David Katz joined GTCR in 2006 and is currently a Managing Director of the firm. Prior to joining GTCR, David served as a Managing Director of Frontenac Company, where he worked for 12 years. He also previously served as an Associate of the Clipper Group as well as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. David holds an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School and a BA in Political Science cum laude from Yale University. David is co-head of the Healthcare Group at GTCR and serves as director of ATI Physical Therapy, Capella Healthcare, Curo Health Services and Universal American Corporation. David also invests in the community by actively volunteering at the Latin School of Chicago.

Jason Kelly is a writer covering the global private equity industry for Bloomberg News in New York and the author of "The New Tycoons: Inside the Trillion Dollar Private Equity Industry That Owns Everything." He is a frequent contributor to Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg Businessweek. During his tenure at Bloomberg, he has written about issues ranging from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to economic development during the war in Afghanistan. Prior to joining Bloomberg in 2002, he was the editor in chief of digitalsouth magazine, a publication focused on technology and finance in the Southeast and Texas. He earned a bachelor's degree from Georgetown University.

Joseph L. Rice, III is a founder of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, LLC. He has spent the major portion of his business career in private equity and is one of the founders of the industry. He is trustee emeritus of Williams College and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution. He is also a Co-founder of the Private Capital Research Institute and a Director of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation. He is a graduate of Williams College and holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Amine Belaicha runs Numid-Invest International, a private investment firm that provides consulting services to foreign companies developing business opportunities in the Middle East and North Africa. His firm also helps local small businesses find investors, raise money, and plan their strategic development, reflecting his commitment to the economic development and regional integration of North Africa. He previously served as Vice-President of Investments for Swicorp Private Equity in Tunis, where he gained transactional experience across the region in a variety of sectors, including consumer goods, insurance and pharmaceuticals. Earlier, he worked as a strategy consultant for the Boston Consulting Group in Paris.

Rob Bettigole is the founder and Managing Partner of Elm Street Ventures. He serves as Chairman of P2 Science and Samara Innovations, and is Chairman & CEO of Occam Sciences. He is Elm Street’s observer on the BioRelix board, and served as an observer on the boards of Affomix Corporation and Metagenomix. His venture capital experience was gained at Rothschild Ventures and Investor AB, where his investments included Maxim Integrated Products, Gensia Pharmaceuticals and Microgenics Corporation. Subsequently, he helped found Surety Technologies, Inc., a spin out from Bellcore and Alexion (NASDAQ: ALXN), with researchers from the Yale Medical School. Before founding Elm Street, he was president of a business that held patents on and marketed a product for bridge construction and rehabilitation, which he successfully developed and sold. He is a Licensed Professional Engineer and holds several U.S. and foreign patents. He has served on the Operating Board of the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute since its founding in 2007. He has a BS in Engineering and Applied Science from Yale University and an MPPM from the Yale School of Management, where he is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence.

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John Buck is a Principal at Versa Capital Management, a Philadelphia-based private equity firm with $1.2 billion of assets under management focused on executing a special situation control-oriented investment strategy. Mr. Buck is responsible for originating investment opportunities and secondary debt trades, and arranging loans to support Versa’s investments. He is a director of Civitas Media LLC, a community newspaper business concentrated in Ohio and North Carolina.

Prior to joining Versa in 2006, Mr. Buck was Vice President at Cerberus Capital Management, where he led middle-market deal origination efforts, and supported the underwriting of numerous investments in a diverse set of industries. He was a co-founder of TenX Capital, a partnership that focused on control investments in underperforming technology, telecommunications, and business services companies.

Mr. Buck is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Fox Graduate School of Business. He is also a graduate of Pepperdine University, where he received his M.B.A., and he serves on the Advisory Council for the Center for Innovation, Creativity & Entrepreneurship at Wake Forest University.

Adam Blumenthal is Co-founder and Managing Partner of Blue Wolf Capital Partners LLC, a private equity firm, and Blue Wolf Capital Fund II, L.P., a private equity fund, which specialize in control investments in middle-market companies in which managing relationships with government or labor, or resolving financial or operational distress, are critical to building value.

