Panelist Snapshots - September 7, 2022
HKW
Jim Snyder, Partner, Hammond, Kennedy, Whitney & Co.
Jim’s primary responsibility as partner is leading the firm’s Investor Relations Team. He travels regularly to meet with investors, co-investment funding sources, and lending institutions throughout North America.
Prior to joining HKW, Jim worked as vice president and general counsel for Browning Investments. He also served as director of finance and general counsel to the city of Indianapolis mayor and chief of staff for the Indiana state treasurer.
Jim lives in Carmel, IN with his wife Maryann. They have a daughter who is in law school and son who is currently in college. Outside the office, Jim and Maryann enjoy traveling to watch college sports.
Education: Wabash College (BS) Indiana University (JD)
Thrivent Private Investments
https://thriventprivateinvestments.com
Matthew S. Fisk, Managing Director, Private Equity Investments
Matt is a Managing Director in the Private Equity group at Thrivent Financial. Matt is responsible for sourcing and executing primary fund investments and equity co-investments. He also leads his group’s efforts in structured and opportunistic investments. Before joining Thrivent, Matt worked for W. P. Carey as a Vice President focusing in Capital Markets. Previously, he held positions at Sandler O’Neil and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Matt earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago as well as a Master of Science in Accounting from Notre Dame and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Miami.
He completed his CPA designation and is a CFA charterholder.
Gatewood Capital
https://www.gatewoodcapital.com
Ami Samuels, Partner
Ami is a Partner and plays a key role in transaction origination, execution, marketing and portfolio management. Prior to joining Gatewood, Ami was a Managing Director and Co-Head of the Private Equity Group at Poalim Capital Markets, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bank Hapoalim, a leading financial institutional in Israel. Ami led investments and monitoring of the PE portfolio, and managed new business development activities. Ami was responsible for several investments in China, including a joint venture with a local advisory and investment firm based in Beijing and Hong Kong.
Prior to that, Ami was a Partner and Investment Manager at Star Ventures, an international venture capital firm, where he focused on fundraising and the communications sector. Prior to Star Ventures, Ami was a Co-Founder, CFO and Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Satlynx SA of Luxembourg, a provider of satellite-based communications services, and Vice President at Gilat Satellite Networks.
Ami has 10 years of investment banking experience with Lehman Brothers in New York and Tel Aviv, where he worked on corporate finance and M&A transactions for U.S. and Israeli companies and for the Government of Israel.
Ami graduated from the Yale School of Management with a Masters in Public and Private Management, from the University of Haifa (in Israel) with a B.A. and participated in the University of Michigan’s Executive Management Program.
747 Capital
Gijs van Thiel, Managing Partner at 747 Capital
747 Capital is a private equity firm focused exclusively on the small-cap buyout market. 747 Capital provides investors with diversified portfolios of private equity funds, co-investments, and secondaries.
Gijs is the co-founder of 747 Capital and a Managing Partner of the firm. Gijs is a member of the firm’s investment committee and serves on the advisory boards of various underlying portfolio funds. As a member of the 747 Capital investment team Gijs actively monitors its portfolio of 50+ fund investments and approximately 60 active co-investments. Gijs has been active in private equity since 1995.
Gijs holds a M.B.A. in International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a B.A. from Webster University.
Cornell University
Roger Vincent, Senior Investment Officer at Cornell University
Mr. Vincent is a Senior Investment Officer with the Cornell University Endowment. His role includes overseeing portfolio construction and a manager selection for all private equity assets, globally. He joined Cornell in 2012 and has led more than 100 transactions valued at over $1.5 billion. Prior to Cornell, Mr. Vincent was a private equity investor with more than 15 years of direct investment experience across buyout, growth equity, and venture capital strategies. He began his private equity career in 1995 at DLJ Merchant Banking Partners.
Mr. Vincent earned a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Columbia University, Beta Gamma Sigma.
Star Mountain Capital
https://starmountaincapital.com
Brett Hickey, Founder & Managing Partner at Star Mountain Capital
Brett Hickey has been structuring, analyzing and managing private equity, mezzanine and U.S. Government sponsored investment funds for over a decade. Prior to launching Star Mountain Capital, Mr. Hickey was the Co-Founder and President of a multi-manager platform including 4 U.S. state sponsored small business investment funds. Mr. Hickey has extensive experience performing due diligence on, selecting and building small business fund managers and has helped structure over a dozen larger funds representing a few billion dollars in assets.
