Faculty

May 24, 2021 Class Faculty:

Part 1: Private Equity: Raising Capital & Managing the Business

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Sheryl Schwartz, Executive Board member, WAVE & Adjunct Professor, Private Equity, Fordham Business School

Sheryl Schwartz is an Adjunct Professor of Finance and Private Equity at the Gabelli School of Business. She has been a Managing Director at Caspian Private Equity(“Flexstone”), Perseus, and TIAA-CREF where she leads investments in private equity on behalf of institutional investors. In these roles, she built diversified portfolios with a focus on ESG, emerging managers, and North American mid-market. At TIAA, Caspian and Perseus, she was a member of the Investment and Executive Committee for alternative investments including funds, co-investments timber, and real estate. At Perseus, she was one of three partners responsible for fundraising, sourcing, evaluating, and making direct mezzanine and structured equity investments in connection with leveraged buyouts, recapitalization, and growth financings.  At TIAA, she had a successful career split between investing in fixed income and alternative investments.  Ms. Schwartz built and led TIAA-CREF’s Alternative Investment team, which included building a diversified portfolio of $13 billion of investments in private equity funds, co-investments, mezzanine debt, and timber.  

Ms. Schwartz serves on the Board of Directors of the Women’s Association of Venture and Equity, which is a nonprofit organization committed to the development and advancement of women in private equity and venture capital since 2007 and is an Adjunct Professor of Finance and Private Equity at Fordham Gabelli School.

Ms. Schwartz was one of Mergers & Acquisitions "Most Influential Women in the Mid Market M&A" in  2015, 2016, and 2019, was featured in the Wall Street Journal's “Six of Private Equity’s Most Influential Female Gatekeepers” in 2017 and in Buyouts Magazine in March 2019 “Building networks: 10 women thriving in PE and helping transform the culture”.  

Ms. Schwartz holds both a B.S. and an M.B.A. in Finance from New York University.

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Mark Hallock, Partner, M2O Private Fund Services

A founder of M2O and part of the successful spin out of the Fund Placement Group from Jefferies & Company. Prior to forming M2O, Head of the Jefferies Fund Placement Group, Partner at Helix Associates in London, opened the London project management office for DLJ’s Private Fund Group and established the Salomon Brothers fund placement business in 1993. Mark has a long tenure of raising private fund capital from investors in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States as well as Europe.  

Married with two sons. Rowed at Cornell and played rugby at Columbia. Board member and former treasurer of the Cornell Rowing Association. Member of and lecturer for the Columbia Business School Private Equity Fellows Program. Born in California, grew up in New England, avid Red Sox fan since 1965.

Part 2: PE 101: Creativity in the Origination Process

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Robert Landis, Founding Partner, The Riverside Company

Bob Landis is a Founding Partner, Origination in the New York office of The Riverside Company, a private equity firm investing in premier companies at the smaller end of the middle market. He works with a team of 17 professionals who coordinate origination and structuring opportunities for Riverside's investment portfolios across 9 diversified funds globally. He also serves as a board member of ACG New York.

Bob has over 42 years of commercial and investment banking experience gained at Deutsche Banc Alex Brown (18 years) and its predecessors, and at Citibank/ Chemical Bank. At Deutsche, he developed industry expertise in the consumer, industrial, transportation, and telecommunications sectors and in his last position (1987-2002) he created and  led the Aerospace and Defense Group in North America. Bob previously headed the firm's North American corporate finance group as it transitioned to an investment bank in the mid 1990's. At Citibank, he was Vice President of the Multi-National Group. Prior to that, Bob was a Major (ret.) in the U.S. Army, serving 6 years active duty and 14 years active reserve with the 42nd Infantry Division, NYARNG.

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Abilash Jaikumar, Co-Founder & Managing Director, TresVista

Abilash Jaikumar is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of TresVista, the leading provider of high-end outsourced support for asset managers, investment banks, research firms, and corporates. TresVista client’s operate across geographies, industries, asset classes, and deal sizes. Their asset management clients collectively have AUM in excess of $400 billion. TresVista supports its clients broadly in three areas (1) research and valuation, (2) FP&A, and (3) data analytics.

