Deal Hunters Networking Night: Ask the Experts

Leann is a Senior Manager in the firm’s Mergers & Acquisitions Tax Services practice, and focuses on advising corporate and private equity investors with respect to tax implications of mergers, acquisitions and restructurings. Leann’s transaction tax experience includes:

• Buy- and sell-side tax due diligence
• Tax structuring
• Complex technical research and related opinion and memoranda on a wide range of transactional matters.

Prior to joining RSM, Leann was a tax manager at PwC.

Professional Affiliations

• Certified Public Accountant, Massachusetts
• American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
• Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants
• American Bar Association
• Massachusetts Bar Association
• Rhode Island Bar Association
• Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), Boston Chapter

Education

• Bachelor of Science, accounting, Dolan School of Business, Fairfield University
• Master of Business Administration, Dolan School of Business, Fairfield University
• Juris Doctor, Northeastern University School of Law

Mike Kent is a Managing Director at BellMark Partners, LLC, a leading boutique investment banking firm in Boston that provides advisory and investment banking services to middle market and lower middle market companies in the consumer, healthcare, industrial, and business services sectors. For the last 18 years, Mike has advised family businesses, entrepreneurial enterprises and closely-held private companies on mergers & acquisitions, strategic divestitures, succession strategies & exit planning, and financings & restructurings. 

Prior to joining BellMark, Mike served as a Director at another leading investment bank in Boston where he focused primarily on public and private companies in the healthcare, consumer & industrial, and business services sectors. Mike also worked as a Management Consultant for Camp, Dresser & McKee Inc., a leading environmental consulting firm headquartered in Cambridge, where he focused primarily on providing advisory services and financial evaluations to domestic and foreign municipalities.

Mike holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Harvard University, where he also lettered in varsity football.

Emily Ladd-Kravitz is a shareholder in the Corporate Practice Group at Greenberg Traurig, LLP in Boston. She focuses her practice on mergers and acquisitions and investment transactions (including venture capital, angel and private equity investments). Emily represents public and private companies across all industries in mergers and acquisitions, as well as venture capital funds, private equity firms, other institutional investors and companies in connection with a wide variety of corporate and transactional matters, including private placements, minority investments, venture capital financings and corporate governance matters. She also has experience advising start-up and growth-stage companies in all industries, including, technology, edtech, medical device, clean energy, sustainable solutions and life sciences.

2013 - current: SVP at Bank of America Business Capital (Series 63 and 7 license) - Business development, New England and New York. Office in Stamford CT.

1996 - 2013 - SVP Wells Fargo Business Credit - Business development, New England. Located in Boston.

1993 - 1996 - President/co-founded O.P 2000, Inc (office supply company) grew it and sold it in 1996. 17 people/distribution business. Danvers, MA.

1989 - 1993 - VP workout group at NeWorld Bank (Boston) sold bank in 1993.

1985 - 1989 - Capital Bank (2 years, bus development), Mass business development corp (3 years portfolio management).

1982 - 1985 - Heller financial, co-op student and then full time auditor.

Dale Okonow is a Senior Partner of The Watermill Group. He is involved in the day-to-day operations of the firm, including oversight of financial and operational functions, the negotiation and financing of acquisitions, and oversight and divestitures of portfolio companies.

Mr. Okonow returned to the Watermill Group in 2009. From 2001 to 2007 Mr. Okonow was a Partner, President and Chief Operating Officer of Sawyer Realty Holdings, LLC, a leading privately-held, fully-integrated US multifamily real estate investment and management firm based in Needham, MA and College Park, MD.

Prior to joining Sawyer, Mr. Okonow served as General Counsel and Chief Financial Officer of HMK Enterprises, Inc. from 1988 to 1991, and then Managing Partner of Watermill Ventures from 1991 to 2001. Prior to joining HMK Enterprises, Inc., Mr. Okonow was a practicing attorney with the law firm of Proskauer Rose LLP in New York City, where he worked as a corporate lawyer primarily in the area of mergers and acquisitions and related financing.

Mr. Okonow serves on the Board of Trustees and Strategic Planning Committee of the Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Greater Boston where he founded the Parkinson’s Family Support Program at that social services agency. He is a member of the Board of Trustees and the Development Committee of Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston (CJP) and served as the co-chair of the 2012 CJP Annual Campaign, a member of the Board of Advisors of Our Generation Speaks, an organization that fosters cooperation and relationship-building between Palestinians and Israelis through start-up business ventures, and the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the Friends of Yemin Orde Youth Village, which is located in northern Israel.

He received a B.S. (with distinction) from Cornell University in 1978, and a J.D. (magna cum laude) and M.B.A. from Cornell University in 1983. An avid Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots fan, Mr. Okonow and his wife Marilyn live in Needham, MA, and have two adult children.