PE-Backed Leadership Summit

SPEAKERS

FEATURED SPEAKERS

Lionel Benizri

Lionel Benizri

Global CEO, CHD Expert

Lionel’s mission is to measure and Scale the life and business of 1,000,000 entrepreneurs.As a former Commando & Intelligence Officer, Startup Founder & Serial CEO – Lionel had the privilege to lead +3000 people. With a track record of +150 successful operations in high risk environments and $250million value created bringing multiple companies to EXIT. Lionel is the Author of Parasha, Jewish Thought for Millennials, 100 weeks to Scale (available), and Dashboard your Life (June 2023). Fun fact: Lionel is also a Rabbi, Scribe & experienced Mohel who performed the circumcision of his own sons.

Greg Brenneman

Greg Brenneman

Executive Chair, CCMP Capital Advisors; Lead Director, The Home Depot

Greg Brenneman is Executive Chairman of CCMP and a member of the Firm’s Investment Committee. Mr. Brenneman plays an active leadership role in executing the Firm’s overall strategy while remaining actively engaged in completing transactions, developing strategies and coaching the senior management of CCMP’s portfolio companies.

Prior to joining CCMP in October 2008, Mr. Brenneman served as Chairman, CEO, President and/or COO of Quiznos Sub, Burger King, PwC Consulting and Continental Airlines. In 1994 Mr. Brenneman founded Turnworks, Inc. (“Turnworks”), his personal investment firm that focuses on corporate turnarounds. Prior to founding Turnworks, Mr. Brenneman was a Vice President for Bain & Company. Mr. Brenneman currently serves on the board of directors of Hayward, Ecovyst, BGIS, Baker Hughes, Baylor College of Medicine and The Home Depot, Inc.

Mr. Brenneman is an Emmy Award winner and the author of Right Away & All At Once, Five Steps To Transform Your Business and Enrich Your Life. Mr. Brenneman holds a B.B.A. in Accounting/Finance, summa cum laude, from Washburn University of Topeka, Kansas and an M.B.A. with distinction from Harvard Business School. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Commerce degree from Washburn University.

Jonathan Haas

Jonathan Haas

Managing Director, Clarion Capital Partners, LLC

Jonathan Haas leads Clarion’s Healthcare and Business Services groups.

He joined the firm in 2000 having worked earlier in the investment banking group at Credit Suisse First Boston and in management consulting at A.T. Kearney, Inc. Jon currently serves on the board of Harris & Harris and he previously served on the board of directors of Moravia, HROI, Strategic Outsourcing Inc, Reliant, and Ametros. Jon graduated from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management with an MBA in 1998 and from Dartmouth College with a BA in 1993. He is a member of the Young President’s Organization.

Debbie Habib

Debbie Habib

Director of the Investment Originations Team, Levine Leichtman Capital Partners

Debbie Habib joined LLCP in 2021 and currently serves as a Director of the Investment Originations team. In this capacity, she is responsible for the origination of new investment opportunities and investment due diligence with a focus on the Northeastern U.S.

Prior to joining LLCP, Debbie was a Vice President with Lindsay Goldberg, a New York-based private equity firm, where she led the firm’s business development efforts. Debbie began her career at FGI Worldwide, a New York-based commercial finance company, where she spent a decade of her career and ultimately oversaw the firm’s business development team. Debbie received a B.A. in Journalism from New York University and an M.B.A. from Columbia University and London Business School.

Dave Meirick

Chief Executive Officer, RoadSafe

As Chief Executive Officer of RoadSafe, Dave brings more than 35 years of traffic safety experience to the stewardship of the Company. His hands-on, operationally focused leadership style has helped the Company grow into the nation’s largest provider of traffic safety and pavement markings services. Once the owner of his own Iowa based traffic control company, Dave still takes an active role in ensuring the highest levels of quality, safety, and customer service in all of the Company’s operations. Dave holds a B.A. in Management from Luther College.

Jeff Muir

Jeff Muir

Co-Founder and Partner, Fulcrum Equity Partners

Jeff Muir is a founder and partner of Fulcrum Equity Partners and its predecessor firm, Fulcrum Ventures, which started in 2000. He has managed over $600 million in capital and led or participated in 150 transactions, including public offerings, multi-party mergers and consolidation plays.

Prior to forming Fulcrum, Jeff was COO of OnTarget, the leading provider of consulting and training to large sales organizations worldwide, including IBM, HP, Cisco, Dell, Microsoft, Siemens, Deutsche Telecom, Nortel and BellSouth. Jeff spearheaded the highly successful exit strategy for the owners, resulting in a merger with Siebel Systems in December 1999.

