John Alfonsi

Managing Director
Cendrowski Corporate Advisors

John is Managing Director of Cendrowski Corporate Advisors (CCA). John has provided business valuation, dispute advisory, forensic accounting, and tax consulting services to clients for more than 25 years. He has also implemented and administered back and middle office operations for private equity and venture capital funds.

John specializes in tax planning and consulting for private equity funds, venture capital funds, hedge funds, partnerships, corporations, estates, REITs, and high net worth individuals. He has helped clients develop innovative tax structures to minimize their federal, state, and local tax burdens. Together with other CCA team members, John has established an excellent reputation with the IRS and has served as an advocate for clients in the event of tax controversy.

Reena Bajowala

Partner
Ice Miller LLP

Reena R. Bajowala is a partner in Ice Miller’s Data Security & Privacy, Information Technology (IT) & Software Disputes and Benefit Disputes practices. Reena is a Certified Information Privacy Technologist (CIPT) and a Certified Information Privacy Professional – US (CIPP/US). Reena regularly advises on data privacy and security, with a focus on data breach, cybersecurity and InfoSec issues. She helps clients investigate, remediate and comply with legal obligations when faced with a data security incident, including in business email compromise, ransomware or wire transfer fraud scenarios. She is experienced with data security and privacy due diligence for corporate transactions, conducting risk assessments, developing privacy and security compliance programs, and doing proactive planning for potential data security incidents, including drafting incident response plans, communications plans and conducting tabletop exercises. She also advises on issues of cyber literacy on public and private boards of directors. In addition, Reena helps evaluate legal risks relating to emerging technologies, including Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and drones.

Reena also represents buyers and providers of IT services embroiled in issues ranging from billing and performance disputes arising from Master Services Agreements and Service Level Agreements to copyright and licensing disputes pursuant to Software Licensing and SaaS agreements. Reena also protects the interests of companies during software licensing reviews or audits by software companies. While her goal is to resolve disputes pre-litigation, Reena has extensive litigation and trial experience from filing of complaint to settlement or verdict, including over 100 days of first-chair trial experience. 

Robert Berdanier

Managing Director, Business Restructuring Services
BDO

Robert is a Managing Director in BDO's Business Restructuring & Turnaround Services practice. His focus is on middle-market companies, both distressed and healthy, seeking financial financial and operational improvement through interim financial leadership and re-organization. Robert is a seasoned restructuring professional, with significant experience in the manufacturing, distributing, hotels/ hospitality and entertainment industries.

Chetan (Che) Bhatia

Vice President Cyber Resilience & Engagement Management, Cyber Solutions
Aon

Che is responsible for helping clients proactively manage the cyber and enterprise risk and leads digital forensics, cybercrime, data breach, compliance, electronic discovery and business intelligence and investigations matters.

Prior to joining Aon in 2017, Chetan served as the Chief Technology Officer at Data Partner, Inc. In this role, he was responsible for the technical vision, strategy and roadmap for the organization. He was also a cyber-security consultant for Advance Resources and Consultants, a firm made up of former senior-level government and military officers, where he conducted cyber security risk assessments for organizations awarded federal government contracts. He also worked for Nexum, where he served in a variety of roles such as business development director and practice manager and was responsible for the project management and network/security engineering teams. Before joining Nexum, he worked at Hewitt Associates and Aon, where he deployed and administered security controls and was part of a team that maintained the network security infrastructure protecting the PII of over 75% of the Fortune 500 organizations.

Terry Bressler

Managing Director
Prairie Capital Advisors

Terry joined Prairie Capital Advisors in 2012 and is a shareholder in the firm. He focuses on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and capital advisory engagements. In this role, Terry assists middle-market business owners in understanding and assessing their strategic business alternatives and then developing and executing transaction solutions to meet the owner’s objectives. He works with family, management-owned and private equity-owned businesses and helps these clients address their growth and ownership transition issues, including executing recapitalizations, M&A, company sales and ESOPs.