Mr. Hickey formerly worked as an Investment Banker at Citigroup Global Markets in New York City (fka Salomon Smith Barney) where he covered global Asset Managers and Financial Institutions. In that role he worked on over $8 billion in completed debt and equity capital raising and restructuring transactions for leading financial institutions including BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Neuberger-Berman, Nuveen Investments and Eaton Vance. He also served as Senior Analyst on the $16.1 billion public merger of the St. Paul Companies, Inc. and Travelers Property Casualty Corp.
Mr. Hickey attended Mount Royal College in Calgary, Canada, where he studied business and entrepreneurship while training on the national speed skating team. He graduated with Distinction from McGill University in Montreal, Canada with a Bachelor of Commerce degree. He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School’s Owner, President / Manager CEO training and management program for distinguished business owners with a proven track record of successfully building and managing companies. Mr. Hickey is a former Canadian national gold medalist and North American medalist in speed skating. He has completed numerous other business programs including Building Your Business Through Transformational Leadership & Innovation at the Innovatrium on the University of Michigan’s campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan and is a frequent guest lecturer on industry panels and at academic institutions. A selection of interviews can be found on The Lead Left.
Sagar Family Office
Rosemary Sagar, Chief Investment Officer at Sagar Family Office
Rosemary Sagar, CFA is the Chief Investment Officer of Sagar Family Office. She has been allocating to hedge funds and PE structured funds since 2004 on behalf of family trusts and accounts. She is a member of numerous LP Advisory Committees. She oversees the family legacy established by her late father Dr. Vidya Sagar at IP law firm Remfry & Sagar, founded 1827 (www.remfry.com), and is Chair of The Sagar School (www.thesagarschool.org), an award winning boarding school in Rajasthan.
From 2005 through August 2022, Rosemary was CIO of the Kingdon Foundation at Kingdon Capital Management LLC. By allocating entirely to alternatives funds, she grew and diversified the charitable assets while funding donations well in excess of requirements. From 1996 to 2004, Rosemary was Managing Director and Head of Global Investments at US Trust where she and her team managed $1.6bn in non-US equities. From 1990 to 1996, Rosemary was SVP, International Equities at GE Investments in Stamford, CT, responsible for managing $1.8bn in pension assets for GE, NYC Employees Retirement System, NYC Police and NYC Teachers. She was Chair of GE (UK) Common Investment Fund (GE’s largest pension fund outside of North America) and a board member of the GE Netherlands Pension Fund. Previously, Rosemary was Associate Director of European Research at Baring Securities, VP of International Research at Drexel Burnham Lambert and the first international equity analyst at Morgan Stanley, reporting to Barton Biggs.
Rosemary was an International Advisory Board Member of the Paris stock exchange/NYSE from 1995 to 2010, and served on the Advisory Boards of Comex and the Polish Private Equity Fund. She was a Trustee and Co-Chair of the Investment Committee of Rumsey Hall School in Washington Depot, CT from 2015 to 2019 and a member of the NY Committee of Human Rights Watch.
She received her MBA from Columbia University, her BS from Boston University (summa cum laude, Beta Gamma Sigma) and a ‘degré superieur’, (with “bien” honors) from the Sorbonne.
Moneta Group
Mindy Mitchell, Private Market Advisor
Mindy works closely with clients to construct customized private market solutions for individual portfolios. Additionally, she leverages her institutional background to lead the team’s due diligence process and communication initiatives. Mindy holds a Master’s Degree in Economics and the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) professional designation. Before joining Moneta, Mindy was a Senior Investment Analyst at BJC Healthcare where she worked closely with the CIO to manage their $4 billion private investment portfolio as part of an $8 billion pension and endowment portfolio. Prior to BJC, Mindy was a Technical Analyst at NISA Investment Advisors, a leader in customized, risk-controlled investment strategies for institutional investors.
City of Stamford
Eric Newman, Treasury Manager at City of Stamford
Eric is responsible for treasury, investment management, and pension fund accounting. He is a Trustee on the Classified Employees Retirement Fund Board, Other Post-Employment Benefit (OPEB) Board, Defined Contribution Plan Board, and Investment Advisory Committee.
