Private Debt Summit: Multiple Panels (IN PERSON)

David Ellis is Co-President and a founder of GemCap. As a leading expert in the liquidation and asset appraisal industries, Mr. Ellis applies his experience and connections throughout all facets of GemCap. David continues to pioneer and develop proprietary and processes methods to protect assets which has allowed GemCap to remain successful in a higher risk market.

Through 2006, David Ellis served as President of Buxbaum Group and compiled 20 years of experience in the liquidation business.

David is active with the Young President’s Organization (YPO), Chief Executive Organization (CEO), and Commercial Finance Association.

Marilyn S. Adler is a Founder and Managing Partner at Mizzen Capital. Mizzen has $267 million of assets under management and invests as senior secured debt in lower middle market companies with $1 to $10 million of EBITDA. Our industry focus includes niche manufacturing, business services, healthcare services, alternative energy and software. Investment size ranges from $4 million to $15 million within the fund and partners with limited partners and other credit funds for larger deals up to $50 million.

Prior to founding Mizzen, Ms. Adler had senior management roles with SBIC investment funds including Medley SBIC LP, Sunrise Equity Partners LP and Hudson Venture Partners LP. Prior to that, she worked at Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association in the fixed income group and at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in the investment banking division.

Ms. has been named as one of the top women in middle market M&A every year between 2016 and 2022. Ms. Adler was the 2018 ACG Woman of Leadership awardee. She is a board member of UJA’s Private Equity division, Banking & Finance division and Women of Wall Street division. Ms. Adler is a member of the SBIA ESG Working Group and was previously a board member of the SBIA board of governors and the chair of its BDC committee and prior finance chair of the board of Cornell University Hillel. She served as treasurer of her co-op board from 2011 to 2020.

Ms. Adler earned an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BS with distinction from Cornell University. Ms. Adler resides in New York City with her husband and has three grown children.

Tej is a veteran corporate & investment banker of over 20+ years with a core focus on middle market debt and equity advisory, co-investing, and capital raising. He started on Wall Street as an IB analyst and worked his way up the ranks at Fortune 100 banks. During this tenure he closed $1.5 billion in funded transactions and his teams have closed over $11 billion. He, along with some valuable partners and clients, took those big bank sales processes and learnings to launch Watchtower Capital. They are an independently owned middle market firm based in midtown. Personally, Tej enjoys his passion to share his acquired deal making and sales knowledge through mentorship, professional coaching, and podcasts. With the support of his institutional investors/family offices, Tej hosts three rooms on Clubhouse (the audio app) on funding and scaling companies as well as the art of investor pitches and related sales tips. To learn more about Tej, please review his namesake website tejbrahmbhatt.com where all his professional and personal social links can be found.

Adam Goodfriend is a Managing Director at Metropolitan Partners Group Management where his responsibilities include sourcing, evaluating and executing firm investments. Prior to joining Metropolitan, Adam was the Chief Investment Officer of Alpha Square Group, a large Asian-backed family office, where he was responsible for portfolio strategy and construction, investment allocations and portfolio management activities. He was also a founder and CIO of The Alberleen Group and Alberleen Family Office Solutions (AFOS), two entities engaged in providing direct investing opportunities to select family offices and high net-worth individuals. Adam has more than 30 years of experience in direct investing, investment banking, capital markets and asset management working at major financial institutions including Banc of America, JP Morgan Chase, and SG Cowen as well as co-founding The Airlie Group, a hedge fund managing high yield bonds and leveraged loan assets. Adam graduated with a B.A. from The Johns Hopkins University and received his M.B.A. from The Wharton School of Business.

Results oriented, senior level finance professional with an accomplished track record in sourcing and structuring debt capital solutions for middle market companies. Significant expertise implementing creative financial structuring solutions. Maintain long standing relationships with investment banks, private equity firms, commercial lenders and other intermediary sources. Key industries served included retail, consumer products, consumer services and specialty finance.

Specialties: Origination, business development, marketing, sales strategies, senior secured debt, capital markets, private equity, retailers, consumer products, recapitalizations, refinancings, growth capital.

Mr. Bunim is a Managing Director of OFS Capital Management, LLC and is responsible for sourcing and evaluating investment opportunities for the Middle Market Lending business as well as portfolio management. Prior to joining OFS Capital Management in 2013, Mr. Bunim held positions at Tamarix Capital Partners, an investment firm dedicated to providing flexible financing solutions to lower-middle-market companies. Prior to that, he held various positions at H.I.G. Capital in the middle-market private equity group, and at Fenway Partners, a private equity firm focused on middle-market buyouts.

Mr. Bunim holds a B.S. in Finance and General Accounting with a minor in Politics from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business.

Mr. Levy is a Founder and Managing Partner of Velocity Structured Solutions. Ed has approximately 30 years of experience in the credit markets. He was Chief Investment Officer of Hyde Park Value Funds, a series of middle-market direct lending credit investment funds and was responsible for all credit-related investment and portfolio decisions. Prior, he led Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce’s leveraged lending platform. In this capacity, Mr. Levy was responsible for senior loan, high yield and mezzanine origination, execution and placements, as well as CIBC World Markets’ below-investment-grade loan portfolio, including portfolio management. He served on the U.S. Management Committee, Global Executive Committee, and the Deals Committee, which approved all of CIBC World Markets’ U.S. corporate finance non-investment grade debt capital decisions. Mr. Levy joined CIBC World Markets in 1995 when it acquired The Argosy Group, for which he was a Founding Member and Managing Director. Founded in 1990, The Argosy Group was a middle market financing business, in which Mr. Levy and other Argosy principals raised third party capital as well as invested alongside their financial sponsor clients. Mr. Levy started his career in the mergers and acquisitions department at Drexel Burnham Lambert.