Terry frequently speaks on and writes about M&A and financing topics. He also authors Prairie’s quarterly M&A and financing topics newsletter, the Prairie Middle Market Perspective. Terry was announced as a 2017 Thought Leader of the Year Finalist by the Alliance of Merger & Acquisition Advisors (AM&AA).

Tracy Britt Cool

Co-Founder
Kanbrick

Tracy Britt Cool is Co-Founder of Kanbrick, a long-term investment partnership focused on acquiring and building great companies.

Tracy worked at Berkshire Hathaway from 2009-2020. She spent five years at Berkshire headquarters in Omaha as the Financial Assistant to the Chairman, and five years as Chief Executive Officer of Pampered Chef, a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary based in Chicago.

Additionally, she served on the boards of several Berkshire Hathaway companies including Kraft Heinz, Benjamin Moore, Oriental Trading Company, Larson Juhl, and Johns Manville. Tracy continues to serve on the board of EverArc Holdings.

Jeff Burgess

CEO
BCD International, Inc.

With more than four decades of experience as a global technology executive in various computer technology industries, Jeff has helped lead BCD International into becoming an industry leader in the video surveillance infrastructure marketplace. BCD International and its three divisions — BCDVideo, Video Storage Solutions and BCDOEM — allow them separate pathways to deliver their solutions to the video security marketplace and better serve their channel partners.

Before founding BCD, Jeff spent decades as a sales leader and account executive tasked with designing and delivering tier-one server products to Fortune 500 companies with global locations. In these roles, he was responsible for securing new multimillion-dollar accounts and onboarding the account team to then manage the day-to-day business. The decision to open his own business more than two decades ago has allowed him to continue this incredible journey as we became the incumbent company building high-availability servers for these same customers.

Andrew Busser

President, Family Office
Pitcairn Trust Co.

As a respected advisor and strategist, Andy has spent his career helping families navigate the complexities of investing their wealth. Andy is driven and curious, with a passion for solving complex problems, and is a family office industry leader. Andy brings to the Leadership Team an enthusiasm for excellence and is known for building successful relationships with clients and employees. As head of strategy for Pitcairn, Andy has spearheaded the development of the Pitcairn Experience, and he continues to position Pitcairn as a leading innovator in the family office industry.

John Chalus

Director
BMO Financial Group

John is a Director in the Financial Advisory Services Group at BMO, specializing in mergers & acquisitions, recapitalizations, capital structure optimization and valuation. John has spent his entire career in investment banking, private equity, leveraged finance and restructuring advisory.

John holds an MBA from The University of Chicago, Booth School of Business and a BBA from the University of Iowa.

Nicholas Fink

Chief Executive Officer
Fortune Brands Home & Security, Inc.

Nicholas Fink is the chief executive officer (CEO), Fortune Brands Home & Security, Inc., and a member of the Company’s Board of Directors. 

Nick leads the overall business and its portfolio strategy to ensure Fortune Brands delivers on its next phase of growth. His focus is on opportunities to create shareholder value, including deploying capital, investing in consumer-driven innovation to further differentiate the Company’s industry-leading brands, and developing high-performing teams.

Nick served as president and chief operating officer (COO) of Fortune Brands from March 2019 until he was promoted to CEO in January 2020. As COO, Nick oversaw Fortune Brands’ businesses and focused on identifying opportunities to maximize the Company’s growth potential. He also led the strategic planning process with division presidents, and partnered with supply chain and operations to explore the continued evolution of supply chains in a dynamic environment.

Adam Fuchs

Senior Vice President
Wintrust Commercial Banking

Adam Fuchs is a Group Senior Vice President and hub leader for the west suburban middle market banking hub for Wintrust Commercial Banking. Adam works with many privately held middle market businesses that are family founder owned as well as sponsor owned. In his 15 years with Wintrust he has helped many businesses by providing access to capital to support working capital, equipment, real estate and construction financing needs. In addition, he works closely with the many great niche businesses in Wintrust including the banking specialists supporting ESOP’s, sponsor finance, private banking, international banking, contractor banking and leasing to name a few. 

Michael R. Gatewood

Chicago WM & Midwest PWM Market Head
UBS

David Gollob

CEO
MDL Legacy Holdings, Inc.

