerous CPA firms, law practices, brokerage houses, and pension administration firms. Mr. Pattanaik serves as a liaison between the internal team and Apheta’s distribution channels.

Concurrently, Mr. Pattanaik is the President of RNI Group of Companies, a diversified global healthcare and education services organization based in Los Angeles, California with offices located throughout India.

Prior to his involvement with RNI and Apheta, Mr. Pattanaik worked in Corporate & Investment Banking with Bank of America Securities; and later, in the Corporate Strategy and Planning Group for Sun Microsystems Corporation.

Mr. Pattanaik received his Bachelors Degree in Business Economics and his Masters Degree in Business Administration from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He has held his insurance license for over 13 years; and on several occasions has been invited to the Million Dollar Round Table.

Mr. Pattanaik resides in Santa Monica, CA with his wife and daughter.

Nick Kahrilas | Senior Business Development Officer,
Advanced Markets

Nick Kahrilas is a Partner at Apheta, where he brings over two decades of entrepreneurial and financial leadership across corporate finance, real estate, insurance, and private markets. At Apheta, he focuses on advising high-net-worth individuals, families, and their professional teams on advanced insurance planning, capital structuring, and intergenerational wealth strategies.

Mr. Kahrilas has deep experience guiding families through complex estate and legacy planning needs. He has brokered over $2 billion in life insurance policies and raised more than $100 million in capital, often serving as a trusted advisor at the intersection of wealth preservation, liquidity planning, and tax-efficient transfer strategies. His ability to translate sophisticated financial tools into actionable estate solutions has made him a valuable partner to affluent families and their advisory networks.

Mr. Kahrilas earned his B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was a collegiate wrestler. He is currently completing his Executive MBA at Harvard Business School. A former President of the Beverly Hills Chapter of YPO, Mr. Kahrilas has also served as a guest lecturer at both UCLA's Department of Economics and the Anderson School of Management.

Lane Harrison | Senior Business Development Officer, Advanced Markets

Lane Harrison serves as Senior Business Development officer of Apheta. Mr. Harrison has over 30 years of sales, business development and consulting experience. He has developed many long-standing, trusted relationships during his tenure working extensively with the professional advisor community.

Prior to joining Apheta, Mr. Harrison was Founder and President of Affluent and Corporate Insurance Services, Inc. and Capital Preservation Insurance Services, Inc. The firms provided insurance and consulting services to professional advisors, corporations, small business owners and high net-worth families. Mr. Harrison and his firms, relied on, and utilized, Apheta and it’s predecessor firms’ significant talents and expertise, especially in the area of plan design, product review and selection, policy implementation and client and advisor case support and ongoing client case management.

Mr. Harrison has also provided business development and strategic planning consulting to professional advisors, investment bankers and emerging growth companies over the years. He has advised large multi-national corporations such as Bicoastal Corporation (Formerly Singer Corp.), where he served as Director; and Bicoastal Financial Corporation, where he served as President/Director.

Mr. Harrison is a graduate of Salem State College, with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Welfare. He is also listed in “Who’s Who in American Colleges” and “Who’s Who in Executives and Professionals”.

Mr. Harrison is single and resides in Laguna Niguel, California.

Kip Barton | Senior Development Officer, Insurance Advanced Markets

Kip Barton is a Senior Business Development Officer within the Insurance Advanced Markets for Apheta. Mr. Barton brings a unique combination of a highly technical perspective, advanced market expertise, as well as a highly service oriented approach to agents, advisors and their clients.

Kip has over 20 years of experience in the life insurance industry of which 11 years of experience as a Director of Advanced Markets within the life insurance brokerage community. Prior to that, he worked for 8 years with a boutique Estate Planning firm in Del Mar, CA. Mr. Barton honed his advanced markets knowledge and experience in a practical manner actively working with some of the top business & estate planners in the country.

Mr. Barton brings an abundance of real world experience, creativity, as well as a wealth of personal relationships with key insurance company executives, and finance industry players. In high stakes cases, this can be a significant advantage. Kip has served on the Life Advisory Board for major institutions such as Allianz and Genworth.

Kip’s focus is on developing new business as well as maintaining long-term relationships while making sure that clients are taking full advantage of the best of breed resources at Apheta.

Kip is a graduate of San Diego State University, with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Marketing. He lives in San Diego, CA with his wife and daughter. He is an avid golfer and sports enthusiast.

Erica Kho | Manager of Administration

Erica currently serves as a Manager of Administration for Apheta. Her primary functions includes overseeing our internal administration team, and acting as a liaison between internal and external vendors and third party advisors. Erica strives to assure that our clients and their advisors are seamlessly integrated with Apheta’s team in order to most effectively manage client affairs.

Prior to joining Apheta, Erica spent 12 years in the financial services industry with tenure at AIG|American General, American Funds and Pacific Life. Erica holds a BA in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Marketing, from California State University, Fullerton. In her free time, Erica loves to go wine tasting, walk her dog at the beach and volunteer at local animal shelters and food banks.

Alex Arias | Senior Marketing Support Officer, Advanced Markets

Alex Arias joined Apheta as a Marketing Support Officer, Advanced Markets in November 2012. His primary functions include utilizing advanced insurance and financial concepts to help design solutions that conserve clients' assets for future generations.

Mr. Arias has worked in the life insurance & financial services industries for over 20 years. He began his career at Highland Capital Brokerage, a life insurance wholesaler/general agency, where he worked as Sr. Marketing Associate. He later joined MullinTBG, a highly recognized retirement firm, where he helped administer tailored executive benefit solutions for some of the largest Fortune 1000 companies and other emerging growth corporations, playing a key role in supporting complex plan design and administration.

Alex possesses a strong background in graphic design, having published his own Spanish language periodical, Mundo Latino, for a number of years. He is very proficient with technology and brings this acumen to Apheta at an opportune time while the industry is truly going digital.

In his spare time, Alex enjoys reading, listening to music and staying current in the world of technology and finance.