Mr. Blumenthal serves on the board of directors of Blue Wolf’s portfolio companies: Channel Technologies Group LLC., Finch Paper Holdings LLC, Gloucester Engineering Co., Inc., and Pharmaceutical Strategies Group LLC. Mr. Blumenthal is also a member of Blue Wolf’s investment committee.

From 2002 to 2005, Mr. Blumenthal served as First Deputy Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer for New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. In this capacity, he oversaw the capital markets' activities of the Comptroller's office, including management of the assets of the New York City Retirement Systems; issuance of budget, financial, and economic analyses; and oversight of the City's debt issuance. During his tenure, the City's pension assets increased from $65 billion to $85 billion primarily as a result of strong investment gains. Adam also led a restructuring of the Funds' operations and investment strategies, including the establishment of multi-billion dollar allocations to private equity, real estate, and inflation-linked securities; the creation of a risk management unit; and securing, for the first time, funding from the pension funds to hire professional investment staff.

From 1989 to 2002, Mr. Blumenthal built and managed American Capital Ltd., a publicly-traded buyout and mezzanine fund (NASDAQ: ACAS). When Mr. Blumenthal joined ACAS in 1989, it had one other employee and had not yet raised institutional capital. In the subsequent years, he played a central role in building it into a publicly-traded buyout and mezzanine fund with a portfolio of over $1 billion invested in sixty-three middle-market companies by the time he left in 2002.

From American Capital's 1997 initial public offering until 2002, when he left American Capital to become First Deputy Comptroller of the City of New York, Mr. Blumenthal served continuously on ACAS's board of directors, was a founding member of its investment committee, and held positions including Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, President and Vice Chairman. Over this time, American Capital produced a 22% IRR to investors in its initial public offering.

Mr. Blumenthal received a B.A., magna cum laude, from Harvard College, and an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management. From 2004 to 2007, he served on the Yale SOM's Board of Advisors. In 2009, he was named a Donaldson Fellow at SOM. He is Chairman of the investment committee of the UAW VEBA, a $55 billion fund that pays retiree health benefits for UAW employees of Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. He has been a trustee of, and chairman of the investment committee of, the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Community Service Society of New York.

Bill Campbell's engagement with sustainability and energy efficiency dates back to the start of his professional career, as a lawyer with what is now the Ater Wynne firm. He practiced at the intersection of Ater Wynne’s substantial energy practice and its venture startup practice. He served as general counsel to companies in technology, from startup to IPO to public company — Pixelworks, TriQuint, and others. And in the early 1990s Bill was counsel to the first “conservation utility,” Microgrid — a full spectrum energy efficiency company providing solutions on a local utility model.

In his practice at Wynne Bill worked with companies in energy efficiency, on-site energy generation, solar and wind power, public and investor-owned utilities, and building systems. He was partners with, and developed new ventures and businesses, with pioneers in the energy field, including the first general counsel of the Bonneville Power Administration; the CEO who designed the “Northwest Natural” first-of-its-kind decoupled rate structure; the architects of innovative legal structures surrounding wind energy and various utility-scale entries into “clean” technologies, from hydro to “clean coal”; the energy trading innovators who redefined west coast energy markets, and leading players in the cogeneration transactional and finance field at utility scale.

After serving as chairman of Ater Wynne from 2000 to 2005, Bill became increasingly convinced that there was not enough capital formation addressed at the kinds of companies he wanted to help. He started several one-company funds that are still performing today. Bill received his B.A. and J.D. from Yale University (1975, 1979)

Audrey Choi is Managing Director and Head of Morgan Stanley Global Sustainable Finance. The Global Sustainable Finance group harnesses the power and discipline of the capital markets to advance impact investing, expand economic opportunity, promote community development, and enhance environmental sustainability. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Audrey served in the Clinton-Gore Administration in senior policy positions at the White House, the Commerce Department and the Federal Communications Commission. In the White House, she was Chief of Staff of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Domestic Policy Advisor to the Vice President. Prior to her government service, Audrey was a bureau chief and foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. Audrey serves on the boards of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, The Wildlife Conservation Society, StoryCorps, Living Cities, and the Morgan Stanley Foundation. She also serves on the National Leadership Council of Communities In Schools, and the Nonprofit Finance Fund. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School.

