Marilyn S. Adler is a Founder and Managing Partner at Mizzen Capital. Mizzen has $265 million of assets under management and invests as senior secured debt in lower middle market companies with $1 to $10 million of EBITDA. Our industry focus includes niche manufacturing, business services, healthcare services, alternative energy and software. Investment size ranges from $4 million to $15 million within the fund and partners with limited partners and other credit funds for larger deals up to $50 million.

Prior to founding Mizzen, Ms. Adler had senior management roles with SBIC investment funds including Medley SBIC LP, Sunrise Equity Partners LP and Hudson Venture Partners LP. Prior to that, she worked at Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association in the fixed income group and at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in the investment banking division.

Ms. has been named as one of the top women in middle market M&A every year between 2016 and 2021. Ms. Adler was the 2018 ACG Woman of Leadership awardee. She is a board member of UJA’s Private Equity division, Banking & Finance division and Women of Wall Street division. Ms. Adler is a member of the SBIA ESG Working Group and was previously a board member of the SBIA board of governors and the chair of its BDC committee and prior finance chair of the board of Cornell University Hillel. She served as treasurer of her co-op board from 2011 to 2020.

Ms. Adler earned an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BS with distinction from Cornell University. Ms. Adler resides in New York City with her husband and has three grown children.

Deborah is the Founder & General Partner at Willow Growth Partners. Willow launched in 2020 and provides early growth capital to entrepreneurs building the next generation of transformative consumer brands and the disruptive technologies that power them. In 2014, Deborah built a family office investment vehicle focused on seed stage consumer brands and enabling tech companies which served as the genesis of Willow. During that time, Deborah invested in 15 companies, and has since achieved four exits, returned 2 x the capital, and currently has over a 8x+ MOIC. A critical element of Deborah’s investment thesis is to leverage her 20+ years of operating experience to support founders.

Prior to investing, Deborah held a number of executive level operating roles. From 2012 – 2014, she was President and Chief Operating Officer of Nasty Gal, an online women’s fashion brand. Earlier, Deborah was the Chief Operating Officer at ShoeDazzle, an online women’s subscription accessories company co-founded with Kim Kardashian, where she and the team built a powerful consumer brand and grew annual revenues to ~$85 M in 2 ½ years. Prior to ShoeDazzle, Deborah was the EVP, Inside Sales and Operations at Teleflora, where she managed a $100 M P&L. After business school, Deborah began her career in management consulting, focusing primarily on data-driven strategic sourcing and cost rationalization.

Deborah has held multiple private and public Board Director roles, including Chair of the Board at Leaf Group (NYSE: LEAF). She is passionate about and actively involved in supporting and mentoring women founders and sits on the board of Women Founder Network in LA, an organization dedicated to providing promising female entrepreneurs access to capital, services, and mentorship.

Deborah earned both Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Arts (Health) degrees from Queen’s University at Kingston, Canada.

Dominic Chan works on financial sponsors coverage and deal sourcing. Prior to joining Vaquero, he worked in the investment management divisions at Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital, covering private equity fund relationships. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco ArtPoint and is a founding member of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra Alumni Leadership Council. Dominic graduated with a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Don currently serves as the company’s President and co-runs the firm. Since 2001, he has worked to build ICR’s industry teams and corporate culture, driving the firm’s rapid global growth. Don is a leading expert on IPOs, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) and other complex corporate transactions.

Don has led teams that have advised hundreds of companies on IPOs, mergers, acquisitions and other complex corporate transactions. Prior to ICR, Don spent over a decade as a portfolio manager and research analyst specializing in public and private investments in the consumer and technology industries. Prior to joining ICR, Don co-founded the asset management firm Meyer, Duffy & Associates and Meyer Duffy Ventures.

Don also served on multiple public boards, and has chaired audit, compensation and special committees. Don received a B.A. in Finance from St. John’s University.

Eric is Vice Chairman of DC Advisory US and is based in the San Francisco office. Eric focuses on the technology and software sectors specializing in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and private placements.

