The Virtue of Honesty: Insights from Leaders of the Catholic Finance Association

John Matthew Knowles 

John Matthew Knowles is the Co-Founder of Milvian Bridge Consulting, LLC; President of the Catholic Finance Association, and Executive Director of the Diocesan Fiscal Management Conference, or DFMC. The Catholic Finance Association is the membership organization of Catholic financial professionals, broadly defined, which John has led since 2020. He also leads the DFMC Conference, an international membership organization for Diocesan Financial Officers and other executives holding high-level financial management responsibility serving dioceses of the Catholic Church throughout North America and beyond, and a fifty-four-year-old integrated auxiliary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, or USCCB.
For most of his career before 2021, Mr. Knowles worked as a divisional director and managing strategist within the Ave Maria Foundation family of non-profit institutions, all founded by the renowned Catholic philanthropist and former Domino’s Pizza Chairman, Tom Monaghan. Mr. Knowles served as the first Director of Development and External Affairs at Ave Maria School of Law in Naples, Florida, and later Legatus Director for the Northeast and International, based in metropolitan New York City. In each of these roles, he drove record-setting business development outcomes and served on the four-person global strategic leadership committees for each organization. For six years, Mr. Knowles held the Chairmanship of the Legatus Gala in New York City, an annual tradition of great interest for the metropolitan Catholic community tracing its roots to the mid-1990s. Mr. Knowles managed the stage program and production team for the Legatus Summit, that organization’s global conference.
Alongside his leadership of DFMC, Mr. Knowles is a sought-after board member, strategic advisor, and consultant. He is among the founders of Catholics At The Shore, an annual upscale conference retreat held each Spring in Stone Harbor, New Jersey; and is a governing board member for Array of Hope, a New Jersey-based multimedia firm. Mr. Knowles advises the USCCB, the Catholic Leadership Institute (CLI), Aquinas Wealth Advisors, The Regina Academies, The Genesis Group, and the Catholic Crypto Conference. He provides informal personal counsel to many prominent individuals and families across America. He is the executive producer and host of the “Faith and Finance Forum” program, which is available monthly on YouTube and in podcast format everywhere. Mr. Knowles is active in real estate/property management and independent investing, which round out his diverse professional pursuits.
Mr. Knowles holds a B.A. in International Relations and Comparative Religion from Western Michigan University; a Juris Doctorate from Michigan State University; and a Fellowship Certificate in Leadership from Michigan State University. His professional and philanthropic achievements in Florida earned him recognition from Gulfshore Business Magazine as a 2011 “40 Under 40” Award honoree. His memberships include Legatus (Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania Chapter), the Union League of Philadelphia, The Steel Club of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and the Knights of Columbus. In 2009, he married Jennifer Knowles, the couple are blessed with two children, and are parishioners at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Buckingham and Saint Isadore in Quakertown, both in Pennsylvania. They live in a 300-year-old small town between Philadelphia and New Jersey in a rural area surrounded by rolling hills and tranquil scenery, where Faith and family are what matters most to everyone around.

