Hakki Etem, Founder & CEO
Hakki C. Etem is the founder and CEO of Cogent Economics, Inc. Prior to founding Cogent, Mr. Etem was a senior management consultant with Coopers & Lybrand, with a focus on real estate economics and mortgage risk management. He previously had held various management positions with large national institutions in the financial services and real estate sectors.
He is an active member and past chair of the Quality Assurance Committee of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), and is a frequent speaker at MBA and other professional conferences. Mr. Etem holds a B.A. in History from Cornell University.
James Robinson, President and COO
James Robinson has over 30 years’ experience in mortgage banking and structured finance.
Before joining Cogent as President in 1997, Mr. Robinson was Director of Consulting for Mortgage Information Corporation, a national database and risk management consulting firm. He previously was Senior Vice President and Chief Credit Officer for ITT Federal Bank, and First Vice President for First Nationwide Bank, where he was in charge of mortgage quality control, credit policy and portfolio management.
In the 1980’s, Mr. Robinson was a Vice President for an investment banking firm where he specialized in structured financing for income properties, and a Portfolio Manager for a AAA-rated financial guarantee provider for real estate securitizations.
Mr. Robinson holds an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, with emphasis in finance and real estate. He has written numerous articles and case studies on mortgage finance and risk management, and has been a frequent speaker at industry conferences.
Bob Wong, Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer
Bobby L Wong, the Chief Technology Officer at Cogent Economics, joined the company in February 1998. He has led the design, development and support of all Cogent software products.
He graduated from San Francisco State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science. Prior to joining Cogent, he was an independent software developer.
Kaan Etem, Senior Vice President, Chief Product Officer
Kaan Etem has overall responsibility for Cogent products and solutions. He has over 20 years’ experience in the enterprise/B2B technology sector, with broad experience in product management, professional services, customer success and training.
He has been instrumental in migrating Cogent QC Systems onto the .NET platform, expanding beyond mortgage quality control into new sectors such as auto lending and insurance, and establishing Cogent as an enterprise solution for loan auditing, risk management and business process improvement.
Prior to Cogent, Kaan worked with several technology companies on rules-based business process management, collaborative search, online learning management systems, and global business training. He was also co-founder of Internet Finance Corp, an early personal finance portal.
Kaan has an MBA in Finance from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Lisa Roach, Principal Application Developer
Lisa Roach, now a Principal Application Developer, joined Cogent in February 2007. She has developed
enhancements and new features for the Cogent system, provided support for existing functionality, and
contributed enormously to the evolution of the product line.
Clients engage with her regularly in tasks including troubleshooting, training, business analyses, and solution development. Prior to Cogent, she was an Applications Programmer at Holland & Knight LLP, a law firm, from 2005-2007. Ms. Roach was a Programmer II at City of Lakeland from 2001-2005.
She is a graduate of the University of South Florida.