Eric’s previous roles include Head of the Technology Practice at Signal Hill (acquired by DC Advisory’s parent company, Daiwa Securities Group, in 2018); Co-Founder and Head of Technology at Seven Hills; and Co-Head of Global Technology Group at ING Barings/Furman Selz. Previously Eric was Head of West Coast and Technology for Kidder Peabody & Co. Eric also worked at CS First Boston, Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan.

He holds an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in History from Dartmouth College.

Mike is a Managing Director at Horizon Partners, co-founding the firm from Hillhouse Capital Advisors, a boutique financial services firm that he also founded. At Horizon, Mike has pioneered a bespoke, artisanal M&A advisory model, crafting highly-customized transactions like the dual-buyout structures conceptualized and executed for Horizon clients like Distrokid and Spatial Networks.

Mike has been advising bootstrapped technology companies for over 15 years and co-leads every Horizon engagement. He has earned numerous industry honors for innovation in transaction strategy, process, and structuring, including a number of ‘Deal of the Year’ awards as well as distinction as an Emerging Leader (M&A Advisor), Rising Star (M&A Atlas Awards), and Boutique Investment Banker of the Year (M&A Atlas Awards).

Mike holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management, graduating with Distinction in Finance & the Law. He holds a B.A. in Finance from the University of Utah where he graduated with highest honors.

Jaime Forsyth was named Partner & Head of the Investment Team at Monomoy Capital Partners in December 2021. She started her tenure with the firm as an Analyst on the Investment Team in 2008 and leads deal execution from sourcing through exit. Prior to joining Monomoy, Jaime was an Analyst in the leveraged finance group at Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc.

Jaime serves or has served on the Board of Directors for 14 of Monomoy’s platform investments, 4 of which she has served as Chairman of the Board. In addition to her deal execution responsibilities, Jaime manages the Investment Team and is actively involved in the firm’s internal continuous improvement initiatives.

Jaime was previously featured as one of Global M&A Network’s 2018 Rising Dealmakers, Mergers & Acquisitions’ 2018 11 Rising Stars of Private Equity, and received an honorable mention in Mergers & Acquisitions’ 2021 Most Influential Women in Mid-Market M&A.

Jaime received her B.S. in Commerce from the University of Virginia, with concentrations in Finance and Accounting, and a minor in Italian.

Carol Fox is a CPA with over 30 years of private and public accounting experience. For over two decades, her career has concentrated on providing bankruptcy, restructuring, and forensic services to a wide range of industries with a specific focus on the healthcare sector.

Prominent healthcare assignments include:

• Ms. Fox is currently serving as Chapter 11 Trustee of the jointly administered cases, Americore Holdings, et al., filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, Case No. 19-61608 [GSS] (“Americore”). As of the Petition Date, Americore was comprised of eleven healthcare debtors including two operating hospitals.
• Ms. Fox served as interim CFO of a hospital system that included a 500-bed academic medical center, a 200-bed children’s hospital and affiliated practice groups. For over seven years Ms. Fox was employed by a 599-bed hospital located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida where she directed the implementation and regular monitoring of critical models that projected reimbursement on a patient-level basis of the Hospital’s primary insurance plans and bench-marked the productivity of the Hospital’s direct and ancillary revenue centers against national standards. Additionally, she prepared and monitored the Hospital’s annual budget.
• Ms. Fox currently serves as case-by-case Subchapter V Trustee in the Southern District of Florida, serves on the Board of Directors for the International Women’s Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation’s (IWIRC) Florida Chapter, was named one of the U.S.A Top Women Dealmakers by Global M&A Network in 2019, and was recognized in 2021 by the ABF Journal and one of the Top Women in Asset-Based Lending.

Ms. Fox graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting. She is a CPA*, CIRA (Certified Insolvency and Restructuring Advisor), and CFE (Certified Fraud Examiner). She enjoys public speaking and has presented at conferences sponsored by the, ABI (American Bankruptcy Institute), AIRA (Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors), American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), American Health Law Association (AHLA), IWIRC, and university classes.

*Regulated by the State of Florida.