Alexander Chulack is a Managing Director at General Atlantic, where he has worked since 2005. He works in General Atlantic's New York City and Greenwich offices, where he focuses on the Firm's efforts in the Financial Services sector. He has extensive experience in the financial services sector, with specific expertise working with financial technology businesses and asset management, as well as consumer and commercial finance franchises. He serves on the boards of GETCO, Sura Asset Management, Oak Hill Advisors and Pierpont Securities. He is also a key contributor to First Republic Bank and worked closely with prior portfolio companies such as RiskMetrics and NYMEX. Prior to joining General Atlantic, he was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley & Co., where he worked with the firm's financial institutions clients. He received his B.A. in Economics from Amherst College.

Robert W. Davis is a Managing Director in Aetna’s Private Equity Group where he is responsible for evaluating, executing, and monitoring private equity investments in both companies and limited partnerships. He represents Aetna on several portfolio company boards and serves on the advisory boards of numerous private equity funds. Mr. Davis joined Aetna in 1997. Prior to joining Aetna Mr. Davis was an early employee in a start-up telecommunications firm that grew to be ranked #12 on the Inc. Magazine 500. Previously, he worked in the fixed income division of Lehman Brothers and for Merrill Lynch. Mr. Davis holds a BA from Amherst College and an MBA from The Yale School of Management.

Michael Duran is a Managing Director at Millstein & Co. He is a veteran private equity investor who helps lead Millstein & Co.’s principal investing activities as well as the firm’s joint venture with Third Avenue Management. He was most recently a Managing Director and member of the investment committee at Ripplewood Holdings. In his thirteen years at Ripplewood, he executed successful domestic and international control investments in many industries, including business services, industrials, consumer products, direct marketing, telecom equipment and consumer electronics. He was an integral member of Ripplewood’s fundraising efforts over multiple funds during his tenure.

He has completed in excess of $3 billion of debt and equity financing arrangements as a principal investor in various companies. In addition, he held numerous board positions for Ripplewood portfolio companies. Prior to joining Ripplewood, he worked in mergers and acquisitions at Broadview, a technology-focused boutique investment bank, in both their New York and London offices. While at Broadview, he completed a variety of transactions for companies including AT&T, IBM, Cincinnati Bell and BMC Software. He is a member of the board of Diversified Distribution Systems LLC. He received a degree in finance and international business from Georgetown University.

Mary Kathleen Flynn joined SourceMedia in November, 2011, as the Editor in Chief of Mergers & Acquisitions, the official publication of ACG. In addition to overseeing the monthly magazine and themiddlemarket.com website, she writes the weekly column Private Equity Perspective. In December, she launched a new weekly online video series, featuring prominent dealmakers. Previously, she spent five years at The Deal covering everything from venture capital and private equity investments to M&A and IPOs and even a bit of bankruptcy. She produced and anchored hundreds of episodes of The Deal’s award-winning online video series. For much of her career, Flynn focused on covering technology and served as an on-camera technology correspondent for MSNBC and CNN. She also worked in print covering the tech beat at magazines including U.S. News & World Report and PC Magazine. She attended Vassar College and majored in English. You can follow her @MKFlynn on Twitter.

Maria Gotsch is the President and CEO at the Partnership for New York City Fund, which is the investment arm of the Partnership for New York City. In addition to leading the Partnership Fund’s operations, Maria has spearheaded the creation and operation of a number of the Fund’s strategic initiatives, including: FinTech Innovation Lab; New York Digital Health Accelerator; NYCSeed (seed financing for IT/digital media companies); BioAccelerate Prize NYC (proof-of-concept funding for university-based biomedical research); Arts Entrepreneurial Loan Fund (low cost loans for mid-size arts groups); and ReStart Central and Financial Recovery Fund (assistance and funding for small businesses impacted by 9/11/01).

