Meet Us
We love what we do - changing an industry really is a lot of fun. And boy, do we take arrows from the incumbent industry that absolutely does not want to lose its grip on the narrative that enables them to misrepresent what they actually do or how much they charge your clients for their service. But, we know that we're doing something right, given the reaction and who it comes from...and why. They are protecting an economic racket that has enriched them at the expense of your clients.
We met in 2009, while establishing an institutional life settlement fund on behalf of some of the largest and most respected names in private equity. As challenging as raising several hundred million dollars of equity capital from private equity, various endowments, UHNWI's, and pension funds was, it was even actually more difficult to deploy it - because of the inefficient, and, in our view, unethical and unprofessional, manner in which life settlement brokers conducted business.
So, we leveraged our industry experience, as well as our extensive capital markets and process design background, coupled with our interest in building strategic relationships and doing things right, to design a process that is better for all stakeholders and that ensures an efficient and confidence-engendering engagement and maximum proceeds to your clients.
Scroll over the photos for our bios.
Founder
Scott Sanders
Director of Market Operations
Mark Lapolla
Director of Client Development
Colin Widen
The Team
We met in 2009, while establishing an institutional life settlement fund in partnership with the oldest life settlement provider in the country. As daunting a challenge as that was, it was even more difficult to deploy the capital - because of the inefficient, and, in our view, unethical and unprofessional, way life settlement brokers conduct business.
So, we took our frustration and channeled it into designing something better. To solving a problem. To fundamentally rethinking how price discovery gets done in this market. And to substantively engaging the best, most conscientious wealth advisors and life insurance professionals, not paying lip service to “transparency” and “fiduciary responsibility” (while charging as much as 33% of the proceeds), and conducting wholly ineffective, inefficient price discovery. But to do things very differently.
Simply, we wanted to be better than that – not because we couldn’t have made a lot of money simply replicating what brokers do, but because we wanted to substantively solve a real problem. And to simply do things right.
Meet Us
We love what we do - changing an industry really is a lot of fun.
We met in 2009, while establishing an institutional life settlement fund on behalf of some of the largest and most respected names in private equity. As challenging as raising several hundred million dollars of equity capital from private equity, various endowments, UHNWI's, and pension funds was, it was even more difficult to deploy it - because of the inefficient, and, in our view, unethical and unprofessional, manner in which life settlement brokers conducted business.
So, we leveraged our industry experience, as well as our extensive capital markets and process design background, coupled with our interest in building strategic relationships and doing things right, to design a process that is better for all stakeholders and that ensures an efficient and confidence-engendering engagement and maximum proceeds to your clients.
Scroll over the photos for our bios.
Meet Us
We met in 2009, while establishing an institutional life settlement fund on behalf of some of the largest and most respected names in private equity. As challenging as raising several hundred million dollars of equity capital from private equity, various endowments, UHNWI's, and pension funds was, it was even actually more difficult to deploy it - because of the inefficient, and, in our view, unethical and unprofessional, manner in which life settlement brokers conduct business, which keeps most fiduciary and fiduciary-minded advisors from engaging the market.
So, we leveraged our industry experience, as well as our extensive capital markets and process design background, coupled with our interest in building strategic relationships and doing things right, to design a process that is better for all stakeholders and that ensures an efficient and confidence-engendering engagement and maximum proceeds to your clients and in 2016 started 1908 advisors to serve you, the fiduciary advisor and fiduciary-minded insurance professional.
Scott Sanders
Scott founded 1908 advisors in 2016 and is responsible for new client engagement and development.
Read Scott's bio here.
scott@1908advisors.com | 404.285.3454
Founder
Scott Sanders
Mark Lapolla
Before 1908, where he manages our auctions and relationships with capital and Providers, Mark had a successful career as a capital markets professional with his own publication, Sixth Man Research, and prior at Petros Capital, Freiss, and Goldman Sachs.
Read Mark's bio here.
mark@1908advisors.com | 770.363.2142
Director of Market Operations
Mark Lapolla
Colin Widen
Before 1908, where he manages our client development initiatives, Colin had a successful career as a capital markets professional at Mabon Nugent, Lehman Brothers, and Deutsche Bank.
Read Colin's bio here.
colin@1908advisors.com | 774.454.2620
Director of Client Development
Colin Widen
Scott Sanders
Scott founded 1908 advisors in 2016 and is responsible for setting strategic direction and new client engagement and development.
Read Scott's bio here.
scott@1908advisors.com | 404.285.3454
Mark Lapolla
Before 1908, where he manages our auctions and relationships with capital and Providers, Mark had a successful career as a capital markets professional with his own publication, Sixth Man Research, and prior at Petros Capital, Freiss, and Goldman Sachs.
Read Mark's bio here.
mark@1908advisors.com | 770.363.2142
Director of Market Operations
Mark Lapolla
Colin Widen
Before 1908, where he manages our client development initiatives, Colin had a successful career as a capital markets professional at Mabon Nugent, Lehman Brothers, and Deutsche Bank.
Read Colin's bio here.
colin@1908advisors.com | 774.454.2620
Director of Client Development
Colin Widen
Founder
Scott Sanders
Scott Sanders
Founder
scott@1908advisors.com | 404.285.3454
Scott founded 1908 Advisors in 2016, after spending the preceding seven years with a large institutional buyer of in-force life insurance owned by Redbird Capital Partners.