Andrew Gibson of Lyme, CT, is currently advising Tier 1 aerospace suppliers and their financial institutions on Strategic Vision, Operations, Growth, Due Diligence, Financing, Exit and Turnaround matters. Andrew’s deep experience as an Owner and Financier allow for quick due diligence and successful project execution.

He was CEO and co-Owner of Chester, CT and Bangalore, India-based AeroCision, a Tier 1 maker of complex turbine engine parts. Andrew exited to a PE firm. AeroCision’s deep turnaround began in 2008. Andrew fixed and grew the firm using an Employees & Suppliers-first culture and a robust ERP backbone for all data, including forecasting, SPC and Robotic Machinery. AeroCision was awarded Rolls-Royce’s #1 Supplier of the Year in the World in 2017 and Runner Up in 2018.

Previsously, Andrew started a consultancy in 1996 turning around troubled private and publicly held businesses serving as interim President or COO in many industries. Prior to starting his own Advisory, he was the top financial exec at one of the largest privately held apartment developers in the USA. He started his career as a loan officer with Chase Morgan (formerly Manufacturers Hanover) in NYC. Andrew is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Manufacturers Hanover Trust’s (now Chase Morgan) Credit Training School.

Brett Hickey has over 20 years of private investing and investment banking experience. He has completed over 125 private equity, private credit and secondary fund investments.

He is the Founder & CEO of Star Mountain Capital, LLC, a multi-billion dollar specialized private investment firm, making loans, private equity investments and secondary fund purchases across its Collaborative Ecosystem® in the lower middle-market. Driven by culture and stakeholder alignment, Star Mountain has been recognized as one of the Best Places to Work by Crain’s and Pensions & Investments in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

Previously worked as an Investment Banker at Citigroup Global Markets in New York City (formerly known as Salomon Smith Barney) where he completed over $24 billion in transactions for financial institutions.

Graduated with Distinction from McGill University in Montreal, Canada with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Finance and Accounting. Alumnus of Harvard Business School’s Owner, President / Manager executive training and management program.

Board positions include Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs, YMCA of Greenwich and Star Mountain Charitable Foundation, focused on job creation (including for veterans, women and athletes), economic development and health & wellness. Member of YPO and former Canadian national gold medalist in speed skating.

John is a partner and chair of the Health Care Transactions and Regulatory Practices of the Health Sciences Department of Troutman Pepper. Additionally, he chairs the firm’s Acute Care and Hospitals and Health Systems Practice, Group Purchasing and Buying Cooperative Practice, Long-Term Care Organizations and Pharmacy Industry practices, and is a member of the White Collar and Corporate Investigations Practice Group. John focuses his practice in corporate and health care matters. He represents financial sponsors, health care providers and suppliers throughout the supply chain on a wide range of corporate, M&A and regulatory, structural governance matters, and compliance issues.

John worked as a law clerk and as a health policy intern during law school at the Pennsylvania Department of Health, where he co wrote “Department of Health – Powers and Duties under Pennsylvania Law” (rev. 1996).

John is a contributing editor to Physicians News Digest, a regular contributor AHLA’s Health Law Digest, a contributing author to Guide to Medical Privacy and HIPAA (Thomas Publishing Group, 2002) and to The Health Laws of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Bar Institute (2000).

He is a member of the adjunct faculty at Drexel University Kline School of Law and teaches the Health Law Practicum in the Health Law Concentration to upper-level students. He also is a member of the Health Law Concentration’s Board of Advisors. He also has served as a faculty member of the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, the Health Law Institute, Medical Education Services, the Medical Records Institute and Lorman Education Services for programs on HIPAA privacy and security.

George Kaufman is Partner and Head of Investment Banking.

Mr. Kaufman’s expertise spans healthcare, energy and media, with broad experience in cross border, complex transactions and SPAC’s. In addition to his role at Chardan, he is a member of the board of directors of Prime Acquisition Corp., a European real estate portfolio and management company.

Prior to joining Chardan in 2004, Mr. Kaufman was Chief Technology Officer with Windsor Capital Advisors, LLC, and an independent advisor to eTrade.

Mr. Kaufman holds a BA in Economics from the University of Vermont and is an active giver to environmental causes.

