BOARD OF
DIRECTORS
Joslyn Berndt Dobson is the Managing Partner of JDSD Investments LTD, a Texas based family office. Dobson founded Palladium Capital Management and was on the investment teams for Criterion Asset Management in Houston, continuing in her position through mergers with Transamerica Fund Management and John Hancock Investments. She is a founding investor in The Amherst Group and currently serves on its CEO Advisory Board as well as the Board of Directors.
Concurrent to her roles in institutional and private investments, Dobson has built collaborative bridges between the private and non-profit sectors. Dobson founded the innovative, award-winning CARES program in collaboration with the University of Texas Steve Hicks School of Social Work, for example. Established in 2017, the CARES team leverages the unique skills and training of graduates and graduate students from the School of Social Work. Placing social workers in a commercial enterprise particularly related to housing has proven to foster productive and personalized communication, especially in times of crisis. CARES team members have been on the front lines of Amherst’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, connecting residents experiencing financial hardship to federal and local rental assistance programs. In 2021 and 2022, 2,300 residents received CARES case management services.
Dobson is a board member and co-founder of Amherst’s 501-C3 non-profit, CapCityKids, which helps homeless and economically disadvantaged children succeed in school. Created after Katrina to aid the influx of storm refugees into Austin, the program now extends to over 38 cities, and each new expansion is tailored to the specific needs of the homeless in their respective communities. Nearly every off-site event for Amherst includes a CapCityKids component, a public service woven into the firm’s very fabric.
Dobson currently serves on the UT Presidential Development Board, the Advisory Counsel for the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas, Austin, and was the Counsel’s chairperson for six years. During this time, Dobson helped to raise endowments to fund scholarships for social workers and help fund the autism center to focus on diagnosing autism in the Latino community.
Dobson’s passion for philanthropic investment also extends to the medical world. She is presently on the Visiting Committee for Discovery Science at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and is a co-founder in ONCOPEP and founding investor in several companies involved in the development of therapies for targeting cancer and other chronic diseases. She was integral in the development of The Dobson Family Fund for Rapid Drug Delivery and organizing the Big Data Model Fest that pushed for private market data analysis tools for computational biology and cancer research.
Dobson is a native Houstonian and a former competitive junior tennis player. She credits the sport for introducing her to a lifetime of friendships and diverse perspectives. She now resides in Austin with her husband and two college-age children.
Sean is Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Amherst Holdings, an investment services company dedicated to U.S. real estate finance. Amherst is widely known for their data and analytics and one of the few residential mortgage specialist to anticipate the 2008 mortgage crisis.
Mr. Dobson has over 25 years of experience in the mortgage industry, has served as a Board Member of the American Securitization Forum (ASF) and has counseled various branches of the federal government including the Department of Treasury, the Senate, The House of Representatives, The Federal Housing Finance Agency, The Department of Housing and Urban Development, The Council of Economic Advisors, and the National Economic Advisor on housing and mortgage related issues.
Mr. Dobson is a co-founder of CapCityKids and also currently serves as a Governing Trustee for the Dana-Farber Cancer Center in Boston. He lives with his wife, Joslyn, and their two children, Sean-Karl and Gracie, in Austin, Texas.
Amy has 36 years experience in education and currently is a lecturer and Cohort Coordinator in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at The University of Texas and is a field support specialist for Education Service Center, Region 13.
She retired from AISD in 2013 and previously was the principal at Mathews Elementary School. She earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. Mrs. Kinkade taught students who had special needs in both El Paso and Austin. She started her administrative career first as a Special Education Instructional Coordinator for the Austin I.S.D. and then as a campus administrator. Campus administrator jobs have been: Casis Elementary School principal, 12 years; Mills Elementary School, 3 years; Austin Jewish Academy (Head of School—4 years); Mathews Elementary School, 9 years. Mrs. Kinkade has had the opportunity to work with students, teachers, and parents in each of these communities.
Her passion for meeting the unique learning style of each student and supporting the teaching style of each teacher make her an administrator who is able to build relationships with students, teachers, and the community.
Steve retired from Amherst Holdings in 2014, where he previously directed the development of Amherst’s proprietary analytical and systems technology and remains a partner and serves on the Board of Directors. Steve, originally from Houston, was a founding partner of Spires Financial, LP and previously worked with Bear, Stearns & Co. in New York City. He has over 30 years of experience in information technology and software engineering in the securities industry.
Steve is President of The Jerry Alexander Gorman Foundation, President of the Amherst Foundation, and serves as the Treasurer of CapCityKids.
Steve also volunteers as a tax preparer for low-income individuals and families and members of the military.
Ryan directs the sales efforts across products at Amherst Pierpont while directly managing the mortgage sales team. His career of more than 25 years has been focused on fixed income/capital market sales through numerous and varied economic cycles. Ryan was previously Managing Director/Regional Sales Manager at RBS Greenwich Capital and prior to that a Director at Merrill Lynch where he was responsible for the Midwest Bank & Thrift Group.
Ryan received his undergraduate degree from John Carroll University and his Masters in Management from the Kellogg School of Northwestern University.
Drew Flahive is President of Amherst. As President, Drew has overseen the growth of Amherst’s single-family rental business, Amherst Residential. Under his leadership, Amherst has invested more than $10 billion dollars of capital in U.S. single-family housing. Currently, Drew is responsible for the Amherst Residential development business which oversees acquisitions, construction, and leasing as well as capital raising activities across the entire Amherst platform.
Drew joined Amherst in 2015 from Goldman Sachs, where he served as Managing Director and Head of the Real Estate Capital Markets Group for the Americas.
Drew graduated Summa Cum Laude from Texas Christian University and is a CFA Charterholder.
Chris Avallone is Head of Merchant Banking at Amherst. Chris is responsible for Amherst’s third-party capital partnerships, equity partnerships, financing, and portfolio management.
Chris joined Amherst in 2018 and has used his 12-plus years of capital markets expertise to grow Amherst’s single-family rental platform and investment management business into one of the largest operators of single-family assets. Prior to Amherst, Chris was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs.
Chris graduated from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and is a CFA Charterholder.