Previously, Abilash has worked in both the investment banking and private equity industries and has been involved in more than $20 billion of financing and M&A activity.  Abilash graduated with Honors from Georgetown University with a B.S.B.A in Finance and Accounting and minors in Philosophy and Economics and currently serves as the Chairman of Georgetown's Alumni Admissions Program in India. He is also on the board of Beyond Capital Fund, a non-profit impact investment fund that invests in for-profit social enterprises throughout India and East Africa. He is also a member of the Board of ACG New York.

June 7, 2021 Class Faculty: Understanding Financials and the Due Diligence Process

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Jussi Taipale, Managing Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC)

Jussi Taipale is an experienced financial and strategic advisor on global M&A transactions to multinational corporates and private equity investors. Jussi has consulted clients from various industry sectors on cross-border M&A, due diligence, emerging market investments, complex carve-outs, transaction agreements and structuring of purchase price adjustment mechanisms.

In addition to transaction consultations, Jussi has experience in restructuring and fund raising projects including consultations on modeling strategic alternatives, financial structures and preparing scenario analysis to assess future financing requirements.

He is a CFA charterholder and Certified Public Accountant and have a Master's degree in accounting and finance.

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Nitin Verma, Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC)

June 14, 2021 Class Faculty: Leveraged Buyout Modeling & Analysis

Joe Zirpolo, Global Head of Training, Houlihan Lokey

Mr. Zirpolo is the Global Head of Training at Houlihan Lokey and a member of the firm’s Human Capital Management department. He has over 25 years of training experience at investment banks, private equity firms, multinational corporations, and consulting firms as well as many top universities around the world. Mr. Zirpolo currently leads Houlihan Lokey’s firm-wide intern and full-time training programs as well as continuing development courses throughout the year. He is based in the firm’s New York office.

Before joining Houlihan Lokey in 2017, Mr. Zirpolo launched his career at J.P. Morgan in the Global Trade Finance Group. He then moved to the Credit Risk Management Group to manage the firm’s primary forecasting and valuation model and to assist in analyzing global credit exposure. In 1995 Mr. Zirpolo became a full-time instructor in J.P. Morgan’s internal training programs, teaching valuation and the firm’s proprietary modeling throughout its many global locations. Mr. Zirpolo was most recently a principal with Training The Street. In addition to teaching, he routinely advised many Wall Street firms regarding their leveraged buyout models.  

Mr. Zirpolo holds a B.A. in Economics & Business Administration from Ursinus College and an MBA from Fordham University. Currently he is an Adjunct Professor of Finance at Fordham, where he has won the Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence three times.

July 12, 2021 Class Faculty: Financing

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Paul Malec, Managing Director, Capital Markets, The Riverside Company

Paul Malec is Director of Capital Markets for Riverside’s Microcap Fund family. Riverside is a leading global investor focused on the middle market with over $10 billion AUM.  In his role, Paul facilitates all financing activities for the fund’s portfolio companies including LBO, add-on, recapitalization, and growth financing.

In prior roles Paul held multiple senior level positions at KeyBanc Capital Markets arranging and underwriting debt transactions for both sponsored and non-sponsored clients.  He has experience completing over 200 financing transactions ranging from <$20 million single lender and club transactions to >$2 billion broad market syndicated transactions across various industries.

Paul has earned a B.S. in Finance and M.B.A. from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University.  Paul is also on the board of Hope For Hydro, a non-profit dedicated to raising awareness of and research funding for hydrocephalus, the leading cause of pediatric neurosurgery.

July 19, 2021 Class Faculty: Growth Strategies

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Jennifer Katrulya, CPA, CITP, CGMA, Partner, Citrin Cooperman

In addition to her 25 years of experience working with small-to mid-sized clients across the United States and internationally, Jennifer has worked extensively with private equity and venture capital firms, family offices, financial service firms, commercial and residential real estate companies, and high-growth technology companies, to connect private and institutional investors with private deals and opportunities to collaborate.