Melissa is a Senior Managing Director with over 30 years of experience providing financial advisory, restructuring, and turnaround management services to Fortune 500 and mid-sized companies and their stakeholders. She also has extensive investigative, litigation, and valuation experience, including insolvency-related litigation, avoidance actions, fraud investigations, merger and acquisition disputes, director and officer claims, and other commercial litigation support. Melissa has provided expert testimony in U.S. District Court, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, state court, arbitrations, and other venues. Her industry experience includes automotive, aviation, education, energy, financial services, gaming, healthcare, manufacturing/distribution, media/entertainment, municipalities, natural resources, real estate/construction, retail, restaurant, steel, telecommunications, transportation and other industries.

Melissa recently served as Chief Restructuring Officer in the bankruptcies of Juno USA, previously the third-largest ride-hailing company in New York, and Rubio’s Restaurants, a Mexican coastal grill, and as the Chief Financial Officer of Edmentum Holdings, Inc., a leading provider of online learning solutions.

Robert Koven is the Managing Director of Leonis Partners, one of New York City’s top financial firms with a focus on Mergers & Acquisitions and equity capital transactions. After working for investment banks like JPMorgan and Lazard Freres, Robert Koven and his team at Leonis took techniques they learned at those large financial institutions and applied them to growing technology businesses. They found much interest in the middle market where, historically, access to premier M&A and capital advice was limited. From its founding, Leonis has grown quickly and emerged as a leader in technology M&A and capital raising.

Robert Koven continues to grow Leonis Partners, preparing a West Coast expansion to complement the company’s New York, Washington, DC, and Atlanta locations.

Samuel Maizel, a partner in Dentons’ Los Angeles Office, leads the firm’s healthcare industry restructuring efforts nationwide. His practice includes bankruptcy matters and financial restructuring in- and out-of-court. In chapter 11 cases, he has served as lead counsel to debtors, trustees, buyers and seller of assets, creditors’ committees, and individual creditors, as well as serving as a trustee, examiner, patient care ombudsman, and consumer privacy ombudsman. His most recent healthcare industry cases include Astria Health, the chapter 11 restructuring of a three hospital nonprofit chain in Yakima, Washington; and Verity Health System of California, the second largest non-profit hospital bankruptcy case in US history, which filed in Los Angeles, California.

Before joining Dentons, Sam was a partner in a national bankruptcy firm, and previous to that he served as a trial attorney in the US Department of Justice. He has also served in US Army’s The Judge Advocate General’s Corps, including service in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. Sam has lectured extensively, is widely published, and been interviewed on television and radio on healthcare industry insolvency topics. He is the only attorney in the United States ranked in both healthcare and bankruptcy by Chambers and Partners and also Best Lawyers. Sam is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and was awarded “Restructuring Lawyer of the Year” in 2020 by Global M&A Network.

Mr. Marzouk is Managing Director and New York Group Head. He is responsible for originating new investments in the northeast region and responsible for due diligence, structuring and execution. Mr. Marzouk has over 35 years of leveraged finance and advisory experience and has completed over $7.0 billion in leveraged finance transactions. His debt capital experience includes senior and second lien debt, unitranche, mezzanine and high yield debt in addition to equity to non-investment grade companies across numerous industries. Prior to Monroe, Mr. Marzouk was a Managing Director at Praesidian Capital, a provider of junior capital and equity. Prior to Praesidian, he was Co-Founder and Partner of Credit Market Advisors and one of the founding members of CIT Group, Inc.’s Equity Sponsor Group. Before joining CIT, Mr. Marzouk was the Deputy Group Head of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein’s Leverage Finance Group. Mr. Marzouk started his career at Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company. Mr. Marzouk earned his B.S. in Economics and Political Science and his M.B.A. in Finance from Emory University Goizueta School of Business. Mr. Marzouk is a member of ACG and Fundless Sponsors in Private Equity.

Al founded MelCap Partners in 2000, and is responsible for managing all aspects of client engagements from proposal through closing, developing business, reviewing offering memorandums and financial models, negotiating purchase agreements, and interacting with buyers and investors. Al resides in Medina, Ohio with his wife and has four adult children and two grandchildren.