Mr. Levy also has significant public company operating experience having been recruited to develop and oversee as President and CEO a comprehensive management, operating and balance sheet turnaround of one of the leading dry bulk shipping companies on the Great Lakes.

Mr. Levy has sat on numerous public and private company Board of Directors.

Errol has over 35 years of deal-making experience. He co-founded Triangle Capital in 2003 and often works directly with our clients in the Apparel, Retail & Consumer sector, but also offers a wealth of experience in other industries including business services, manufacturing, and transportation.

Prior to founding Triangle, Errol was a Managing Director responsible for West Coast investment banking activity for Kidder, Peabody & Co. He also headed the firm’s Retail Finance Group, which was responsible for all activity in the retail and consumer products arenas. For several years prior, Errol was a Principal in the Trump Group, a privately held New York-based investment company. He has broad board-level experience, including having served on the boards of Pay ‘n Save Corp., Montgomery Ward, Tyco Toys, Telescene, Thermo-Electric Wire and Cable, General Products, etc. He is currently a director of Century Aluminum and Regency Affiliates and is a trustee of the Darrow School.

Errol graduated with B. Comm and MA degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand. He earned an MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth. He is also a Chartered Accountant. Errol grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. He and his wife live in Manhattan.

Mr. Grossman has over 20 years’ experience in alternative finance and venture lending. Preceding joining Decathlon Capital Partners, he led unitranche lending to software companies for CIBC’s Innovation Banking platform, covering the US and Canada. Prior to CIBC, he was a Managing Director for White Oak Global Advisors responsible for originating, underwriting, and managing industry agnostic investment opportunities for White Oak’s private debt funds.

Mr. Grossman previously served as Managing Director and co-founder of the Later Stage / Lower Middle Market group at Hercules Technology Growth Capital (now Hercules Capital, Inc.), where he was responsible for all aspects of debt investing. Prior to Hercules, Mr. Grossman was Senior Vice President for Silicon Valley Bank, leading their Colorado and Arizona deal teams to provide venture debt, asset based lending and general banking products to the entrepreneurial community.

Mr. Grossman holds an M.B.A. from Northern Arizona University, and a B. A. in Business Economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is a member of the Denver Advisory Board, the Association for Corporate Growth and Opus Connect.

Mark Podgainy has more than 20 years of experience working with healthy, underperforming and distressed middle market and lower middle market businesses, both as an advisor and as a member of the management team. He provides operations improvement services (process improvement, sales and marketing, strategy, M&A integration, interim management (CFO, COO, CEO)) to drive EBITDA growth, and also provides operational due diligence to services. He also provides sell side M&A advisory and refinancing services to companies in transition. When working with stressed and distressed companies he provides services including operations restructuring, business plan analysis, workouts and lender relationship management, and bankruptcy consulting services.

Raffi Azadian is the Founder and CEO of Change Capital, an investor and capital provider to lower middle market businesses across all industry types throughout North America.

Prior to founding Change Capital, Raffi spent over 13 years in technology, venture capital, and investment banking.

Mr. Grutman is a founder of Middlemarch Partners and co-leads the firm’s merchant banking and investing efforts. He has spent his entire career investing and advising high-growth financial services and business services companies that leverage technology to create sustainable advantage.

At Middlemarch, Mr. Grutman advises clients on business and capital strategy issues, has sourced over $1B of capital for clients and serves as a board member for a number of Middlemarch clients and portfolio companies, including Oak Branch Advisors and Prepaid Ventures. He has deep domain expertise in the specialty finance and transaction processing sectors where he has been exceptionally active both as a merchant banker and as a private equity investor since 2002. Active with both private and public companies, he has participated in over $3.2B of transactions over the course of his career as a merchant banker and private equity investor.

Prior to founding Middlemarch Partners, Mr. Grutman served as a Partner at TH Lee Putnam Ventures, a $1B growth equity fund, where he co-led the firm’s financial services investments in specialty finance, insurance services, and electronic capital markets companies. Previously, he was a Managing Director at Citigroup where he oversaw the firm’s on balance sheet financial services private equity holdings as well as managed the bank’s $6 billion private equity fund-of-funds business. He has also held private equity investment roles at Goldman Sachs and Frontline Capital. He began his career at The Boston Consulting Group in its Financial Services and e-Commerce Practices.

Mr. Hokayem joined Colbeck in 2013. Prior to joining Colbeck, he was a Director at PNC Capital Markets. While at PNC, he worked in numerous capacities as a corporate banker and portfolio manager across the corporate bank. Mr. Hokayem has also held positions in the risk management, contract finance, asset based lending, and specialty finance verticals. He has spent most of his career focused on private middle market companies. Additionally, Mr. Hokayem has lectured at New York University's Stern School of Business, taught at Wall Street Training, and spoken at multiple investment conferences. Mr. Hokayem holds a Master’s in Business Administration from New York University’s Stern School of Business where he graduated with highest distinction. Mr. Hokayem holds the rank of Eagle Scout and is actively involved with mentorship programs across New York City.