Value Creation Summit

Ben is a Senior Operating Executive at Monomoy Capital Partners where he works with Monomoy’s portfolio companies on revenue growth and profit improvement. Prior to joining Monomoy, Ben held several operating and CFO roles with Cerberus, Blackrock and Staple Street Capital. Ben started his career with GE as a financial analyst in the aircraft engine division, and he graduated from Colby College with a B.A. in Government. Monomoy Capital Partners is a private investment firm with $3.0 billion in assets under management across a family of investment funds. Monomoy invests in the debt and equity of middle market businesses that can benefit from operational and financial improvement with a focus on manufacturing, distribution and consumer product businesses in North America and Europe.

Claudine oversees an integrated team of transaction, valuation, restructuring, project finance, and dispute resolution professionals serving clients throughout the lifecycles of their businesses. With specific expertise in managing opportunities and roadblocks that can impact a business moving forward, Claudine and her team help clients achieve optimal outcomes in protecting and growing stakeholder value.

Claudine serves as an adviser to public and private companies, both domestically and internationally. Her clients comprise the full gamut of financial sponsors including private equity investors, independent sponsors, family offices, alternative investment funds, lenders, and strategic investors. Her areas of knowledge 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 was named to Mergers and Acquisitions 2019 list of the most influential women in mid-market M&A, and Crain’s NY 2018 most notable women in consulting.

Willow Ridge Global is a boutique consultancy that provides strategic operating partner and chief-of-staff services for family-owned, private equity-backed, and non-profit organizations. 

Wake is a systems thinker with over 25 years of operating experience. He partners with owners, CEOs, and their teams to craft and execute strategy that generates step-changes in realized value. Since joining Willow Ridge Global in late 2019, he has served as an operating partner with firms to vet, diligence, integrate, and lead strategic initiatives for deals generating nearly $2B in incremental value in sectors such as industrial manufacturing, transportation, metals, and tech-enabled services.

Prior to Willow Ridge Global, Wake worked around the globe for nearly fourteen years in various strategy and operating roles with Emerson Electric. He managed a unique hybrid energy product portfolio in Africa, built multiple strategic acquisition pipelines and investment theses for US and European businesses, pursued and integrated multiple middle market targets, served as general manager of a $175M segment, and facilitated the internal merger of two divisions into a $1B business unit. Before Emerson, Wake worked in Silicon Valley as a systems engineer designing and installing one of the first hotel internet services, and then product managing it to #1 in the world with over 100,000 hotel rooms installed.

Wake holds his BE in Electrical Engineering, his BE in Computer Engineering, and minors in Mathematics and Computer Science from Vanderbilt University, and his MBA with a focus in finance and strategy from The Ohio State University. He is a runner, is passionate about education, and enjoys dabbling in karting, watching F1, and traveling and camping with his family.

Matthew R. Cohen is a Principal at Prodos Capital LLC (“PC”), a private investment firm based in Nashville, TN and West Palm Beach, FL.  Matthew leads the West Palm Beach office for the firm..  At PC, Mr. Cohen is responsible for sourcing, evaluating, underwriting, and financing investments across industry sectors.  He is also involved in the overall management of portfolio companies and execution of the investment thesis from acquisition through exit.  He serves as a director of Sail Energy, New England Applied Products, Unified Logistics, Century Box Inc., and Cord King International, Ltd..

Having spent seven years in Washington, DC, Mr. Cohen has been actively engaged in Republican political activity for over a decade. He is a commentator, speaker and campaign operative, having served as an integral part of three Presidential Campaigns. 

Prior to joining PC, Mr. Cohen led the acquisitions team at AlphaTerra Partners, an affiliate of KAR Properties, pursuing a multi-asset class real estate investment strategy in U.S. gateway cities.  He began his career as an analyst in the mergers & acquisitions group at UBS Investment Bank based in New York City.  

Mr. Cohen has extensive charitable and community relationships.  He maintains Emeritus status as the youngest member of the Board of Directors of The George Washington University School of Business, is a trustee Emeritus of the Cape Eleuthera Foundation and is actively engaged with many other philanthropic and community-based organizations.  

Mr. Cohen earned an MBA with honors and a BBA from The George Washington University.  

In his spare time, he is an avid outdoorsman, slalom course water-skier, tennis player and boater. He loves to cook and ride his motorcycle but above all enjoys his passion for aviation. Matt is a Federal Aviation Administration certificated Private Pilot with an Instrument Rating.  He is currently working toward his Commercial Pilot license. 

Jeffrey (Jeff) Wissink is a Principal in the firm’s Performance Improvement practice, where he helps clients drive profitable growth through revenue and cost-side optimization initiatives. Based in Chicago, Jeff is a highly knowledgeable strategy, operations, and technology professional with more than three decades of experience as a founder, C-suite executive, and management consultant.

Jeff’s advisory experience spans multiple industry sectors with a heavy concentration in retail, consumer products, media and entertainment, SaaS, education technology, cannabis, and recurring revenue/subscription businesses. His services to clients include P&L management, business strategy, revenue growth, efficiency and cost reduction, post-acquisition integration, and process optimization. Jeff is skilled at combining operations, technology, and change management techniques to guide business strategy and decision-making. 