BSBA in both Finance and Marketing from The Ohio State University. Registered FINRA Representative: Series 7 – General Securities, Series 24 – General Securities Principal, Series 63 – Uniform Securities Agent, and Series 79 – Limited Representative-Investment Banking. Certified Merger & Acquisition Advisor through the Alliance for Merger and Acquisition Advisors.

Ann Miller is a Managing Director and Co-Head of the Special Situations practice. She leverages over 20 years of experience in public and private companies, working in both distressed and traditional M&A. Her broad range of experience includes managing a variety of investment banking engagements, including Chapter 11 restructurings, debt for equity exchanges, mergers and acquisitions and divesture assignments, strategic alternative analyses, fairness and solvency opinions and valuations. Ann’s industry experience includes healthcare, technology, financial services, media and telecommunications, consumer, industrials, energy, and transportation.

Prior to joining Stout, Ann was a Managing Director in the Special Situations group at Cowen and Company, LLC where she was responsible for executing mandates and obtaining new mandates with new and existing clients. Prior to that, she spent 17 years as a Director in the Financial Restructuring group at Houlihan Lokey, where she initiated, managed, and delivered engagements involving in-court and out-of-court restructurings, mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. Ann also worked as a Strategic Consultant and Valuation Advisor at EY.

EDUCATION

M.B.A, Analytical Finance and Economics, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business

B.B.A., Finance, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Lauren Mulholland is a Co-Founder, Partner and Member of the Investment Committee at MiddleGround Capital. Lauren heads the Investment Team, manages the New York City office and is actively involved in business development and investor relations.

Lauren started her career in investment banking as part of the Financial Institutions Group at Banc of America Securities. While at BofA, Lauren completed multiple sell-side M&A assignments, public equity offerings, public debt offerings and private equity placements. Following the analyst program, she moved to Macquarie Capital where she raised third party capital for the firm’s large infrastructure acquisitions and helped launch a private capital markets platform prior to attending business school. After business school, Lauren worked at Monomoy Capital, where she was a Director on the Investment Team and worked with portfolio companies across the Industrial and Consumer industries.

Lauren completed her undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. She also received her MBA with Honors from Columbia Business School. Lauren lives in New York City with her husband, Brian, and their three children, Maddie (6), Cece (5) and Ellie (2).

Marlee S. Myers represents publicly traded and emerging companies in US and international transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, initial and follow-on public offerings, venture capital and debt financings, and strategic alliances. She advises on general corporate matters, including securities compliance and corporate governance. In addition, she serves as corporate counsel to family offices and venture investors. Founding partner of Morgan Lewis’s Pittsburgh office, Marlee has been listed in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business every year since 2003.

Marlee serves on the board of trustees of the University of Pittsburgh and the board of directors of the Pittsburgh Technology Council. She was the founding board chair of the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recognized Marlee as one of the city’s top 50 business leaders, and she was twice selected as an ATHENA Award finalist by the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce. She was honored as one of Pennsylvania’s Top 50 Women in Business by former Governor Tom Ridge; received a Pittsburgh Business Times Business Women First Award (2009 and 2016); and was named by the National Diversity Council as one of the “Most Powerful and Influential Women of Pennsylvania.”

Bill Nelson is a partner in the Capital Markets practice and Head of Texas Offices. He has more than 20 years of experience helping clients successfully close complex mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, financings and other securities transactions across a wide range of industries.

Bill handles public offerings; private placements; monetization transactions; cross-border securities offerings, including those involving Multijurisdictional Disclosure Systems (MJDS); proxy contests; securities law compliance and corporate governance.

In addition, Bill has significant and recent experience in advising issuers, underwriters and investment funds on the IPOs of special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), as well as M&A transactions between SPACs and operating companies.

Bill’s clients include private equity firms and their portfolio companies, United States, Canadian and other foreign oil and gas exploration and production companies, master limited partnerships (MLPs), oilfield services companies, insurance companies, restaurants/hospitality companies and investment banking firms.

He recently successfully handled complex, high-profile transactions for KMG Chemicals, Endeavor Energy Resources, Alta Mesa Holdings, and Callon Petroleum Company, among other companies.