David is an accomplished CEO with consistent record of starting, transforming and growing companies leveraging skills in leadership, strategy, sales, marketing, product management and development, M&A, operational execution and general management. Extensive leadership experience in managing the unique challenges associated with Family Businesses and start-ups.

Matt Harnett

Partner
Tecum Capital

Matthew is a founding Partner of Tecum and serves on the firm’s Investment Committee. In this position, he is responsible for leading all aspects of transaction origination, analysis, structuring, underwriting, deal execution and monitoring of subject private equity and mezzanine debt investments.

Prior to co-founding Tecum, Matt served six years at the predecessor organization, F.N.B. Capital Corporation, LLC, where he was Vice President. Matt started his career at Ford Motor Company where he worked for four years. He completed the management program and became Zone Manager of Ford Division’s largest market in the Pittsburgh Region. Matt was responsible for annual franchisee revenues exceeding $300 million and was named Ford’s 2006 Zone Manager of the Year. He was recognized as one of the top-performing Zone Managers nationally for exceptional results in sales and market share growth, market representation actions and franchisee profitability.

Jack Hartung

CFO
Chipotle

John R. (Jack) Hartung is Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Hartung joined Chipotle in 2002 after spending 18 years at McDonald's where he held a variety of management positions, most recently as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of its Partner Brands Group. Mr. Hartung has a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting and economics as well as an MBA from Illinois State University.

Brian Hill

Founder & CEO
Edovo

Darin Hurd

Chief Information Security Officer
Guaranteed Rate

Darin Hurd serves as the Chief Information Security Officer of Guaranteed Rate. Darin started at Guaranteed Rate in July of 2018. He has over twenty years' experience in information technology, consulting and financial services.

Robert Johnson

Managing Partner
The Solomon Group LLC

Robert Johnson is the Managing Partner of the Solomon Group, a social enterprise management consulting company and the co-founder of The Collective, a social impact business incubator that raises capital for social enterprises.

Mark Kaufman

Founder & Executive Chairman
Athletico

Mark is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Athletico Physical Therapy. The Athletico story starts with a single Chicago clinic opening in 1991 and continued with Mark’s vision to help as many people as possible. Mark oversaw the growth of Athletico from that single clinic location to over 500 clinics in 2019 when he transitioned to his current role as Executive Chairman and Board Member of Athletico Physical Therapy.

Mark’s personal values are the foundation for Athletico’s Core Values and Athletico remains a close-knit, caring place for associates, where a strong work ethic, commitment to continuing education, and dedication to superior patient care and community service are highly valued.

Lou Kenter

Founder
Prospect Partners

Lou is a Co-Founder of Prospect Partners, where he enjoys working with entrepreneurial teams and advising companies across a broad range of niche manufacturing, distribution, and specialty service markets. He has more than 32 total years of experience in finance and small company investing.

Lou was previously Principal of private equity firm Kenter and Co., and held positions at Marquette Venture Partners, McKinsey & Company, and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.

Dan Klein

Co-founder & CEO
Tiesta Tea

Mr. Klein is Co-Founder and CEO of Tiesta Tea. Tiesta Tea was started with the mission of creating premium tea products that taste good and do good. Tiesta Tea can be found in multiple areas of the grocery store including the produce, dairy, tea and bulk foods departments. The company’s products can be found in several thousand retail stores including Costco, Kroger, Safeway, Albertsons, HEB and Target and also on tiestatea.com as well as on Amazon. The company has been recognized by Inc, Forbes, BevNet, World Tea News, Fresh Cup Magazine, Beverage Daily, ABC, FOX, Crain's Chicago and many more. Mr. Klein has raised multiple rounds of funding for Tiesta Tea totaling $7 million to date.

Phil Kretekos

President
Thunderbird LLC

As Thunderbird President, Phil has a wide range of crucial responsibilities. He directs operations at all of the Thunderbird holdings, and he flourishes in his role thanks to a deep experience and demonstrative success as top manager at many manufacturing organizations over the course of his career.