Chris McMahon

A Pittsburgh native, Chris is an accomplished entrepreneur and devoted family man. MFA Wealth, which Chris founded in 1986, is today one of Pennsylvania’s most prolific firms of its kind and expanding rapidly nationwide. For 35 years, Chris and his associates have advised clients in the areas of comprehensive financial planning, asset allocation, retirement planning and estate tax minimization techniques. Chris is a pioneer in technology-enabled methodology in financial services especially the practical deployment of artificial intelligence and quantitative analytics. Mastery of these advanced techniques has enabled MFA Wealth to grow exponentially in terms of assets under management and deliver excellent returns on behalf of clients. MFA Wealth is annually rated one of Pittsburgh’s best places to work and for seven straight years has been listed on AdvisoryHQ's prestigious Top Ranked Wealth Management Firms list. In 2020, Chris founded Aquinas Wealth Advisors. Aquinas Wealth Advisors is an investment firm that deploys cutting-edge technology to provide values-driven investors the capability to craft portfolios congruent with their deeply held beliefs – with no adverse impact on returns.
In 2019, Chris received the coveted Fox Rothschild Outstanding CEO award, adding to a long list of prior industry recognitions he has earned. In early 2022, Forbes magazine ranked Chris the #42 financial security professional in America, and Smart Business Pittsburgh recognized Chris amongst its prestigious Smart 50 honorees. Also in 2022, Chris was named the Catholic Finance Professional of the Year by the Manhattan-based Catholic Finance Association, the national membership association for Catholic finance professionals.
Chris is a man of virtue and very strong integrity. His reputation is impeccable, and he upholds the highest moral standards. Chris and his wife Molly are prolific philanthropists and believe in giving back. The apex of their charity work is Mary’s Place for Moms – serving all the needs of pregnant women in Western Pennsylvania at no expense for women in need. The McMahons envisioned and launched Mary’s Place at the vanguard of a steering committee of leading Pittsburghers in 2019. Sisters of Life, Little Sisters of the Poor, Mount Lebanon Pension Board, and the Duquesne University Board of Directors are some of the other organizations Chris is very active in. Within the Catholic Church, he is a Knight of Columbus and the chapter founder of Legatus in Pittsburgh. Chris is a distinguished leader in Legatus, the world’s only membership organization for Roman Catholic CEOs and senior-level corporate executives, and recently concluded his service as Vice Chairman of the international governing board, progressing upward from his previous service as President of the Pittsburgh Legatus chapter. In 2021 Chris founded Catholics At The Shore (CATS), an annual upscale retreat for leading Catholics in Avalon, New Jersey. Chris was elected to the Union League of Philadelphia in 2020, the leading patriotic association in the United States and our nation’s top-ranked City Club. He is also a longtime member of the Duquesne Club and the Laurel Valley Golf Club.
Chris graduated from Duquesne University in 1986 with a BA in economics. He also earned the ChFC (Chartered Financial Consultant) designation from the American College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, in 1990. In 2005, Chris earned the AWMA (Accredited Wealth Management Advisor) designation through the College for Financial Planning in Denver, Colorado. Chris and Molly are the proud parents of Kate, Will, Jack, Hugh, and Emma. Chris is a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, judo, taekwondo and hapkido. The McMahons live in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and Stone Harbor, New Jersey.

Zung Nguyen

Zung T. Nguyen is a financial executive with over 30 years of experience in global capital markets, wealth management, and product and business development. His clients range from central banks, multi-national corporations, state and local governments, financial institutions, investment managers, endowments, foundations, and ultra-wealthy families.
Over his career, he held a variety of leadership positions in global capital markets, portfolio management, and product development with the Federal Home Loan Banks, ING-Barings (USA), American Century Investments and JP Morgan. At JP Morgan, he was part of the team that started Morgan Bank (Delaware). Thereafter, he was assigned to JP Morgan Securities, where he held senior management positions in securities underwriting and was later a member of the global management team for the firm’s fixed income and foreign exchange businesses. After 13 years at JP Morgan, Mr. Nguyen joined ING Barings to head up the firm’s emerging market FX business in North America. Mr. Nguyen was recruited to join American Century Investments where he developed the investment advisory business for major DC plan sponsors. Upon returning to JP Morgan, Mr. Nguyen was a Senior Banker in the private bank, managing one of the most successful wealth management offices on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Mr. Nguyen thereafter joined Athena Capital Advisors, a SEC registered RIA catering to ultra-wealthy families and institutions, to open the firm's New York City office. He retired from Athena and started ZTN Capital Consulting in the Fall of 2015.
Mr. Nguyen received his BA in economics and psychology from Washington College (WC) and his MBA from George Washington University (GWU). He lectured in finance at GWU and University of Delaware earlier in his career and is a frequent speaker at various investment forums. Mr. Nguyen is an experienced and active FINRA Dispute Resolution Arbitrator. He is an emeritus trustee of WC and member of a Vatican based foundation, Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice. Mr. Nguyen is on the Board of Simplify Exchange Traded Funds (ETF).
Mr. Nguyen and his wife live in Morristown, New Jersey and they have three adult children. In his spare time, he enjoys gardening, traveling and playing golf.