Lalat Pattanaik | Managing Partner

Mr. Pattanaik is co-founder and Managing Partner of Apheta. Mr. Pattanaik has been instrumental in growing Apheta from a boutique organization to a well recognized Business Management firm on the West Coast. Mr. Pattanaik 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 the primary liaison between the internal team and Apheta’s institutional affiliates. Prior to founding Apheta, Mr. Pattanaik was President of its predecessor firms since 1994.

Prior to his tenure with Apheta and its predecessor firms, Mr. Pattanaik worked within the Private Client Services and Structured Equity Group at Northern Trust Company in Chicago. There, he focused on derivatives and synthetic securities, serving institutional and ultra high net-worth clients at the $500 billion investment management and trust company. In the early 1990’s, as new regulations allowed banks and trust companies to begin offering mutual funds, Mr. Pattanaik worked as part of a team with Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Northern Trust Company’s Senior Management to convert several billion dollars of client investment funds from Northern Trust’s regional offices into their Benchmark group of mutual funds.

Mr. Pattanaik has 19 years of experience covering insurance strategies, product development, securities, and financial engineering. He also serves on the Board of Directors of RN India, a healthcare staffing company specializing in the placement of nurses in hospitals in the U.S., Australia, Canada and the UK.

Mr. Pattanaik is a graduate of the University of Michigan, School of Business Administration (Ann Arbor), where he received his degrees in International Economics and Finance. As a resident of Los Angeles, Mr. Pattanaik is an avid Lakers fan and proud father of two children.

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.

Mark Hathaway | Senior Business Development Officer,
International & Advanced Markets

Mark Hathaway serves as Senior Business Development Officer, International & Advanced Markets at Apheta. Mr. Hathaway serves as a liaison between the internal team and Apheta’s distribution channels, where he specializes in family governance and inter-generational wealth transfer. Mr. Hathaway brings a diverse background to the Apheta team.

Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Hathaway was President of The Leading Information Technology Institute, USA; the US subsidiary of a $300M Japanese venture capital fund. From his LITI, USA post, Mr. Hathaway oversaw all of the firm’s development activity outside of Japan, including the launch of the firm’s development offices in Shanghai, China.

Mr. Hathaway leverages his 15 years working in venture capital and middle market turnarounds to understand the needs of business owners in succession planning.

Mr. Hathaway graduated cum laude from Wake Forest University with a degree in Economics. He is passionate about the dire state of public education in California; and is a founder and executive board member of The Foundation for Las Virgenes Schools.

Mr. Hathaway and his wife live in Calabasas, California where they raise their three children. Mr. Hathaway loves virtually all outdoor sports and actively coaches his children in many of them.

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 | 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 10 years. Aside from his life insurance license he also possesses his Series 6 & 63 securities licenses. He has worked with highly recognized retirement firm MullinTBG where he helped administer tailored executive benefit solutions for some of the largest Fortune 1000 companies and other emerging growth corporations. He also spent time at Highland Capital Brokerage, a life insurance wholesaler/general agency, where he worked as Sr. Marketing Associate.

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.