Speaker Profiles

Mr. Song has a diverse background with over 30 years in principal investments, investment banking and operational experience.  Mr. Song is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Prodos Capital (“PC”), an investment firm focused on investments in the lower middle market.  Prior to PC, Mr. Song was the head of investments and corporate finance for Verus International, a boutique merchant banking firm that was co-founded by Citigroup.  At Verus, Mr. Song led investments in both private and public companies in the emerging growth and middle market.  Prior to Verus, Mr. Song was SVP of Corporate Development at On2 Technologies.  At On2, Mr. Song led all aspects of strategic planning, financial analysis, mergers & acquisitions, financings and the capital markets.  Prior to joining On2, Song was a Managing Director at Bluestone Capital Partners, where he was a senior banker and a manager in that firm's Corporate Finance Department.  At BlueStone, Mr. Song was responsible for the execution of public offerings and private placements as well as merger and acquisition transactions.  Mr. Song was a member of BlueStone's Management Committee and Commitment Committee.  Previously, he held positions as an investment banker at Smith Barney in the Global Energy and Power Group and Chase Manhattan Bank in the Workout and M&A Groups.  During his career as an investment banker, Mr. Song has executed over a billion dollars in public offerings, private placements, cross border mergers and acquisitions, and restructurings transactions.  Mr. Song received a B.S. Degree from the School of Management at Boston University

Josh Susser is an independent sponsor in the education sector and managing member of Cascadily LLC, a private equity firm he founded in 2018. In this role he invests alongside business owners and entrepreneurs into their lower middle market companies. As a former industry executive, Mr. Susser works with the company’s management to execute organic and acquisition growth initiatives. Mr. Susser currently serves on the Board of Breakout EDU and VisionPoint Marketing.

Prior to Cascadily, Mr. Susser was vice president of strategy and corporate development for ECMC and a member of the firm’s investments leadership team. During his 9 years with the firm, he developed its education investments portfolio and led M&A transactions in higher education services. Prior investments at ECMC include SoFi, Graduation Alliance and Fishtree.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Susser was an investment banker with Piper Jaffray & Company and Mercanti Group where he advised publicly-held and privately-owned middle market companies.

Mr. Susser holds a BA cum laude from the University of Colorado at Boulder and graduated from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago with a masters in business administration.

Cascadily is a private equity firm investing in lower middle market companies that operate in the education sector and generate $5 million or greater of annual revenue and $1 million or greater of annual EBITDA. Owners and managers we partner with benefit from our team's focus and experience building education businesses to scale. For more information, go to www.cascadily.com and linkedin.com/company/cascadily.

Ben Schneider brings a mix of operating experience at the executive level as well as investing experience to BASE.

Prior to founding BASE, Schneider was a member of the Senior Executive Team at IMAX Corporation (NYSE: IMAX).  As Chief of Staff, reporting directly to the CEO, Schneider focused on areas of Strategy, Corporate Development / M&A, Marketing & Communications, Budgeting, Operating Plans, and operations in China. During this period, the company achieved several significant milestones, including doubling its revenues, increasing EBITDA margins by 15%, and more than doubling its market capitalization from $800 million to over $1.7 billion.

Prior to IMAX, Schneider worked for Susquehanna International Group, a multi-billion dollar investment firm.  He began his career as an Analyst at The Walnut Group, a private equity firm with investments in the retail, consumer, media and entertainment sectors. 

Originally from Cincinnati, Schneider holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Michael is a member of Fox’s Corporate practice. For more than 35 years, he has represented clients ranging from sole proprietorships to publicly held corporations in a wide variety of industries pursuing transactions including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures and commercial arrangements. With a particular focus on mergers and acquisitions, Michael has represented both buyers and sellers (strategic and financial) in many platform and add-on transactions. A former co-chair of the Firm’s Emerging Companies Practice Group, Michael also has advised a variety of early stage technology-oriented businesses on capital formation, where he has an extensive background handling private placements, venture capital transactions and public offerings.

He has acted as securities counsel for companies subject to the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Michael often fills the role of an “outside general counsel” for early stage and middle market companies, providing advice on business formation, shareholders, partnership and operating agreements, as well as employment agreements and a wide range of commercial agreements, including licensing, supply and distribution agreements. Beyond Fox Rothschild, Michael currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the New Jersey Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), is chair of ACG-New Jersey at Princeton, and serves on the Board of Trustees for Save Ellis Island.