Eric is a Trustee on the Town of Fairfield Employee Retirement Board and Vice Chairman of the Joint Retirement Investment Board. Serves on the NASP-MiDA Africa Institutional Investor Advisory Council and USAID Prosper Africa MiDA Institutional Investor Delegations to Senegal, Kenya, and South Africa.
Prior to entering government finance, Eric held finance positions at Royal Bank of Scotland, IBM Global Financing, Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, Price Waterhouse, and Soros Fund Management.
Eric received his B.B.A. in Accounting from Adelphi University with a concentration in Latin America History; Certificate in Investment Banking from New York University; M.B.A. in Finance from Sacred Heart University and is currently pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Corporate Finance at Harvard University. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA).
EA Global
Adi Divgi, President at EA Global
Adi Divgi has been Managing Director at Legacy Wealth Management LLC, an independent RIA, since 2021. From 2014-2021, he was Head of Alternative Investments at Catalina, a $5+bn AUM reinsurer. From 2011-2014, Mr. Divgi oversaw the Opportunistic Fixed Income investment program at the New York City Bureau of Asset Management. With approval from the 4 participating Boards of Trustees, he executed $3.6 billion in capital commitments. Mr. Divgi began his credit career at Deutsche Bank, working in New York and Mexico City, and is a graduate of the Huntsman Program, with a BA in International Studies (Spanish minor) from the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Economics and MBA in Finance from Wharton.
Conversion Venture Capital
Shakeel Rangrez, Founding Partner at Conversion Venture Capital (Comfort Family Office)
Promethean Investments
https://www.prometheaninvestments.com
Michael Burt, Founder & Partner Promethean Investments
Michael Burt is the Founder and Managing Partner of Promethean Investments and has successfully raised and managed the three funds: Fund I Promethean PLC, a £50m London Stock Exchange, AiM listed Vehicle, 2005-2013; Promethean Fund II, LP Fund of £167m including co-investments, started in 2014; Promethean Fund III, LP Fund of £78m to date for disruptive, tech-enabled concepts identified in 2018. As of January 2020 Promethean has invested over £302m including co-investment in 16 private companies.
Michael has sat on the board of over 15 companies over the course of his career in a non-executive role including 5 years as a non-executive director of a London Stock Exchange AiM listed entity. Michael currently sits on the board of 9 companies.
Michael played Rugby for Scotland U18 and was Scotland U16 Five’s pairs champion.
Franger Family Office
Grace Lovret, CIO & Managing Member at Franger Family Office
Grace M Lovret is the Managing Member and CIO of Franger LLC, a family office. She is also the sole proprietor of GL Consulting LLC, her tax practice. Grace has been a part of this family office for 55 years and manages the assets of three generations. Her investment approach is diversified and based on the needs and age of the family members.
Grace is on the board of several startups advising on financial matters and sharing innovative ideas finding it most rewarding being a part of someone’s entrepreneurial vision.
She is a proud supporter of St. Jude Children’s Research and part of planned giving. She is passionate about children’s education and changing the narrative around social inequity. Grace most enjoys mentoring young people and suddenly divorced or widowed women in financial literacy, behavior, and planning. She hosts a podcast on iHeart Radio called Becoming, The Journey. It is a show on different topics where men and women share their life journeys intending to benefit the younger generation.
Off time is always best spent with her three grandchildren.
Gabriel Horn Capital
https://gabrielhorncapital.com
Kevin McCaffrey, Vice-President
Kevin McCaffrey is a Vice President at Gabriel Horn Capital, LLC, where he focuses on business development, deal origination, and raising capital. He will also expand the firm’s reach and highlight clients’ expertise in relevant events and media. He has more than 20 years of financial and operational experience across corporate environments and the capital markets – including private equity, venture capital, real estate, equities trading, equity research, and market research.
Before joining the team, Kevin built the PartnerConnect conference series for Thomson Reuters. Starting with the launch in 2011, his focus was connecting institutional investors with fund managers by leveraging events and media services through several acquisitions. He presided over 12,000 pre-screened LP/GP meetings and accelerated fundraising efforts for hundreds of funds in Private Equity and Venture Capital primarily.
Mr. McCaffrey also launched market research services for Frost & Sullivan and equity research services for a NYSE Broker/Dealer following a successful exit from his own real estate and construction company.
Kevin earned a B.S. (Industrial Engineering) from Lehigh University, where he also played Division I Lacrosse. He holds the Series 79 securities license.