Brian Michael Nelson is the president of equity and dividend growth research and ETF analysis at Valuentum Securities. He is the architect behind the company’s research methodology and processes, developing the Valuentum Buying Index rating system, the Economic Castle rating, and the Dividend Cushion ratio. Mr. Nelson has acted as editor-in-chief of the firm’s Best Ideas Newsletter and Dividend Growth Newsletter since their inception. Before founding Valuentum in early 2011, Brian worked as a director at Morningstar, where he was responsible for training and methodology development within the firm's equity and credit research department. Prior to that position, he served as a senior industrials securities analyst covering aerospace, airlines, construction, and environmental services companies. Before joining Morningstar in February 2006, Mr. Nelson covered a variety of sectors at Driehaus Capital Management, an aggressive growth investment management firm in Chicago. Brian worked on a small cap fund and a micro-cap fund that were ranked within the top 10th percentile and top 1st percentile within the Small Cap Lipper Growth Universe, respectively, in 2005. He holds a Bachelor's degree in finance and a minor in mathematics, magna cum laude, from Benedictine University. Mr. Nelson has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. Brian is frequently quoted in the media and has been a guest on Nightly Business Report, Bloomberg TV, CNBC, and the MoneyShow. Mr. Nelson is very experienced valuing stocks, developing discounted cash-flow models used to derive the fair value estimates for companies in the equity coverage universes of investment research firms. Brian led the charge in developing Morningstar's issuer credit ratings, creating and rolling out one of the firm's proprietary credit metrics, the Cash Flow Cushion. He lives in Illinois with his wife, son, and daughter. Hobbies include history, languages, film, collecting “stuff,” and wine. In 2016, he played baseball for a minor league affiliate of a Mexican Pacific League club.