Drew is the founder and Managing Partner of Serata Capital Partners. Mr. Bagot has been a private equity investor for over 15 years, having also started and operated entrepreneurial businesses. He concurrently manages a private equity portfolio in Calidant Capital, of which he is a founding partner. Prior to fostering his own private equity investments, Mr. Bagot was an Associate Director at ORIX Americas, an international financial conglomerate with over $100 billion in assets, deploying $10-30 million into growing middle-market companies across myriad industries.  Mr. Bagot was a senior analyst with Pharos Capital Group, a $1 billion private equity fund that concentrates on the business services, healthcare, and technology sectors, and prior thereto served as the lead underwriter at Shoreline Capital, a private equity-focused family office.  Mr. Bagot attained a BBA in Finance with high honors from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, and is a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO). Drew is based in Austin, and enjoys international travel, fly fishing, snowboarding, and spending time with his wife and young son.

Claudine M. Cohen is a principal and leads CohnReznick’s Advisory Group’s Northeast Transactional Advisory Practice (TAS). With more than 25 years of business experience, Claudine has developed an expertise in providing transactional advisory services, serving as an adviser to public and private companies, both domestically and internationally. She works with private equity investors, family offices alternative investment funds, lenders, family offices and strategic investors.

Claudine’s specific advisory activities include: strategic advisory, quality of earnings analyses, identifying revenue sources and profitability drivers, examining operating cost structure and sustainability factors, investigating business models including cash flow and financial projections, reviewing quality and realization of assets and liabilities, identifying working capital requirements and negotiating positions, post-close working capital verification, and adjustment mechanisms. Claudine has advised on a number of different buy - and sell-side transactions, including standalone platforms; carve-out of business segments, product line, or facility; bankruptcy auction processes; mergers; and industry consolidations.

Claudine was named to Mergers and Acquisitions 2019 list of the most influential women in mid-market M&A, and Crains NY 2018 most notable women in consulting. She has authored several articles and Thought Leadership, The Deal and other publications focusing on buy and sell-side due diligence, working capital and purchase price allocation.

Brett Hickey is the Founder & CEO of Star Mountain Capital, LLC, a specialized U.S. lower middle-market investment firm with over $1.2 billion in assets under management. Star Mountain employs a data-driven approach to provide value-added debt and equity capital to established small and medium-sized private companies leveraging its scale-driven resources, and longstanding relationships. Star Mountain also has a secondary fund investment business providing early liquidity for investors in lower middle-market private credit and private equity funds. Brett has been investing in this end of the market for over 15 years and began his career as an investment banker at Citigroup / Salomon Smith Barney nearly 20 years ago. 

Mr. Hickey graduated from McGill University with a finance and accounting degree. He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School via its Owner/President Management executive leadership program.

He Chair’s Star Mountain’s Charitable Foundation which supports the career development of women, veterans and athletes as well as health & wellness initiatives including cancer research.  He is a member of YPO and on the global boards of Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs and Help for Children. Additionally, Brett is a former Canadian national gold medalist speed skater. Mr. Hickey is the proud father of two children. 

Learn more about private market investing and Mr. Hickey via: www.StarMountainCapital.com & www.YouTube.com/c/StarMountainCapital

Caroline L. Young is a partner at HKW. Her current responsibilities are centered on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives. Until recently, Ms. Young’s responsibility was overseeing all HKW’s divestitures working within HKW’s Four Pillar Investment Strategy by collaborating with the Sourcing Team on deal generation and the Operations Team to focus on value creation initiatives during the hold period. During her tenure, Ms. Young has overseen the exit of more than twenty companies and has served as a Board Member for numerous HKW portfolio companies.

Prior to joining HKW, Ms. Young practiced law at Wooden & McLaughlin, LLP. She earned her law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law and her bachelor’s degree from the University of Vermont, graduating summa cum laude.

Ms. Young is active with the Providence Cristo Rey High School, a college and career preparatory school for students with economic need.

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HKW is a private equity firm investing in companies with talented management teams in the US and Canada. HKW targets companies in the Business Services, Health & Wellness, and Technology sectors. Since 1982, HKW has sponsored 63 platform transactions of lower middle-market companies throughout North America, as well as 69 add-on acquisitions. For more information on HKW, please visit hkwinc.com.