His industry experience prior to founding 1908 ranges from policy-level underwriting, portfolio analysis, and capital commitment, to trading and leading portfolio engagements and transactions with other leading private equity firms in the industry (e.g. DE Shaw, Apollo, Blackstone, TPG, FlexPoint Ford, and others) and various endowments, pension funds, and UHNW investors.
Scott began his career as a marketing rep for IBM before transitioning to a corporate finance role within IBM Credit Corporation and then consulting with IBM's largest financial services customers. He later led an internal consulting team that worked with senior leadership in the Personal Systems Division (PSD) on various initiatives. He then transitioned to strategy consulting for several years, with clients including Century Telephone, UPS, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and John Deere, before, finally into private equity and life settlements.
He has served on several non-profit boards, including as Chairman for both Embraced Atlanta and the North Georgia Chapter of Make A Wish and has been a volunteer with Special Olympics for more than 25 years. He is an avid cyclist and enthusiastic (but slow) runner, completing the Chicago Marathon twice, running to raise money for the Pat Tillman Foundation.
Scott earned an MBA at Northwestern University (Kellogg) and a BA in economics and math at the University of Minnesota.
Mark Lapolla, CFA
Director of Market Operations
mark@1908advisors.com | 770.363.2142
For 10+ years, Mark was the man behind Sixth Man Research, which provided capital market and portfolio strategy research to a broad array of institutional investors and investment banks.
He is credited with correctly forecasting the timing and magnitude of the global financial crisis (2007—2009), the end of the global growth paradigm (2011), the peak of the EU sovereign debt crisis (2012), and the persistency of low-interest rates and nominal growth still present today.
Prior to launching Sixth Man Research in 2007, Mark was the Managing Partner of Petros Capital, a long/short equity hedge fund he co-founded. Previously, Mark was a senior associate at Friess (managers of the Brandywine mutual funds) where he directly managed $1.5 billion, in addition to having oversight responsibility for an additional $5 billion of the firm’s $15 billion under management. Mark began his career as an equity trader at Goldman Sachs and began managing institutional capital in 1990.
In 2010, Mark conceptualized and launched a hedge fund focused on life settlements. He spearheaded several capital raises totaling $36 million and served on its Board of Directors, now owned by RedBird Capital Partners.
Mark earned a BA in Economics from the College of William & Mary and earned his CFA designation in 1993.
Colin Widen
Director of Client Development
colin@1908advisors.com | 774.454.2620
Colin's 40-year capital markets career spans the gamut from risk arbitrage trading to advising family offices on alternative asset allocations and direct investments in privately-held businesses.
After his start as a trader, Colin opened Mabon Nugent's Boston office where he managed institutional equity sales. He then joined Lehman Brothers as its global account manager for Boston where he also spearheaded their efforts to capitalize on the emerging hedge fund and private equity markets.
Colin's focus on advisory services began in 2004 when he joined Deutsche Bank. With the broad mandate of delivering alternative asset services to middle-market clients, Colin led a team helping family offices access hedge funds, structured products, and insurance-based collateral notes--which was his introduction to the life settlements market. Most recently, Colin provided investment banking services to emerging life sciences companies and the institutions that invest in them.
Colin earned an M.S. in Accounting from the New York Institute of Finance, and a BS in Economics, with honors, from Amherst College.
Harlan Graiser, CFP ®
Marketing Representative
Harlan became a part-time marketing representative for 1908 Advisors after he retired in 2022 from SignatureFD, a $7B RIA based in Atlanta & Charlotte. During his 16 years at SignatureFD, he was the ‘advisor’s advisor’ for client matters pertaining to life, DI, and LTC insurance. Harlan’s decision to affiliate with 1908 Advisors was based on his very positive experience when using them on a handful of life settlement cases before he retired. In his current role, he educates advisors about the life settlement option in various client situations and serves as a liaison to 1908 when evaluating a potential life settlement transaction.
Harlan’s initial career was as an engineer for Fortune 500 companies including Procter & Gamble and Bausch & Lomb. He then changed fields and became a management consultant with firms such as Ernst & Young, KPMG, and Organizational Dynamics Inc. For his third career he dove headlong into insurance and financial services, obtaining an agent license in 2002 and earning a CFP® designation in 2008.
Harlan earned an MBA-Finance from Xavier University (Cincinnati, OH) and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY).
We met in 2009, while establishing an institutional life settlement fund in partnership with the oldest life settlement provider in the country. As daunting a challenge as that was, it was even more difficult to deploy the capital - because of the inefficient way life settlement brokers conduct business.
So, we took our frustration and channeled it into designing something better. Into solving a problem and fundamentally rethinking how price discovery gets done in this market. And substantively engaging the best, most conscientious wealth advisors and life insurance professionals, not paying lip service to “transparency” and “fiduciary responsibility”, while conducting wholly ineffective, inefficient price discovery. But to do things very differently.
And to simply do things right.
Our team
Scott Sanders
Founder
Mark Lapolla, CFA
Director of Market Operations
Colin Widen
Director of Client Development
Harlan Graiser, CFP®
Marketing Representative