Given the breadth and depth of his experience, Bill is regularly solicited to speak to state and national media outlets and to industry audiences on M&A, securities, finance and corporate governance topics.

Bill has long played a leadership role in the Texas legal community, including as treasurer and member of the board of The Houston Police Foundation, and as a member of the Chancellor’s Council Executive Committee of the University of Texas System. He also is active in The National Association of Corporate Directors, Tri-Cities Chapter and The General Counsel Forum, Houston Chapter.

Mitch Nussbaum is the vice chair of Loeb & Loeb and serves as co-chair of the firm’s Capital Markets and Corporate Department. His practice focuses on representing emerging growth companies and investment banks in initial public offerings of operating companies and SPACs, follow-on public offerings, shelf takedowns, registered direct placements, PIPEs and other private placements (144A, Reg D, Reg A, Reg S, etc.). Mitch also regularly represents public companies regarding their SEC and NYSE or Nasdaq listing compliance and has acted as outside general counsel, including corporate, securities, M&A litigation and business counseling, to hundreds of private and public companies as well as their officers and directors.

He also negotiates and documents acquisitions, mergers, going-private transactions, reverse mergers, proxy contests, tender offers, control contests, fund formations and secured lending financings and has represented issuers and underwriters in hundreds of SPAC public offerings and business combinations for over 20 years. Mitch was responsible for developing the groundbreaking IPAC, which features many of the benefits of the SPAC, but offers increased flexibility on pricing and deal structure, along with a more rapid transaction cycle.

Jeff Rossi is a Partner and serves as co-leader of the Firm’s Manufacturing and Distribution Industry Practice. Jeff’s industry experience also includes consumer, construction, and law firms. With a public accounting career that began in 1993, Jeff offers specialized audit, tax, and accounting advisory expertise to our clients.

In addition to being a Certified Public Accountant, Jeff also holds the credentials of Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE). Jeff has extensive experience in forensic accounting, internal controls and fraud prevention. Jeff also passed the Certified Fraud Deterrence Analyst exam during 2005 and earned the Certified Valuation Analyst credential in 2006. In 2017, Jeff was recognized as a “Most Trusted Business Advisor” by the Fairfield County Business Journal and was named to the Hartford Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” in 2007.

Nick Rueter is a partner in the Corporate Technology Group at Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP, where he represents domestic and international companies and investors in M&A transactions, as well as growth and venture capital financings. His experience is particularly concentrated on transactions involving tech and tech-enabled businesses.

Nick received his law degree and a master’s in international relations from Duke University. He received his bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University.

As a Digital Advisory Director, Nita brings nearly 25 years of experience in transforming businesses for market growth and optimizing business operations, working with firms of all size in the financial, professional, and legal services industries.

Nita has worked with Private Equity firms advising them on investments in business services and optimizing the performance companies in their portfolio. Previously, Nita partnered with many financial services C-suite leaders to:

• Develop and operationalize strategies to generate incremental revenues
• Position the business for a successful sale
• Maximize post-M&A synergies
• Right-size business units
• Transform the business to improve customer-centricity and establish a path for revenue growth, leveraging exponential technologies, and hedge against disruption
• Nita has worked with a Big Four firm’s Global Audit and Risk Advisory Global CEOs and the CEO of a legal service providers’ Legal & Regulatory business on enterprise transformation initiatives.

Prior to joining Cherry Bekaert, Nita was the CEO of Idea Innovate Consulting, a firm focused on transforming service businesses for growth. She was the Head of Global Innovation for Wolters Kluwer’s Legal and Regulatory Division. She also spent 14 years at Deloitte & Touche Tohmatsu Limited as a Director in Strategy & Operations.

Margaret Shanley is a principal in CohnReznick’s Los Angeles office and is also the National Director for the firm’s Transaction Advisory Services practice. She has more than 15 years of professional experience assisting strategic and financial buyers and lenders in the performance of financial and business due diligence on platform, add-on acquisitions, and carve out transactions.

