City of Stamford
Eric Newman, Treasury Manager at City of Stamford
Eric is responsible for treasury, investment management, pension fund administration, and accounting. He participates in the management of the City’s Public Private Partnership portfolio. The portfolio includes a highly leveraged Real Estate Qualified Active Low-Income Community Business Partnership (QALICB) that monetarized IRC §47 Federal Historical Tax Credits and §45D New Markets Tax Credits and several Tax Increment Financing (TIF) redevelopment, infrastructure, and improvement projects. Eric serves as a Trustee on the Classified Employees Retirement Fund Board, Other Post-Employment Benefit (OPEB) Board, Defined Contribution Retirement Plan Board and is a member of the City’s Investment Advisory Committee, Eric serves as a Trustee on the Town of Fairfield Employee Retirement Board and Joint Retirement Investment Board.
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. He served as the Treasurer for thirty-seven special purpose funding entities, a member of the NYSSCPA Private Equity and Venture Capital Committee, and NYSSCPA Investment Management Committee.
Eric received his B.B.A. in Accounting from Adelphi University; Certificate in Investment Banking from New York University; and is currently pursuing his M.B.A. in Finance from Sacred Heart University. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA).
Cheltenham Enterprises
Sasha Bernier, Managing Director at Cheltenham Enterprises
Sasha Bernier is the senior vice president and investment committee member of Cheltenham Enterprises, a single-family office seeking to invest opportunistically. Mr. Bernier is an active real estate and venture capital investor with a focus in finding technology opportunities that can scale in South East Asia.
Previously, he served as the vice-president of Revere Capital, a real estate debt fund with the responsibility for underwriting and structuring new investment opportunities in the real estate debt space. He started his career as a banker at Overlord Partners. Mr. Bernier holds a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a B.S. in business administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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.
Felicitas Global Partners
Calvin Marks, Director at Felicitas Global Partners
Calvin Marks is a Director at Felicitas Global Partners, a California-based ~$658m AUM asset manager that focuses on niche segments of the private equity secondaries market. He assists in all facets of the business, such as sourcing, evaluation, execution, and active monitoring of investments.
Previously, Calvin spent five years on the investment team at Overbay Capital Partners, a Toronto-based $1.8bn AUM private equity secondaries firm, where he was instrumental in building all facets of the business from its inception. While at Overbay, Calvin led or co-led 49 transactions from $1mm to $250mm in size, which led to unrecycled net fund returns to investors of 2.01x TVPI, 0.40x DPI, and 40.0% IRR (data as of June 30, 2021, the last reported period prior to Calvin’s departure).
Calvin started his career in corporate development at ION Investment Group, a portfolio company of TA Associates, where he focused on corporate strategy, restructuring, and M&A for middle market financial technology firms.
Calvin received his undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto and resides in Toronto with his family.
Promethean Investments
https://www.prometheaninvestments.com
Michael Burt, Partner at 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.
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.