Phil oversees mergers and acquisitions, post-merger integration, growth strategy, manufacturing turnarounds, business performance improvement, and organization effectiveness at Thunderbird. He has a vast technical and managerial background in both union and non-union environments. He is an effective leader able to coordinate the efforts of individuals from diverse operational areas to maximize customer value while minimizing waste.

Before joining Thunderbird in 2010, Phil was director of operations at Accellent, a provider of comprehensive supply chain solutions to the medical device industry.

Robert May

CEO / Managing Director
Beacon Group / Akoya Capital Partners

With 35+ years of executive leadership experience in the plastics and chemicals industries, Bob is a results-driven leader with proven success in business transformation – driving growth, operational excellence and building high-performing management teams to improve EBITDA performance and enterprise value. As CEO and Executive Board Chair for Beacon Manufacturing Group and its companies, Bob’s leadership will be instrumental as the company accelerates growth and expands its capabilities geographically to deliver exceptional value across a variety of markets.

Amantia Muhedini

Sustainable Investing Strategist
UBS Global Wealth Management

Amantia is a Sustainable Investing (SI) Strategist in the Chief Investment Office, Global Wealth Management. Prior to UBS, Amantia was a sustainable investing fellow with Morgan Stanley’s Investing with Impact team focusing on impact measurement and product development. She also spent time at Working Capital – the Supply Chain Innovation Fund conducting impact and commercial due diligence on potential investments. Amantia previously was an Investments Associate at the Omidyar Group’s Humanity United addressing forced labor in global corporate supply chains. She is also a member of the Governance Council of United World Colleges International (UWC), a global education organization, and was a founding board member and acting Executive Director for UWC Albania, an education non-profit based in Albania.

Thomas Murtagh

Partner
BKD LLP

Tom is a partner with BKD's tax department and a leader in the firm's manufacturing and distribution service niche. With more than 20 years of experience, he specializes in corporate and partnership taxation for closely-held businesses and their owners.

Ian O'Brien

Director, Private Equity Consulting
RSM US LLP

Ian is a leader in RSM’s national private equity consulting team. He aligns and directly coordinates consulting delivery services to effectively serve RSM’s private equity clients and their portfolio companies. He assists our Private Equity clients in their operational strategy and execution objectives for their targets and portfolio companies. His experience in creating value with technology both in Private Equity and as operating executive have created tangible value especially during complex transactions, such as corporate divestitures and the integration of add on acquisitions, and in support of portfolio companies throughout the investment lifecycle.

Ian has more than 30 years of experience managing transformations and developing growth strategies to accelerate product and market launch and expansion for a wide range of companies in the print/media, manufacturing, software and professional services sectors

Diane Pearse

CEO
Hickory Farms, LLC

Simon Perutz

Past Chairman & Owner
Orbus LLC

Founder and past Chairman of Nimlok/Orbus. Founded in 1981 we a leader in the trade show and display industry with North American manufacturing families in Chicago, Toronto and Las Vegas.

Mark Petrosky

Owner & CEO
DP+

Mark is chief executive officer of DP+, the Agency of Change and one of the fastest-growing independent advertising and marketing services agencies in the United States. In this role, Mark has been the firm’s growth architect since he co-founded the company in 1997.

With true entrepreneurial spirit and broad marketing expertise, Mark has helped build the agency by leading talented teams, winning a variety of clients in diverse industries. He has also focused on attracting top marketing talent in every communications discipline, expanding fundamental agency services to include public relations, CRM, digital and business analytics, all while building a culture singularly focused on positively impacting client business.

Earlier in his career, Mark served in various marketing roles at PepsiCo and Pfizer. His work with PepsiCo and his natural entrepreneurial skills led him into the retail side of the food industry, where, for many years, he was also a multi-unit franchise owner.

Scott Pruneau

CEO
ITS Logistics

For more than 25 years Pruneau has built a well-rounded transportation and logistics leadership career—driving value as a key executive with some of the industry’s most respected organizations. Scott serves as Chief Executive Officer at ITS Logistics and is responsible for the strategic and profitable growth of the company.