Prior to joining the Partnership Fund in 1999, Maria was a Managing Director at BT Wolfensohn (now part of Deutsche Bank), providing strategic and financial advice related to mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures and the development of business strategies. Before starting with Wolfensohn, Maria worked at LaSalle Partners in the New York area and for Merrill Lynch Capital Markets in New York and London. Maria has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Wellesley College. She was also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to study international relations at the Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva, Switzerland.

Erin Griffith is a New York-based writer for PandoDaily, a Silicon Valley tech blog launched in January 2012. She's covered private equity for peHUB and Buyouts magazine. Her work has appeared in Venture Capital Journal, Time Out New York, Huffington Post, FT.com, and BUST. She can be found on Twitter: @Eringriffith.

Justin Hamill is a partner in the Corporate Department at Paul Weiss. Mr. Hamill advises a diverse range of clients, including public and private companies, investment funds and financial institutions in negotiated and contested M&A transactions, leveraged buy-outs, joint ventures, public and private investments and restructuring transactions. He has substantial experience across a broad array of industries, including media and entertainment, technology, financial services, consumer products, health care and real estate.

In 2012, the Hollywood Reporter named Justin to its annual “Power Lawyer” list of the top 100 media and entertainment attorneys in America and Super Lawyers featured Justin as a “Rising Star” in the area of mergers and acquisitions. He has a J.D. cum laude from Boston College and a BA from Dartmouth.

Leslie Hardin founded Prospect Capital Advisors in 2010 to bring senior-executive experience to a wide range of private equity needs. PCA works with firms in periods of change to achieve their strategic objectives by refining the way they manage themselves. She has more than a decade of senior executive experience in private equity. Prior to founding Prospect Capital Advisors, she was Chief Administrative Officer of the Riverside Company. While at Riverside, the firm produced consistently superior returns while tripling its committed capital, growing fund investments to more than 60 portfolio companies, and quadrupling staff to 120 people in 13 locations worldwide. She was also a Managing Director at Tailwind Capital, and was a Director at the Beacon Group. She gained extensive transaction and client management experience as an investment banker at JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley. She holds an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management, and Law and B.S. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley.

Robert (Bo) Hopkins has over 25 years of private industry investment, management, and consulting experience. As a Managing Partner with CM Equity Partners he has led and participated in direct equity investments for the past 12 years. During this period he has served on the boards of portfolio companies across industries in government services, manufacturing and consumer products. In addition to board responsibilities, Mr. Hopkins was Chief Executive Officer of Evans Consoles, a manufacturing and technology company based in Alberta, Canada.

Prior to joining CMEP, he was a partner at Connor & Company, a management consulting firm specializing in strategic alliances and operations management. From 1986 to 1991, Mr. Hopkins was an investment banker culminating that part of his career at Kidder Peabody, Inc., where he was Director of the Private Business Group focused on raising capital and advising privately held companies with strategic alternatives including mergers, acquisitions and partnering relationships to improve value.

Outside of industry, Mr. Hopkins is on the teaching staff of the Jackson Institute at Yale University and has also been instrumental in developing the curriculum for the Program on Social Enterprise at the Yale School of Management.

Mr. Hopkins is a member of ANDE, the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs and a Trustee of the Gow School in Buffalo, NY. He received his MBA from the Yale School of Management in 1986 and is a Management Fellow at the school.

Anjani Jain is Senior Associate Dean of the Full Time MBA Program at Yale School of Management. He also serves as Senior Lecturer on the School’s faculty in the areas of management science and operations management. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from Indore University in India; an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; and a Ph.D. in operations research from the University of California, Los Angeles.