A founder of Pine Street, Tim is involved with all activities at Pine Street, including deal sourcing, deal structuring, portfolio management and administration. Tim currently serves as a board member on Pine Street portfolio companies Express Medical Transporters, SST Conveyor Components, Merrill Industries, Filterworks USA, NPL HomeCare, and DeIorio Foods, and is a board observer on Pine Street portfolio companies Wood Pro, Inc. and SGI Matrix. He is also active as a board member of several other for profit and not for profit entities. Tim's career has included a variety of roles, including as Chief Operating Officer and board member of Colonial Data Technologies, a $75 million revenue publicly traded provider of telecommunications equipment; Chief Financial Officer of First Albany Companies Inc., a $250 million publicly traded investment banking and brokerage firm; and more than 10 years as a senior investment banker providing advice and capital raising services to small and middle market companies in various industries. Tim began his career as a corporate and securities attorney at Cahill Gordon & Reindel in New York City. He is a graduate of the State University of New York at Albany and Albany Law School.

Michael Teplitsky joined Wynnchurch in 2008. Prior to Wynnchurch, he was with Lime Rock Management, where he was involved in the execution of numerous basic-materials-sector investments across North America and Europe. Michael began his career at UBS in its Investment Banking Department in New York, where he was involved in a number of mergers, acquisitions and financings across various industries.

Michael has more than 15 years of experience in private equity investing and corporate finance. His responsibilities at Wynnchurch range from deal origination and structuring to due diligence, execution and monitoring. His experience includes transactions involving family businesses, corporate carve-outs, underperforming companies and restructurings.

B.A., with honors, Northwestern University; M.B.A., Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Paul is a Principal at Greyrock Capital Group responsible for transaction origination, underwriting, and portfolio company management primarily in the Eastern US.  Prior to joining Greyrock, Paul was an Associate at Prostar Capital, an energy-focused private equity firm. Before Prostar, he worked for GE Capital’s Energy Finance division.  Paul’s current portfolio companies include Harris & Harris, a provider of accounts receivable management services, APCT, a quick-turn manufacturer of multi-layer printed circuit boards, ChoiceSpine, a designer, manufacturer, and marketer of specialized spinal implants, MGC Diagnostics, a cardiorespiratory medical device manufacturer, GenAlpha, a provider of aftermarket software and consulting services to OEMs, Jacknob, a distributor of commercial restroom partition hardware, and Precision Products Group, a manufacturer of small diameter tubes for niche applications.

Paul has degrees in Economics and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin

Michael is the Co-Founder and a Managing Partner of NCK Capital, a private equity firm in Dallas, Texas. Michael, since co-founding NCK with his business partner Grant Kornman, has sponsored transactions in a variety of industries including environmental services, facilities services and post-secondary, for-profit education. Over the course of Michael’s entrepreneurial and investment career, he has founded, built and run companies ranging from $2MM to $20MM in EBITDA including Quickfire Restaurants, MoneyToGo, HelpMeToBuy, and ASAP Air Services. 

Mr. Saunders is a Managing Director of Farlie Turner & Co. Since 1992, he has served as a financial and strategic advisor to middle market companies across a variety of industries, including companies in the media and communications, healthcare, and consumer products industries, as well as those in financial distress.

In addition to operating a private financial advisory practice, from 2000 to 2002, Mr. Saunders served as Senior Advisor, then Senior Vice President, Office of the Chairman, at Perry Ellis International, Inc. (NASDAQ: PERY). In this capacity, he concentrated on mergers and acquisitions and the firm's capital structure.

From 1999 to 2003, and again in 2010, Mr. Saunders lectured annually on topics in mergers and acquisitions in the Graduate Division at the Warrington College of Business Administration at the University of Florida. In the autumn of 2010, he was a guest lecturer in the Master of Science in Finance Program at Florida International University. In the spring of 1998 and 1999, he co-taught a class in management consulting to undergraduates and graduate students in the Management Department at the University of Miami.

From 1989 to 1991, Mr. Saunders was an investment banker in the media and communications group at Lazard Frères & Co. in New York City.

Earlier in his career, he was a Financial Analyst at Act III Broadcasting, Inc., a leading group owner of television stations, and a Legislative Assistant to U.S. Representative Harry M. Reid, who is now Minority Leader in the U.S. Senate.

Mr. Saunders received his B.A. degree from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut and his MBA degree from the Yale University School of Management in New Haven, Connecticut. He is registered with FINRA and has Series 7 and Series 63 licenses.