ACG MN 2022 Private Equity Summit

Prior to joining NEP in 2016, Jared worked at KRG Capital Partners, a middle market private equity firm focused on leveraged buyouts with buy-and-build opportunities. While at KRG, he evaluated, executed, and managed investments in several industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, marketing services, and energy. Previously, Jared worked as an investment banking analyst in the Technology group at William Blair, where he was involved in numerous M&A transactions.

Mr. Cullen is the Founder and CEO of Steeplechase Advisors LLC. He is a nationally recognized leader in the US middle market restructuring industry with 30+ years of experience leading companies and financial institutions in restructurings and business reorganizations in formal and informal legal proceedings. He has served in the role of Board Advisor, CEO, CRO and Investment Banker and has led and completed over 250+ restructuring, refinancing and reorganization processes in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia for companies encountering operational and financial challenges. He is a subject matter expert and has testified as an expert witness in multiple federal and district courts throughout the United States on restructurings and sale processes. He has been federally court appointed and approved by federal bank regulators to lead and manage multiple financial institutions through reorganizations and recapitalizations while under formal federal bank enforcement actions.

As a Principal, Emma Gergen is responsible for identifying new investment opportunities, managing due diligence processes, and supporting our portfolio of companies.Emma joined Carlson Private Capital in January 2019 after working alongside Andy Cantwell and Taylor Moore at Norwest Equity Partners. While at Norwest, Emma was fortunate to close several platform investments for the firm and support talented management teams across many businesses in the portfolio. Emma started her career in family capital at the age of 5 (!) when she became a shareholder of her family company, Crescent Electric, a business recently surpassing its 100th year of private family ownership. Emma started her professional career as a CPA at Deloitte & Touche and as an investment banking analyst at TripleTree. Currently, she serves on the board of Cristo Rey High School, a member of the Cristo Rey Network in Minneapolis’ Phillips neighborhood. Emma graduated from the University of Notre Dame and received her M.B.A from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Laura C. Giles is a business attorney who advises her clients on a variety of transactional matters, with an emphasis on mergers and acquisitions. She works with private and public companies in industries such as waste services, technology, fashion and media, among others. She regularly handles public and private mergers, stock acquisitions and divestitures, asset purchases and sales, and private equity and venture capital investments. She also assists businesses with reorganizations, financing, branding and other general corporate matters, as well as developing and implementing business development strategies. In the sports and entertainment world, Laura represents clients, including professional athletes, sports industry companies, celebrities and entertainers, in all aspects of their business. This work includes sponsorship and endorsement deals, appearance agreements, influencer relationships, business investments and licensing and branding matters.

Services 

Business and Transactions | Emerging Companies and Venture Capital | Mergers and Acquisitions | Private 

Equity

Ryan Heck is a corporate attorney with a focus on advising public and private companies in mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, investments, roll-ups and other transformative transactions. Ryan regularly counsels private equity and corporate clients across a number of industries, including manufacturing, technology, professional services and the life sciences. Ryan also serves as outside counsel to corporate clients and private equity portfolio companies by providing practical, solution-oriented advice in commercial transactions and general business matters.

Services 

Business and Transactions | Mergers and Acquisitions | Private Equity | Life Sciences

Joe Hellman, CPA, partner, leads the Transaction Advisory Services practice at Redpath and Company. He provides support to clients throughout the transaction life cycle, from evaluating opportunities pre-LOI to post-close net working capital true-ups and synergy assessments on both buy-side and sell-side transactions. Joe has experience assisting buy-side and sell-side transactions across a variety of industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, construction, consumer products, distribution, financial services, technology, and energy. He has provided public accounting services since 2008 and joined Redpath and Company in 2020.

Mike Hirschberg is a Director at Northborne Partners. He has over 10 years of M&A and capital markets advisory. Prior to Northborne, Mike worked at Cowen, providing M&A advisory to middle market businesses in the healthcare, software, technology, business services, industrial and distribution sectors. Prior to Cowen, Mike worked in Lazard’s middle market M&A advisory practice. In addition, he previously held investment banking roles at Wipfli Corporate Finance, the investment banking arm of Wipfli LLP, and Greenberg Advisors. Mike currently serves on the Board of Directors for Xperitas, a Minneapolis non-profit focused on global intercultural experiences. Mike received an MBA from American University and a BS from Indiana University.