Prior to OnTarget, Jeff primarily held senior executive positions with rapidly growing companies, including Executive VP with NYSE health care company, T2 Medical; VP of a computer software firm, Information Systems of America; and co-founder/principal of a physician management firm that merged with PhyMatrix as part of its initial public offering. He also served as a Managing Director in the Corporate Finance practice of KPMG and began his career as an attorney with the Atlanta law firm of Alston & Bird.

Jeff is currently a board member for Florence Healthcare, Advantum Health, Visuwell, My Pet’s Vet Group, Proxsys RX, Red Bag Solutions, and CarePlus, . He is on the Board of Invest Georgia and Southern Capital Forum as well as the screening committee for Southeast Investor Group. He is on the Board of Metro Atlanta Chamber, Leadership Ministries, Skyland Trail and Sigma Chi Foundation. He serves on the Investment Committee for the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta and two other Foundations. He is a member of the Rotary Club of Atlanta, Association for Corporate Growth, and Society of International Business Fellows. He has participated in the High Tech Prayer Breakfast.

Karen Snow

Karen Snow

Senior Vice President and Head of U.S. Listings and Revenue, Nasdaq

Karen Snow is a Senior Vice President and Head of U.S. Listings and Revenue. In this role, Karen oversees the entire U.S. for initial listings, Investor Relations (IR), ESG and Governance sales, as well as Listings and IR retention.

Karen brings a unique perspective to Nasdaq, and has been instrumental in solidifying IR, GC, C-Suite and board-level relationships. Her deep experience and knowledge of the investment community and capital markets has been a tremendous asset to Nasdaq given the challenges facing listed companies and those seeking to access the public markets.

Prior to joining Nasdaq in December of 2018, Karen served as a Managing Director and Head of NY Equity Sales at Credit Suisse for 18 years. She led a team of executives in diverse areas of Strategic Planning, Account Management, Training & Development, and Compliance. In addition to her 13 years in Equities, Karen spent 5 years in investment banking where she worked on multiple IPOs, High Yield Financings, Bankruptcies and M&A situations. Karen received her BS with honors from Babson College and her MBA from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. She is on the board of Nasdaq Private Markets, a consortium company with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Silicon Valley Bank and Allen & Company and serves as an advisor to the Nasdaq Center for Board Excellence. She also serves on the Babson College Advisory Board as well as the Advisory Board at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown.

Jason Thomas

Jason Thomas

Managing Director and Head of Global Research, Carlyle

Jason Thomas is a Managing Director and Head of Global Research at Carlyle. Mr. Thomas helps to formulate firmwide investment strategies and serves as the Chief Investment Officer for managed accounts and the economic adviser to the firm’s Global Private Equity and Credit Investment Committees.

Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Thomas served on the White House staff as Special Assistant to the President and Director for Policy Development at the National Economic Council. In this capacity, Mr. Thomas acted as the primary adviser to the President for public finance.

Mr. Thomas received a BA from Claremont McKenna College and an MS and PhD in finance from George Washington University, where he studied as a Bank of America Foundation, Leo and Lillian Goodwin Foundation, and School of Business Fellow.

Mr. Thomas has earned the chartered financial analyst designation and is a Financial Risk Manager certified by the Global Association of Risk Professionals.

THOUGHT LEADERS

Paul Aversano

Paul Aversano

Managing Director and Global Practice Leader, Global Transaction Advisory, Alvarez & Marsal

Paul Aversano is a Managing Director at Alvarez & Marsal and the Global Practice Leader of the firm’s Global Transaction Advisory Group. For over 25 years, Mr. Aversano has specialized in leading both buy-side and sell-side financial and accounting due diligence projects for complex public and private company transactions, as well as transactions in the capital markets.

Mr. Aversano works to deliver the firm’s services to clients not only in North America but throughout Europe, the Middle East, India, Asia and Latin America as well. He leads the group’s efforts in the cross-border delivery of services to private equity firms, sovereign wealth funds and family offices as well as to corporate and strategic buyers around the world across a wide-spectrum of industries.  Mr. Aversano specializes in assessing quality of earnings and GAAP accounting, providing accounting and transaction structuring advice for leveraged buyouts as well as purchase accounting and SEC reporting.

Prior to joining A&M, Mr. Aversano was a Partner and Director of Middle Market Private Equity with Ernst & Young in New York. In this role, he led financial accounting due diligence projects for private equity investor groups, and the development and coordination of the firm’s go-to-market and service delivery strategies focused on the private equity market. Previously, Mr. Aversano was with Arthur Andersen’s Transaction Advisory Services and Audit practices in New York.

Mr. Aversano earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Binghamton University, School of Management. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in New York, and is an active member of the American Institute of CPAs, the New York State Society of CPAs and is also a member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (CFE). He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Answer the Call (New York Police & Fire Widows’ & Children’s Benefit Fund) and PowerPlay NYC and is a former board member of Youth I.N.C (Improving Non-Profits for Children), the Audit Committee of the Manhasset School Board of Education and the Alumni Association Board of Directors of Binghamton University. In 2019, Mr. Aversano was also the recipient of the B. Jean Fairbairn Access Award in recognition of his efforts and contributions in improving the services and access for students with disabilities at Binghamton University. 