These companies retain Jennifer to help them establish best practices across the company and to provide ongoing services as part of their sales and marketing, operations, accounting, and technology leadership teams, both in their companies as well as in the companies they invest in. She is frequently asked to help form and run company advisory boards, facilitate company retreats, and appear as a speaker.

Prior to joining Citrin Cooperman, Jennifer was a practice leader at a top Midwest CPA firm, and she was the co-founder of Block Small Business, a wholly owned subsidiary of H&R Block. Jennifer was also the owner of a highly successful CPA firm that provided accounting and advisory services to clients within the U.S. and internationally.

July 26, 2021 Class Faculty: The M&A Process and Management & Exits

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Wallace Mathai-Davis, Ph.D, Founder,Q.Ai Invest ( Now a Forbes Company)

Wallace Mathai-Davis is a financial entrepreneur and has over 35 years of experience as a senior executive and advisor in FinTech, international asset management, with a focus on China, wealth management and merchant banking.  He is a multi-national investment professional who has lived in Germany, China, and Chile and speaks three languages. He has been responsible for significant investment businesses and substantial investments in the diverse markets of China, the European Union, Latin America, Asia ex-Japan, and Eastern Europe, in addition to North America. 

Wallace is the co-founder, and was Chairman & Managing Member of Quantalytics Research, LLC , with the brand name Quantamize.com.   Quantamize was a first-to-market, state of the art, AI & multi-factor quantitative investment research platform.  It has been ranked the #1 best retail alternative to a Bloomberg terminal.  Quantamize presented individual investors specialized investment ideas, recommendations and analytics for over 10,000 global stocks from 30 countries, concentrated theme-based stock portfolios, numerous options strategies, 3,000 ETFs and 100 cryptos, using advanced AI and multi-factor analytics.  

Forbes Global Media Holdings acquired a controlling stake in Quantamize in October of 2019. The firm is being rebranded as Q.ai with expanded product offerings.  Q.ai, the rebranded firm, is now recognized as a leader in the FinTech AI movement. Wallace is on the Board of Directors of Q.ai

Wallace has been an early adopter of technology and quantitative solutions in the asset and wealth management industries. He has been involved in a number of successful FinTech initiatives delivering financial services through the use of advanced technologies. Wallace is Chairman of 360 Trading Networks Inc, the North American subsidiary of 360 Treasury Systems (the largest FX ECN in Europe). He was a member of the Supervisory Board of the parent 360 Treasury Systems in Germany for many years and a principal advisor to its CEO.  360T is one of the most successful FinTech companies in Germany. It was sold in October 2015 to the Deutsche Boerse for nearly $800 million.  

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David Acharya, Founder, Acharya Capital Partners

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, an AGI portfolio company, 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.

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Don Ritucci, Managing Director, Head of Healthcare M&A | Investment Banking, Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.

Don Ritucci brings extensive experience in M&A and financing transactions across the healthcare industry, spending over 22 years in investment banking and completing over 60 transactions, with an aggregate deal value in excess of $50 billion.  He has executed numerous sell-side and buy-side M&A transactions for private equity clients, public companies and founder-owned businesses.

Don is currently a Managing Director in the New York office of Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. where he heads the firm’s Healthcare M&A practice.  Previously, Don was a Managing Director in the Global Healthcare Group of Jefferies, and led its middle market M&A effort.  From 2011 to 2018, Don was a Managing Director at Imperial Capital, where he lead both the healthcare practice and the sponsor coverage practice.  Prior Imperial Capital, Don spent 13 years at UBS Investment Bank where he was a Managing Director, spending time in both the Global Healthcare Group and the Mergers & Acquisitions Group. 

Don also served a number of years as a member of the UBS Banking Review Group and Fairness Opinion Committee. Prior to UBS, Don worked in the Audit and Business Advisory Group at Price Waterhouse, and was a licensed CPA. Don earned an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and a B.S. from Boston College.