Prior to joining ITS Logistics, Scott served as Chief Business Development Officer for Redwood Logistics, EVP of Operations for Freightquote, President of CRST Logistics, and held various leadership roles with Knight Transportation and C.H. Robinson. Scott has also served as a board member for the Transportation Intermediaries Association.

Steven Ryan

Director
Prairie Capital Advisors

Steve Ryan joined Prairie Capital Advisors in 2018. He specializes in new business development initiatives for Prairie. He has over 25 years of new business and banking experience with clients throughout the country. Steve has led commercial banking teams that interact with business owners and c-level executives of private and public companies. Throughout his career, he has acted as a trusted advisor to many privately-held companies to assist them in growth initiatives, business transitions and liquidity events.

Steve frequently presents on a variety of topics including ownership transition alternatives, financing ESOPs and capital allocation in a wide variety of venues, such as the National Center for Employee Ownership, The ESOP Association as well as Prairie webinars. Steve is the National ESOP Committee Chair and Chicago ESOP Committee Chair for the Private Directors Association.

Michael Schultz

Co-Founder & Board Member
Aclaimant

Ashish Shah

CEO
Dina

Ashish is the co-founder and CEO of Dina (formerly known as Prepared Health) - a health engagement company making it easier for people to stay healthy at home by organizing and simplifying access to a large, growing ecosystem of home- and community-based providers. The comprehensive network is enabling consumers, health plans and ACOs to explore, learn and engage with the rapidly growing number of services that keep people happy and healthy in their homes.

Previously, Ashish served in several Technology Executive roles at Medicity from 2006-2014 - i.e., Chief Technology Officer (CTO), SVP of Product Management/Marketing, and Chief Architect. Under his leadership, the company outlined a market-leading product roadmap, influenced fast changing government regulations, and delivered on a progressive technical vision.

Ryan Shelton, Ph.D.

CEO & Co-Founder
PhotoniCare

Dr. Shelton is a passionate and motivated business-focused engineer with a profound personal connection to the problem PhotoniCare is solving. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Oklahoma State University and a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Texas A&M University, followed by three years of post-doctoral research at the University of Illinois. He has been building optical imaging systems for 20 years and managing engineering teams for 15 years. He leads PhotoniCare as its CEO and drives the company’s long-term vision and strategic plan. He has experience raising private financings, as well as negotiating and executing various research contracts, license agreements, distribution agreements, and other business development activities. He is passionate about his family, mountain biking, and music.

William Shortt

Director, Cyber Security, M&A Advisory
Aon

David Solomon

Partner
Levenfeld Pearlstein, LLC

David is the Chair of Levenfeld Pearlstein’s Corporate Practice Group. David has extensive experience in structuring and consummating mergers and acquisition transactions. Upon joining Levenfeld Pearlstein in 2009, David also founded the firm’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) practice which currently serves clients who are involved in various types of transactions involving ESOPs. David also represents many middle-market companies in a "general counsel" capacity by handling various business law issues.

Roger Veome

Managing Director, Investments; Regional Executive
Alex. Brown A Division of Raymond James

Stephen Wasko

CFO
NuCurrent

Michael R. Wilson

Partner
Locke Lord LLP

Michael represents private equity funds (including SBIC funds), banks, companies and entrepreneurs in M&A, debt finance and venture capital transactions in a wide variety of industries. He has substantial experience with technology, health care, energy, and food and beverage transactions. He also serves as an officer on the Executives’ Club of Chicago Leadership Circle Advisory Board.

Sherman Wright

Co-founder & Managing Partner
Ten35, LLC

Sherman is the co-founder and managing partner of TEN35, a creative company specializing in transforming brands through culture. An entrepreneur whose work and thought leadership has created award-winning campaigns for global brands including Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Nike, Disney, Molson Coors, Polaris, Verizon, Nissan and NBC Universal. Sherman's accomplishments have been recognized by The New York Times, Inc., Advertising Age, Adweek, Black Enterprise, The Chicago Tribune and Crain’s Chicago Business to name a few.