He started his academic career at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, joining its faculty in 1986 and assuming various administrative roles over the years. These roles included Vice Dean positions at the School with oversight of the MBA and MBA for Executives programs. His teaching included courses in management science and operations management in the MBA, undergraduate, Ph.D., and executive education programs, and led to numerous teaching awards. He has also taught courses at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, and the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. He has served on the International Advisory Council of the ISB and as an Area Leader on its faculty. He has been a consultant or advisor to firms in the automotive, discrete manufacturing, food processing, and private equity industries.

His research interests include the analysis and design of manufacturing systems, optimization algorithms, and probabilistic analysis of combinatorial problems. He has also published in the professional literature on telecommunications network design. His more recent work has investigated the impact of growing product variety on the manufacture and design of families of products, especially in the automobile industry.

Matt Karlson is a senior banker responsible for managing investment banking transactions and client relationships across all SSG service offerings. He has extensive experience providing financial advisory services to companies facing financial challenges and bankruptcy proceedings. He has completed over 100 financial restructuring transactions including the private placement of senior debt, subordinated debt and equity securities as well as mergers and acquisitions. Prior to founding SSG, he served as a Vice President in the Special Situations Group of Berwind Financial.

Past clients include publicly traded, privately held and family owned companies in manufacturing, service, retail, telecommunications and healthcare. Matt is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, the Association for Corporate Growth and the Turnaround Management Association. He earned a B.A. from Brown University and an MBA from Yale University School of Management.

Liddy Karter is Managing Director of Enhanced Capital, llc www.enhancedcapCT.com, Enhanced Capital is a nationwide asset management firm that invests in middle market companies across all sectors including clean tech, heath care services, advanced manufacturing and IT. Liddy is also Executive Director of the CT Venture Group www.cvg.org. CVG is the Southern New England trade association for venture capital funds.

Liddy has extensive experience in finance, funding clean tech ventures and in angel investing. She started her career in finance at in the Financial Services Group at Morgan Stanley and Co. Inc. She led several IPO’s, multi bank mergers and collateralized debt transactions.

As CEO, she successfully led Resource Recovery Systems, a municipal recycling company based in Essex CT, from a prototype company into a $20MM multi-state company. The company grew by developing recycling plants under multi-year contracts with municipalities. These were ground breaking developments in solid waste management representing creative financial, contractual and entrepreneurial skill. She sold Resource Recovery to a public waste hauler where recycling became a core business unit.

She then became the CFO of Netkey, Inc. based in Branford, Ct, an enterprise software company focused on self-service e-commerce. She successfully raised $15MM in venture capital to create the leading software platform for kiosks and digital signage that was later sold to a private equity firm and then to NCR, Inc.

Liddy received her MBA from Yale University and a BA in History and Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University.

Matthew J. LeBlanc joined ArcLight in 2002 and has 18 years of energy finance and private equity experience. Prior to joining ArcLight, he was a Vice President at Berenson Minella & Company's energy advisory practice, where he focused on mergers and acquisitions and private equity transactions. From 1998 to 2000, he was an Associate in the Global Power Group at Salomon Smith Barney. He began his career at The NorthBridge Group, an economic and strategic consulting firm serving the electric power and natural gas industries. He earned a B.A. in Government and Economics from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management.

Jonathan Marino joined Thomson Reuters to edit peHUB in 2010. Prior to coming to peHUB, he worked as a writer and editor with the M&A Journal, covering private equity and investment banking. Mr. Marino has also written for publications including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, Washington Examiner and mergermarket.

Andrew Marolda is a Managing Director and Co-Founder of The Beekman Group (www.thebeekmangroup.com), a leading private equity firm dedicated to bringing financial and operational resources to lower middle-market companies. Beekman's team consists of experienced private equity professionals, as well as a select group of Industry Operating Partners who are leading executives in Beekman's targeted industry segments. This Industry Partner approach to investing is the cornerstone of Beekman's investment strategy -- creating value through accelerating growth in partnership with small and middle-market management teams. Mr. Marolda has substantial experience in private equity, turnarounds, operations, accounting and finance. Mr. Marolda is a member of the Investment Committee and has oversight responsibility for portfolio company operations and strategic improvement initiatives.