In 2015 Mr. Aversano was named the “Service Professional of the Year” by The M&A Advisor and was formerly a finalist of The M&A Advisor’s 40 Under 40 Award in recognition of outstanding achievements in the M&A and financial industry. Mr. Aversano is a regular contributor to FOX Business Network, Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, TD Ameritrade Network and many other broadcast and print media outlets, and is a frequent guest lecturer at industry conferences and universities. 

Ted Bililies

Ted C. Bililies, Ph.D.

Global head of Transformative Leadership practice and Managing Director, AlixPartners

Ted Bililies is an internationally recognized expert on leadership and organization development and the Chief Talent Officer of AlixPartners. Ted launched the first commercial practice in leadership and human capital at AlixPartners which advises investors, CEOs, and boards on the selection and development of leaders and the alignment of culture for maximum and sustainable value creation. Ted’s career spans three decades as a psychologist, human resources executive, management consultant, and executive coach. He holds academic degrees from Loyola University of Chicago and Harvard University. Ted taught at Harvard University for many years, is currently on the Executive Education faculty of the Harvard Business School and is a board member of the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. Ted has helped leaders around the world achieve enduring change in their organizations, their teams, and themselves by expanding their psychological, behavioral and organizational insights into leadership.

Dave Clement

Dave Clement

Partner, Simon-Kucher & Partners

Dave Clement is a Partner in Simon-Kucher’s New York office, where he has supported top-line growth strategy design and implementation for clients in a variety of industries, including industrial services, professional services, manufacturing and franchise organizations for the past 10+ years.

Dave’s areas of expertise include customer segmentation, price setting, sales implementation and customer incentive programs. He is a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School, Simon Business School and other MBA programs, regularly speaks at industry and business association events and authors content focused on customer segmentation, product and service offering, and go-to-market strategies.

Dave is a native of Philadelphia and earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from Brown University, where he was a three-year varsity football letterman.

Fred Henke

Fred Henke

Senior Vice President, Global Management and HR Consultant, Segal

Mr. Hencke is a Senior Vice President in the Segal Group’s New York office, responsible for large, strategic opportunities in the Corporate market. He has more than 30 years of total experience in many industries.

Mr. Hencke was previously a principal and strategic accounts manager across the North American Markets at Buck. He was directly responsible for large single-employer clients, account management and business development. Before joining Buck, he worked for Accenture, Hewitt and BearingPoint. He has led more than 20 HR transformations, built more than 200 shared services solutions and led the design, development and implementation of the first process manufacturing and workforce scheduling system.

Mr. Hencke holds a BA in Computer Science and Mathematics from Hiram College in Ohio.

Garrett Louthan

Garrett Louthan

Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal Transaction Advisory Group

Garrett Louthan is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal Transaction Advisory Group in Atlanta. He specializes in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) transactional advisory, focusing on environmental, health and safety (EHS) due diligence evaluations and liability quantification for private equity and associated portfolio companies.

With more than 16 years of environmental consulting experience, Mr. Louthan has led numerous mid-market large-cap PE and corporate environmental transactional advisory projects. He has managed post-merger integration, EHS compliance mitigation, and site contamination remediation to reduce environmental liability for clients during their ownership period.

Mr. Louthan’s recent notable projects include advising a PE client on ESG liabilities associated with the acquisition of a ~$1.5 billion aerospace company; advising a PE client’s semiconductor manufacturing portfolio company through a ~$800 million sale to a strategic buyer; and completing an EHS evaluation during a PE client’s platform acquisition of a high-performance polymer and composite materials manufacturer of industrial fluid handling products.

Mr. Louthan has worked with clients in various industries, including heavy industrial manufacturing, aerospace and defense, chemical, energy, food and beverage, transportation, and paper/wood products. 

Prior to joining A&M, Mr. Louthan spent four years with SLR International Corporation in Atlanta, GA, where he served as a Principal Consultant. He started the Atlanta office, and as leader of transactional advisory in the southeastern U.S., was responsible for PE and legal client management, U.S. and international environmental due diligence projects, and growing SLR’s U.S. Transactional Advisory team.

Mr. Louthan earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a master’s degree in environmental engineering and science from Clemson University. He is a registered Professional environmental engineer (PE) in Georgia and Florida and a member of Environment Georgia and the Association of Corporate Growth (ACG).

Bhavin Manjee

Bhavin Manjee

Partner and Board Member, Simon-Kucher & Partners

Bhavin is a Partner in Simon-Kucher’s North American B2B practice based in New York City. For the past 18 years, Bhavin has supported clients in boosting their top line growth by developing and implementing growth strategies, value-oriented pricing concepts, and designing programs that optimize sales effectiveness.

