200+ years of experience
Meet the people behind it

David Thomas is founder and CEO of Equitas Capital Advisors, LLC, and Equitas Partners, LLC. Equitas serves as an outside Chief Investment Officer for family offices, foundations, universities, hospitals, and corporations.

Since 1979, David has been active in the investment consulting industry. In 1982, he founded the Louisiana consulting group for UBS PaineWebber. In 1989, he formed the Senior Financial Consulting Group at Prudential Securities, which grew to become one of the largest consulting groups for Prudential worldwide. After 20 years with Wall Street firms, David formed the independent company, Equitas Capital Advisors, LLC, in 2002, and created the Equitas Evergreen Fund in 2003, a multi-strategy fund of funds tracked in Bloomberg under the symbol EQUEVGR US Equity.

David has written numerous articles published in Pension World, Case & Comment, and Directors & Boards, among others, and has served as a contributing writer for Forbes. In 2011, City Business named David to its inaugural class of “Money Maker$” honorees, recognizing investment professionals whose work has set the pace for the region.

David received his BBA from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. He has lectured at Tulane University, served as an adjunct professor of finance at Southern University of New Orleans, and served as a trustee for the Christian Health Ministries Foundation. He was named an honorary Louisiana State Representative for his work as a founding speaker and sponsor of LAPERS, the Louisiana Association of Public Employees’ Retirement Systems. David and his wife, Lucy, reside in Metairie and have three grown children.

Derek Fossier is an Investment Management Consultant with 17 years of experience in the industry. A native of New Orleans, Derek earned his Bachelor of Science in Economics from Tulane University. Derek subsequently joined the MBA program at the A.B. Freeman School of Business, where he still serves as an advisor to the Algorithmic/AI Trading Club. In pursuit of his degree, he had the opportunity to study international finance in Mexico, Paris, and Beijing.

He first joined Equitas Capital Advisors in 2008 as an intern. Derek resides in Jefferson Parish with his wife and two pugs.

Rachel is a native of China and received her B.A. from Seattle Pacific University in 2003, with a double concentration in Finance and Information Systems. Prior to joining Equitas, she gained valuable analytical, teamwork, marketing, and customer service experience through a variety of roles in Beijing and Seattle.

Rachel’s responsibilities include verifying the accuracy and fair presentation of clients’ investment portfolio performance, creating client-specific asset allocation studies, participating in investment manager searches, assisting consultants with portfolio construction, and evaluating existing manager performance. She works closely with Equitas consultants, managers, custodians, and software providers to deliver excellent client service.

Rachel resides in uptown New Orleans with her husband and daughter.

Trina St. Julien has served in the financial services industry in a wide variety of roles for over 39 years. A native of New Orleans, she began her career at Merrill Lynch in 1983 and later relocated to Columbia, South Carolina as Assistant Operations Manager.

Trina returned to New Orleans in 1998 and joined the Equitas team the following year, bringing a high level of professional and personal commitment to clients along with extensive experience in operational and administrative services. Prior to rejoining Equitas, she worked for Capital One Southcoast, Inc., providing administrative, operational, and financial service support to the firm’s top institutional equity sales producers and trading staff.

Trina is a mother of four children and a grandmother of three grandchildren. She and her family make their home in New Orleans.

Yu is a native of China and received her Bachelor of Finance degree from Zhongshan University in China and her Master of Finance degree from the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University. Prior to joining Equitas in 2010, she worked as a Portfolio Analyst at Planning Associates of Louisiana, LLC and as a Compliance Examiner with Citigroup.

Yu is an active CFA® charterholder and has won awards in both national Mathematics and Physics competitions in China. She resides in New Orleans with her husband and son.

Nicholas earned his Bachelor of Business Administration degree with a major in Finance from Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business in Texas. A native of New Orleans and a graduate of Metairie Park Country Day School, he received the Robert Montgomery Award for earning 10 varsity letters during his high school athletic career, and won two city and two state chess championships, placing fifth in the national chess tournament.

Nicholas interned at Equitas during the summers of 2013, 2014, and 2016, and worked for a technology company in Texas after college. He is a licensed private pilot and a licensed real estate agent, and currently resides in Metairie.