Before joining CohnReznick, Jeff was the chief operating officer for an early-stage, vertically integrated manufacturing & distribution company. In this role, he was responsible for new product development/launch, wholesale and retail sales, human resources, FP&A, and information technology, including designing and implementing a scalable system stack, upgrading existing systems, integrations, and internal service levels. In addition, he overhauled retail operations by leveraging data to develop strategies for launching new stores, refining inventory controls, overhauling in-store technology, and implementing online/curbside and cashless capabilities. Prior to that, Jeff was a 25-year management consulting veteran, having founded, grown, and exited two such organizations, and served as an interim C-level executive for two $1B+ companies.

Mr. Rumer joined Adelphi as an operating partner in late 2022 and engages in developing the investment thesis, the due diligence/vetting process, transaction closing and ultimately to helping build value post-transaction. Bob develops strategic value-creation plans in partnership with the leadership team, and assists the execution of the plans by embedding a data driven approach with KPIs, action plans and reviews of progress milestones utilizing best practices sharing. Creates value within portfolio companies through excellence in core functional areas of leadership, finance, product mgmt., operations, and growth. Bob spent the majority of his career 40-year career as VP of Sales leading a $1+ billion multi-channel 9 lines of business division of CertainTeed, a unit of Saint-Gobain, where he developed leaders, reduced SG&A, grew multiple leading brand product lines and formulated a robust voice of the customer process. More recently, Bob was Executive Director and COO of a $7+ billion building product distributor cooperative, American Wholesale Ltd., where he was responsible for significantly increasing revenue, directed strategic planning initiatives and served in an advisory role for growth strategy and business operations at the senior executive and functional leader levels within member companies.

Adelphi Capital Partners is a private investment firm with experience investing in founder and family-owned businesses across a number of manufacturing and industrial services sectors, including building products and construction. Adelphi invests in businesses with proprietary technologies, advanced manufacturing know-how, innovative product development capabilities, adept management teams, and strong growth potential.

David Acharya is the Managing Partner of ACP where he oversees all aspects of the firm’s investing, management, and strategic activities. He brings over 25 years of investing and transacting experience to ACP. He is a frequent speaker at industry events and is recognized by his peers for his expertise in private equity, capital markets, and portfolio value creation.

Before establishing ACP, Mr. Acharya was a partner of AGI Partners, LLC, a private equity firm, and played a key role in the development of the firm including strategy, hiring, and fundraising. He continues to serve on the board of directors for Impact XM and On Location and will be managing until exit. 

Earlier, Mr. Acharya was a Director of an NYC-based private equity firm where he was responsible for investment sourcing and execution. Among other accomplishments, he sourced and executed Revolution Dancewear, co-sponsored with Incline Equity Partners, and was sold to Audax Group.

Previously, Mr. Acharya was a Vice President with Apprise Media, a private equity firm focused on niche media investments, where he worked with the founders of PRIMEDIA, a former KKR founded portfolio company. Mr. Acharya invested over $200 million in niche media companies across digital, events, and print products in North America, Europe, and Asia. He made significant contributions to Apprise Media’s largest portfolio company Canon Communications, a B2B media company. Canon was successfully sold to United Business Media in 2010.

Mr. Acharya spent 10 years as an investment banker in the highly ranked leveraged finance groups of JP Morgan Chase and Toronto Dominion Securities. He advised, structured, and raised over $18 billion of capital for leading financial sponsors, telecommunications, media, and consumer product companies across the globe. He also advised clients on debt tender/consent transactions that affected over $4 billion of debt. While at Toronto Dominion and as part of its merchant banking initiatives, he was involved in numerous equity investments including Rural Cellular Corporation (sold to Verizon), T-Mobile, Bresnan Communications, and Intermedia Communications (Leo Hindery’s Cable Venture).

In 2020, after completing his term as President of the New York Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), Mr. Acharya was elected as Chairperson. Additionally, he was recently elected to the ACG Global Board of Directors. In recognition of his years of leadership and volunteerism, he was honored with the ACG Meritorious Award.

Mr. Acharya is a graduate of St. John’s University and holds B.S. and M.B.A. degrees with honors. 

Kush Tulsidas is an Operating Partner focused on sales and marketing strategy and execution at One Rock’s portfolio companies. He is responsible for assessing the growth potential of companies in the investment stage and improving profitable revenue growth post acquisition. Mr. Tulsidas brings over 20 years of experience building and improving businesses and has worked in both large corporate settings as well as in private equity. Prior to joining One Rock, Mr. Tulsidas ran a consulting firm focused on growing private equity-backed companies in the middle market. Prior to that, he worked with The Riverside Company as an Operating Growth Executive. During his career, he has assisted companies across multiple industries improve sales organizations and processes, implement and drive appropriate key performance indicators (“KPI’s”) and grow revenue.

Previously, Mr. Tulsidas worked for the Nielsen Company, where he spent nine years in senior leadership roles within the Sales, Consulting and Process Improvement departments. His most recent role at Nielsen was Senior Vice President, Client Consulting where he led the team responsible for servicing and retaining existing clients, growing share of wallet and driving new business in the media industry. Before joining Nielsen, Mr. Tulsidas worked at Cintas Corporation within their International Business and Six Sigma groups. He also founded and exited Soondar Secrets, an Organic Beauty company. Mr. Tulsidas started his career at KPMG in the audit function.  

Mr. Tulsidas holds a B.Com. in international business and information systems from Curtin University and University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. Mr. Tulsidas is also a Six Sigma Master Blackbelt and holds various certifications in Six Sigma, management, sales & negotiation and other trainings.