Margaret’s specific areas of focus include profitability analysis by customer, channel, and product category to evaluate where a business is making or losing money; stress-testing financial projections and forecasts; identifying and evaluating one-time adjustments to earnings; assessing the quality and sustainability of earnings; assessing the true level of working capital and impact to purchase price; evaluating the quality and integrity of the financial reporting infrastructure and environment and recommending best practices; acting as a liaison between buyer and seller in the negotiation of potential purchase price adjustments; and preparing sellers for buyer due diligence.

A Partner with Cherry Bekaert, Steve leads the firm’s Healthcare practice and brings over 30 years of deal experience to his healthcare clients. He has worked on hundreds of middle-market healthcare transactions advising on financial due diligence; mergers and acquisitions; strategic financial planning; and quality of earnings engagements.

Steve is a recognized leader in the profession and was selected to represent the AICPA to testify before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging about reforming Medicare’s Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program. He was a lead subject matter expert in the creation and annual updates of the Thomson Reuters PPC Practice Aids for Audits of Health Care Entities, a set of tools used by numerous public accounting firms across the country in their healthcare audit practice. In addition, Steve is a frequent speaker on a variety of healthcare topics at AICPA, HFMA, MGMA, RBMA and other national healthcare conferences.

Shauna Watson, CPA, leads the Public Company Readiness Practice for Accordion Partners, a boutique private equity consulting firm focused on the Office of the CFO. She is a Managing Director with nearly three decades of experience with technical and operational accounting for public and private companies, particularly in complicated deal and accounting structures often seen in M&A, carve-outs, IPO/SPAC transactions, and GAAP conversions. During her tenure at Accordion, she has partnered with management of private-equity backed companies to accelerate the financial statement close process, prepare for first year audits, diagnose process issues and optimize accounting policies. She also led high growth companies through successful initial public offering (IPO) and SPAC-merger processes.

At RGP, a global consulting company, Shauna led the technical accounting practice and developed end-to-end solutions for revenue recognition and lease accounting compliance, achieving triple digit year-over-year growth. She was a recognized expert and frequent presenter on technical accounting matters.

As Corporate Director of Technical Accounting and Policy at Northrop Grumman, a Fortune 100 Aerospace & Defense company, she evaluated and concluded on complex business transactions, drafted comment letters for submission to the SEC, FASB, IASB, and PCAOB, and led the ongoing IFRS implementation efforts. From that she transitioned into the Corporate Director of FP&A role, responsible for monthly planning and analysis, what-if scenarios for potential executive actions such as the spin-off of a $6B business, the long-range strategic plan, and reporting to the Board of Directors.

During her 11 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Shauna was a Senior Manager in Audit and Advisory Services and spent several years in PwC’s Global Capital Markets Group in Germany. There she consulted on US GAAP and SEC regulations for capital raising and M&A activities.

Shauna graduated with highest honors from Montana State University with a B.S. in Accounting, received her M.B.A. from UCLA’s Anderson School of Business, and is a Certified Public Accountant. She currently lives in sunny San Diego with her husband, 2 young daughters, and 2 crazy cats.

Mr. Wedge is a Director in Houlihan Lokey’s Healthcare Group. Since 2010, he has executed a variety of transactions, including sellside and buyside M&A transactions, as well as IPO, equity follow-on, block trades, and investment grade and non-investment grade debt offerings. Mr. Wedge is based in the firm’s Dallas office.

Before joining Houlihan Lokey, Mr. Wedge was a Director at Credit Suisse, where he provided advisory services to the firm’s healthcare services clients across a number of sectors, including facility-based providers, staffing and specialty services, pharmacy benefit management, contract research, labs, and HCIT. Prior to Credit Suisse, Mr. Wedge was a Vice President in Lazard’s Healthcare M&A group, where he executed over $40 billion of M&A transactions across the healthcare industry.

Mr. Wedge’s notable prior transactions include Tenet Healthcare’s acquisition of Vanguard Health Systems, Tenet Healthcare’s acquisition of United Surgical Partners International, LabCorp’s acquisition of Covance, IPO of Medpace Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MEDP), and follow-on offering for Cotiviti (NYSE:COTV), among others.

Mr. Wedge holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia Business School.