Mr. Marolda is a member of the Boards of Directors of TBG Food Acquisition Corp, TBG Anesthesia Holdings, Inc. and Aero Medical International. He also served on the Board of Directors of TBG NMS Holdings, Inc., a former portfolio company recently exited by Beekman. He also served as interim-CFO of TBG FAC from 2006 to 2007 after its emergence from bankruptcy. Prior to co-founding TBG in 2004, Mr. Marolda held a number of senior operating roles with Fortune 500 companies including American Express where he managed financial structuring and analysis for the company’s strategic equity investments, and Philips Electronics where he was responsible for corporate strategy, planning and analysis.

He began his career with Ernst & Young in 1991 providing audit services to clients in the financial services sector, and subsequently joined Ernst & Young’s Corporate Finance & Restructuring practice advising distressed companies in Chapter 11 reorganizations, debt refinancing and business divestitures. He is a CPA with diverse industry and transaction experience in healthcare, information technology, consumer and financial services. Mr. Marolda received a Bachelors of Science in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and earned an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

Drew Newton joined Citi in 2012 as Managing Director and Head of the Distressed Credit Desk Analyst Team. Prior to Citi, Mr. Newton was a Managing Director on the Bank of America Merrill Lych (previously Merrill Lynch) Global Loans and Special Situations Group from 2008-2012, focusing primarily on the automotive and gaming sectors. Prior to Merrill, he served as a partner in a distressed debt/special situations fund affiliated with Jefferies Asset Management. Drew holds a B.A. in Public Administration from Ohio University and an M.Sc. in Political Economy from London School of Economics.

Gerhard Pries is the founder of Sarona and the Sarona funds; a founder, Vice-Chairman and Investment Committee Chair of MicroVest Capital Management. He has previously served as CFO of MEDA, founding Chairman of MicroCap Capital Management and Latin America Challenge Investment Fund, director of International Association of Micro Finance Investors, and director of numerous companies in the financial services and agribusiness industries. He cut his teeth equally at PricewaterhouseCoopers and at the feet of Mother Teresa. Gerhard is fluent in German and English with working skills in Spanish.

Noah Roy joined Greenbriar in 2008 from Goldman, Sachs & Co. where he was a Managing Director and head of the aerospace and defense sector within the Investment Banking Division. He also advised clients at Goldman Sachs in a range of other transportation related sectors and was involved in a number of principal investments in the aerospace sector. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, he worked at Rothschild Inc., focusing on merger and restructuring activities in the airline, automotive, aerospace and defense sectors, and as an analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co. He is a Director of Align Aerospace Holdings, Inc. He graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.S. from Georgetown University.

Kylie A. D. Sachs is a partner of Ascend who joined the firm in July 2003. Prior to joining Ascend, she served in several operating and managerial roles at PRIMEDIA Inc. Prior to her tenure at PRIMEDIA, she served as a Director of Corporate and Business Development at 360HipHop, a media company founded by Russell Simmons. She also has a background in investment banking, having worked for Goldman, Sachs & Co., Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette and Peter J. Solomon Company. She serves as a director of Printroom.com, Inc., Boxxet, Inc., Wimba, Inc. and Tutor.com; is an observer to the Channel M, Inc., NextMedium, Inc. and Retention Education, Inc. boards of directors; and is a director on the board of trustees of Literacy, Inc. She earned a B.A. in Economics from Georgetown University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Geoff Schneider has over 20 years of operating and investing experience. Geoff founded Cava Capital, an early growth stage investment firm focused on companies aimed squarely at enabling the next generation of marketing solutions. Cava’s investors are all high net worth families and individuals. Geoff led six Cava investments while managing the firm’s strategy and execution. He currently holds board positions at several of these companies. Prior to Cava, Geoff had operational and leadership experience with a range of online media, marketing software and Internet services companies. He has helped build over 20 venture-funded businesses into viable high growth enterprises, raised millions of dollars of venture capital, worked with many companies as an advisor and investor and sat on several boards of directors at various stages of company growth. In addition to these operating roles, Geoff has spent many years as an advisor to several high net worth family offices on alternative asset due diligence and support. Geoff maintains direct relationships with major investment banks, hedge funds, venture and private equity organizations and has developed a unique network of capital markets experts and business advisors that are available to all portfolio companies. Geoff is an advisor to two seed funded marketing solutions companies in NYC and mentor to student entrepreneurial programs at Yale University, Columbia University and Lehigh University. Geoff received an MBA from George Washington University and a BS in Business and Economics from Lehigh University.