Leslie E. John is the Practice Leader of Ballard Spahr's Antitrust and Competition Group and Co-Leader of its False Advertising Litigation Team. Leslie concentrates on antitrust and complex litigation, and she has represented clients—many of them in the pharmaceutical and health care industries—in federal and state courts and before the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission. She also advises on antitrust issues in mergers and acquisitions, including securing pre-merger clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, and counsels clients on antitrust compliance and risk management. 

Leslie is recognized for her antitrust acumen in Chambers USA and is among Benchmark Litigation’s Top 250 Women in Litigation nationwide. Chambers USA described her as “methodical, very strategic and highly intellectual. She also communicates very effectively.” Leslie has substantial class action experience and was named “Litigator of the Week” by Global Competition Review in July 2015 for securing the decertification of an indirect purchaser class in a pharmaceutical antitrust case. She was honored as the “Best of the Bar” by the Philadelphia Business Journal in 2021 and as a “Top Women in Law” by The Legal Intelligencer in 2016. Leslie's class action experience includes the defense of antitrust, product liability, securities, and ERISA class actions, and the litigation of complex commercial cases. She has assisted in the design and implementation of an innovative confidential alternate dispute resolution program in which claims were arbitrated. Leslie tried numerous claims to verdict in this program, obtaining defense verdicts in the majority of the claims.

Services 

Litigation | Antitrust and Competition | False Advertising Litigation | Loss Recovery | Manufacturing | Food and 

Beverage

Kam Kielhorn is a Principal at Tonka Bay Equity Partners, a private equity firm in Minneapolis, MN.  Tonka Bay invests in entrepreneur-owned businesses in a variety of industry verticals including highly-engineered manufacturing, value-added distribution and business services.  Kam is responsible for sourcing, structuring, and closing new investment opportunities. He also serves on numerous portfolio company boards and works closely with management teams to execute strategic growth plans.  Kam previously worked for Ernst & Young and is a graduate of the University of Iowa.

Mike is a Minnesota-based business attorney and focuses his practice primarily on mergers and acquisitions, as well as other strategic investment, capital raising, and financing transactions. Mr. Kuhn represents private equity funds, middle-market companies, owner-managed businesses and large companies undertaking mergers and acquisitions with middle-market targets.

Services 

Business and Transactions | Private Equity | Mergers and Acquisitions | Agribusiness

George Singer provides corporate and financial services to companies and institutions in a broad range of situations, including legal services relating to debt and equity transactions, restructuring matters, capital recovery and bankruptcy issues. He is a personally committed advisor to his clients and strives to achieve tailored and results-oriented solutions to complicated problems. George negotiates senior and subordinated financing arrangements and has experience with structuring credit facilities, perfecting finance documentation, and closing secured and lease finance transactions. His former experience as a business analyst for Dun & Bradstreet provides a solid foundation for a background in business and the extension of credit. George regularly represents lenders, lessors, funds, committees, business debtors, guarantors, and creditors in financial workouts, restructurings, distressed-sale transactions, intercreditor disputes, lender liability claims, successor liability issues, and preferential and fraudulent transfer litigation. 

George draws from over 20 years of experience advising publicly and privately held companies on corporate governance, debt and equity financings, licensing issues, and risk management. He serves as trusted advisor and corporate counsel to buyers, sellers and private equity firms in complex merger, acquisition, divestiture, and joint-venture transactions.

Services 

Commercial Finance | Bankruptcy and Restructuring | Litigation | Banking and Financial Services | Mergers and 

Acquisitions | Agribusiness | Distressed Real Estate

Chad Stewart counsels clients on corporate and securities matters, with an emphasis on mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and joint ventures, regularly representing public companies, private companies and private equity funds and their portfolio companies. Chad has nearly 20 years of experience and has closed transactions in a number of industries, including the advertising, consumer-goods, data-processing, energy, healthcare, insurance, insurance brokerage, manufacturing, medical device, plastics, printing and graphics, public relations, real estate services, recycled-products, retail, and technology industries. Chad previously worked at Sidley Austin in Chicago.

Services 

Business and Transactions | Mergers and Acquisitions | Private Equity

Robert Tunheim represents clients in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance transactions and general business matters. He provides counsel to a variety of private equity groups in their formation, investments and liquidation transactions. His M&A and corporate finance work includes handling control transactions, minority investments, mezzanine financing transactions and corporate restructurings. Bob also provides general legal advice to businesses, including many of his private equity clients’ portfolio companies, on a variety of issues, including contract, finance, securities, licensing, choice of entity and other matters.

Services 

Business and Transactions | Private Equity | Food and Beverage