Bhavin has deep expertise in M&A growth strategy, sales force effectiveness, pricing strategy, and process optimization.  Bhavin has successfully led 15 pre-deal merger integration projects. He has guided management teams through large, complex scale transformations.  He has served a broad base of B2B clients, and understands the complex environment within which B2B companies and intermediaries transact. 

He has coached management teams of leading companies in the space to transform their businesses and increase their profitability by formulating business unit strategy, simplifying product portfolios, optimizing channels, restructuring list prices and optimizing discounts across project quoted work, and buying programs.  He also has experience in digital topics, including the application of recurring revenue models, and two-sided marketplaces.

Prior to joining Simon-Kucher, Bhavin worked at a consultancy, where his primary focus was on pre-deal and integration planning for Mergers and Acquisitions.  He is a frequent guest lecturer on pricing and marketing topics for full time MBA programs at Harvard Business School and Columbia Business School.  He graduated with degrees in Economics and Finance from the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia (USA).

Bill Myers

Bill Myers

VP, Northeast Private Equity Sales, Datasite

Bill has over 30 years of experience across a wide range of financial services software, including Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, and Acuris. Based in New York, he joined Datasite in 2016 and since 2020 has led the private equity team as Vice President of Northeast PE Sales.

Vivian Santora

Vivian Santora

Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal Global Transaction Advisory Group

Vivian Santora is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal Global Transaction Advisory Group in New York. She brings more than 25 years of experience in non-profit, politics, and government affairs, serving in senior management and executive positions with a deep commitment to and focus on advancing equality and social justice.

Ms. Santora serves on the TAG US executive committee and leads the group’s internal and external inclusive diversity efforts. She supports the Environmental, Social and Corporate (ESG) Advisory practice and helps clients work toward best practices around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Prior to joining A&M, Ms. Santora served as President and CEO of PowerPlay NYC, a non-profit dedicated to advancing the lives of girls and gender non-conforming youth through sports. Over 90 percent of participants are girls of color (primarily Black and Latinx) from low-income neighborhoods who face systemic barriers to success. Under her leadership, PowerPlay received the Sports Business Journal Celebration of Service Award and Youth Inc.’s Non-Profit of the Year Award.

Previously, Ms. Santora served as National Finance Director for Hillary Clinton’s Senate re-election campaign and leadership PAC and worked in government affairs for Cablevision. She was also Senior Director, Major Gifts for the Girl Scouts of the USA and Chief Development Officer for Women’s World Banking. ​

Ms. Santora earned a bachelor’s degree in English and women’s studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a master’s degree in public administration and policy from American University. She holds a Diversity and Inclusion Certificate from Cornell University.

Roundtable

Strategic Planning Workshop

1:00 - 5:00 pm

We are in a period of rapid change. Customer needs, technologies, competitors and internal capabilities require companies to review and update their strategies for the new realities. In this workshop, strategy experts Steve Rutan and Denise Harrison will show you a systematic approach to strategic planning to help you refine or redefine your business strategy and approach including:

  • Learn what you need to know to develop an effective strategic plan. Put the right players on the strategic planning team.
  • Develop strategies that leverage your company’s unique position in the marketplace. Lift your management team beyond “business as usual” thought processes and activities.
  • Translate your strategies into action. Achieve your vision for success and generate superior financial results.
  • Identify exactly what you need to do now to position your company for future success.

To sign up, select this option in your registration form. Additional fee of $695 will be added to your total.

New York, NY: ​​​Chief Executive's Corporate Citizenship Awards 2017

Women in Leadership Seminar and Peer Discussion

2:00 - 5:00 pm

Female leaders face the same issues all leaders do, but they often face additional challenges too. In this peer session, we will facilitate a discussion of best practices and how to overcome common barriers to help women leaders be more effective within and outside their organizations. 

Limited space available.

To sign up, select this option in your registration form. Additional fee of $495 will be added to your total.

Golf Outing

10:30 - 5:00 pm
General’s Retreat at Hermitage Golf Course
Sponsored by UBS

General’s Retreat, built in 1986 with architect Gary Roger Baird, has been voted the “Best Golf Course in Nashville” and is a “must play” when visiting the Nashville, Tennessee area. With the beautiful setting along the Cumberland River, golfers of all capabilities will thoroughly enjoy the golf, scenery and hospitality.

The golf outing fee includes transportation to and from the hotel, greens/cart fees, use of practice facilities, and boxed lunch. The bus will leave the hotel at 10:30 am for a noon shotgun start and return to the hotel after the cocktail reception following the completion of the round.

To sign up, select this option in your registration form. Additional fee of $295 will be added to your total.