Sheryl Schwartz is a Managing Director of Perseus Finance and is one of three partners responsible for fundraising, sourcing, evaluating and making direct mezzanine and structured equity investments in connection with leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations and growth financings. Prior to joining Perseus, Ms. Schwartz had a successful career at TIAA split between fixed income and alternative investments. Ms. Schwartz built and led TIAA-CREF’s Alternative Investment team, which included investments in private equity funds, co-investments, mezzanine debt and timber. She joined TIAA in 1988 and invested in 4 different types of fixed income products including three years investing in corporate private placements, two years trading secondary private placements, and four years investing in mortgage and asset-backed securities. Ms. Schwartz holds both a B.S. and an M.B.A. in Finance from New York University.

John A. Simon is a founder and Managing Partner of Total Impact Advisors, an advisory firm for investors and enterprises seeking to create positive social impacts as well as strong financial returns. The firm has partners in Washington, New York, San Francisco, and Geneva and has worked in sectors as diverse as rural development, clean technology/ renewable energy, global health, and capital market development.

Prior to starting Total Impact Advisors, Ambassador Simon was a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development, where he co-authored More than Money, a report on impact investing as a development tool. Previously, Ambassador Simon held a variety of posts in the US federal government, including serving most recently as the United States Ambassador to the African Union and the Executive Vice President of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). At OPIC, Ambassador Simon championed the Agency’s involvement in the social impact investment marketplace, spearheading efforts to finance housing in Africa, small and medium businesses in Liberia, and a large scale renewable power plant in Liberia. Ambassador Simon led the Agency’s effort to develop a series of social development funds for Africa, which resulted in the creation of four private equity funds focused on achieving extraordinary social results as well as strong financial performance.

Ambassador Simon also served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Relief, Stabilization, and Development for the National Security Council (NSC) at the White House, the first to hold this post. During his tenure at the NSC, Ambassador Simon oversaw the implementation of groundbreaking development initiatives, including the Millennium Challenge Account, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative, and the President's Malaria Initiative. He was also responsible for the U.S. government response to international humanitarian disasters, such as the 2005 South Asia Earthquake.

From 2002 to 2003, Ambassador Simon was Deputy Assistant Administrator at the United States Agency for International Development, overseeing the agency’s development information and evaluation units. Earlier in his career, he served as Director of Business Finance and Strategic Planning at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and worked for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Executive Office for Administration and Finance in several capacities, including Deputy Director for Research and Development. Ambassador Simon received his bachelor's degree from Princeton University and a master's degree in public policy from Harvard University.

David Snow has covered the global private investment market as a journalist for 14 years. He is co-founder and CEO of Privcap, a media platform delivering high-quality video content to participants in the private capital markets. Privcap’s mission is to provide context around important private investment opportunities and practices.

Until November 2010, David was Editor in Chief of PEI Media, a leading provider of news and information for the global alternative investment industry, with offices in London, New York, Singapore and Hong Kong. David played a key editorial role across PEI’s editorial products, events and business strategies, including the launch of news services for the private equity, real estate and infrastructure asset classes. David began his financial-media career at what is now Thomson Reuters, where he was Editor of Buyouts magazine. In 2000 he joined an affiliate of Guggenheim Partners to launch a news service for accredited investors. He has a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University and undergraduate degrees in Political Science and Chinese Studies from the University of California at San Diego. He grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii. Privcap is a producer of, and destination for, high-quality content for participants in the global private capital markets. Through videos, podcasts, articles and supporting content, Privcap delivers valuable context for private capital investment, allowing investors to make better decisions and achieve greater success in the private capital asset classes.

Privcap's digital content is universally accessible to all who register, and highly navigable. Our goal is to produce the kinds of quality exchanges of intelligence that market participants expect from seminars and conferences, and to make these available online in a compelling and evergreen digital format. Our signature video programs feature talk-show style panel conversations and interviews. www.privcap.com

Ezra Mehlman has worked at HEP since October 2010, while completing his MBA at Columbia Business School. Prior to enrolling at Columbia, Ezra spent two years as a Senior Analyst at the Advisory Board Company (NASDAQ: ABCO), providing best practice consulting and research services to hospitals and health systems. After leaving the Advisory Board Company, Ezra served as a Senior Consultant in the health care practice of Booz Allen Hamilton, (NYSE: BAH) focusing on engagements in the provider space.

 Ezra serves as a Board Observer of eVariant. He holds a BA cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis, and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Andrew Torgove joined Lazard Middle Market in 2006 as a managing director, and is head of its distressed advisory and restructuring practice. Mr. Torgove comes to the firm with over 20 years of experience in executing M&A, refinancing and restructuring transactions for both distressed and healthy companies. His prior restructuring assignments include representation of Dura Automotive, Morris Publishing, Meridian Automotive, Waterford Wedgwood, Heartland Automotive Industries, Tokheim Gas Pumps, Bruegger’s Bagels, Jillian’s Restaurants, and Plainwell Paper.

Prior to joining Lazard Middle Market, Mr. Torgove was a managing director at Stairway Capital, a $330 million fund focused on buying distressed middle market companies, with a focus on purchasing senior debt positions. From 1996 to 2004, Mr. Torgove was a director in Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin’s restructuring practice as co-head of the company’s distressed M&A practice in New York.

Mr. Torgove received a Ph.D. in economics from the New School for Social Research, a master’s degree in economics from Boston College, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi.

Hubertus Jan (Bert) van der Vaart co-founded Small Enterprise Assistance Funds (SEAF) in 1989, when it was known as the CARE Small Business Assistance Corporation (CARESBAC). In 1992, Mr. van der Vaart negotiated the establishment of CARESBAC/SEAF’s first fund in Poland, which grew to $16.8 million total capital under management under his leadership as the fund’s Director General. While serving as Director-General of CARESBAC-Polska from August 1994 until May 1997, the company completed 27 SME investments and realized its first 6 exits. In 1997, Mr. van der Vaart was appointed CEO and President of SEAF, where he has since been involved with the establishment and supervision of every SEAF fund, frequently traveling to collaborate with each SEAF fund office. In 2008, he became Executive Chairman of SEAF’s Board of Directors and became associated with Discovery Global Citizens Fund, an international investment firm. Mr. van der Vaart moved to New Delhi, India in September 2010, where he is directing the initial phase of SEAF’s India Agribusiness Fund.

From 1984 through 1994, Mr. van der Vaart was a Partner and Associate with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C, Frankfurt, and Brussels where he specialized in corporate and financial transactions. Prior to working for Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, he was a management consultant with Bain & Company in London and Munich.

Mr. van der Vaart holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he also studied finance at Yale School of Management. Mr. van der Vaart’s other academic achievements include a B.A. in Politics and Economics and an M.Phil in Economics from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a B.A. from the University of North Carolina, where he was a Morehead Scholar.

Mr. van der Vaart co-authored "Defining SMEs: A Less Imperfect Way of Defining Small and Medium Enterprises in Developing Countries" in Brookings Global Economy and Development, September 2008.
A Dutch national and dual citizen of the Netherlands and the United States, Mr. van der Vaart speaks Dutch, English, German, French, and some Polish.