The Team
Jake Nicholson, Founder and CEO
Jake is an accomplished international business leader with sales and management experience across three continents. As a Manhattan real estate entrepreneur, he grew a business from the ground up to compete effectively with industry giants. He has also seen professional success in the global travel and education industries. A California native, his track record of business improvement spans Southeast Asia, Western Europe, and the United States. Jake holds a BA from Middlebury College, as well as an MBA from INSEAD.
Analysts
Emad Asgari
Ina Deljkic
Drew Shever
Eric Zhang
Michael DeSantis
Nicole Katwan
Brian Endo
Limited Partners
Individual
Scott Asen
W. Robert Dahl
David Dodson
Jim Ellis
Peter Kelly
Bob Oster
Gerald Risk
Jim Sharpe
Kevin Taweel
Institutional
Hunter Trust
M2O
Pacific Lake Partners
Advisors
Laurent Bayer
Timothy Bovard
Ott Kaukver
Cosmin Sarbu
Thibault Séguret
Limited Partners
Individual
Scott Asen
Mr. Asen graduated from Harvard College in 1966. He spent many years in the venture capital industry, successfully managing a family of funds for a wealthy New York investor. He is currently investing solely for his personal account, managing a portfolio of public and private equity investments. He sits on several corporate boards as well as several not-for-profit boards.
W. Robert Dahl
Mr. Dahl is currently a private investor, focusing on the healthcare industry. Previously, he was the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Arrowhawk Capital Partners, an investment company and the Vice President of Strategic Business Development and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Golden Pond Healthcare, Inc. From April 1999 until June 2006, Mr. Dahl served as the head of Global Healthcare for the Carlyle Group, a leading private equity firm, where he was responsible for the firm's investments in the healthcare field. Prior to Carlyle, Mr. Dahl served as co-head of healthcare investment banking in North America at Credit Suisse First Boston. Mr. Dahl is a director of several private companies. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Cancer Research Institute. Mr. Dahl received a BA from Middlebury College and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
David Dodson
David Dodson, is a member of the faculty at the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he teaches courses on entrepreneurship. Mr. Dodson formally served as the CEO or Chairman of six for-profit companies. As well, Mr. Dodson has served on the boards of 18 companies in which he was also a private investor.
He is the founder and President of Project Healthy Children, a nongovernmental organization that works with governments and private industry to establish food fortification and supplementation programs to improve the health of women and children around the world. Project Healthy Children currently works in Burundi, Malawi, Rwanda, Nepal, and Liberia.
He is currently on the New England board for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and a member of the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Mr. Dodson holds a B.A. from Stanford University (Economics), and an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Jim Ellis
Mr. Ellis is a Lecturer in Management at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He is currently teaching two strategic management courses that center around the early stages of the entrepreneurial process. These courses include Formation of New Ventures (S353), and Managing Growing Enterprises (S355). Jim takes a personal interest and enjoys participating in and contributing to the learning process faced by each of his students.
Prior to coming to Stanford, Jim held a number of positions with both large and small companies. In 1995, Jim cofounded Asurion with Kevin Taweel to provide value-added solutions for the wireless communications industry. Previously responsible for Asurion's sales and marketing efforts, Jim is an active member of the company's board of directors. Jim has also held positions as a research associate at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and as a consultant with IMG and Cresap, McCormick, and Paget. He is a member of a number of Boards of Directors including BUILD, Asurion, Service Source Inc., Memento Press, Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, and Southern California Risk Management Associates.
Mr. Ellis holds an MBA from Stanford University and a bachelor's degree with high honors in economics from Dartmouth College. He is also a recipient of Ernst and Young's prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Peter Kelly
Mr. Kelly was Chief Executive Officer of Pacific Pulmonary Services (PPS), a home respiratory services provider, until mid-2010. He also previously served as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer, and was co-founder of the search fund that acquired the predecessor to PPS. Peter has prior experience investing at TA Associates, a private equity firm where he originated investments in technology companies. Mr. Kelly is a director of ResponseLink, LLC and eCompliance Management Solutions, Inc., and is a former director of PPS; Guardian Home Care Holdings, Inc.; the Council for Quality Respiratory Care (Chairman); the American Association for Homecare; Medical Equipment Distributors, Inc.; and The Governance Institute, LLC.
Mr. Kelly received a Bachelor of Arts in Science, Technology and Social Theory, a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering, and a Master of Business Administration from Stanford University. He resides in Marin County, California with his family.
Bob Oster
Mr. Oster started his career as a professional economist and moved on to become CFO of several companies, taking two of them public. Since 1987, he has been a private investor working with other private and institutional investors in all phases of the venture investing process from incubation and due diligence through building the management team and sale of the company or initial public offering. He was a first round investor and Director of LifeUSA Holding, Inc. a life and annuity company that went public and was later merged into Allianz Life of North America. He was a first round investor and special advisor to Informatica, Inc. (“INFA”), a provider of data integration software. Also, he was a founding investor and director of several search fund companies: Asurion, Inc., a specialty insurance company; Pacific Pulmonary Services, (now part of Teijin Holdings) an oxygen and medications company; Carillon Assisted Living, Raleigh, NC, a private assisted living company; and Wind River Environmental, Boston, MA, a private roll-up in the non-hazardous liquid waste industry. He is currently a founding investor and director of iNET Interactive, Dayton, OH, a private internet advertising company, Raptor Technology, Houston, TX, a private public school visitor management software company, and IWTS, Chicago, Il, a private industrial water treatment services company, SFL Data, San Francisco, CA, a private e-discovery legal company, a special limited partner for Spring Ridge Ventures, a venture capital partnership focusing on health care, and an investor in and advisor to several small private equity funds.
Mr. Oster received a BA in economics from Occidental College in 1963 and an MA and Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1965 and 1967, respectively. He is an Overseer and Vice-Chairman of The Hoover Institution at Stanford University and Chairman of Summit Public Schools, a charter public high school management organization in the Silicon Valley.
Gerald Risk
Gerald Risk is Vice-Chairman of Asurion, the world’s largest provider of technology protection services, partnering with the world’s top companies and brands to serve over 200 million customers globally. Prior to serving as Vice-Chairman, Gerald served as Asurion’s President from 2009 to 2013 and Asurion’s Chief Financial Officer for the 10 years prior to that.
Gerald is an active investor and mentor of entrepreneurial leaders in the for-profit and non-profit worlds. In this capacity, Mr. Risk currently serves on the Board of Directors of Carillon Assisted Living (provider of assisted living services in the Southeast), HealthCPA (provider of medical expense management services for consumers), and QMC Telecom (cell tower operator in Brazil).
Prior to joining Asurion, Gerald worked as an investment banker with Goldman, Sachs & Co. in San Francisco, Hong Kong and New York. Mr. Risk has also worked for Hambrecht and Quist and the private investment arm of Toronto Dominion Capital.
Mr. Risk holds an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar and where he served as a case writer for Jack McDonald, the Stanford Investors Professor of Finance. Mr. Risk also holds a Bachelor's Degree in Commerce with honors from Queen’s University in Canada where he was on the Dean’s List.
Mr. Risk lives in the Bay Area with his wife and two sons.
Jim Sharpe
Jim Sharpe has been affiliated with Harvard Business School as both a lecturer and Entrepreneur in Residence concentrating in the area of turnarounds, entrepreneurship and running small businesses. His interests are in the areas of business acquisitions, manufacturing, B2B niche marketing, pricing, leadership, family balance, large/small company differences, ethics, exit strategies and employee empowerment.
Extrusion Technology, an aluminum extrusion fabricator owned by Jim, was sold to a private equity firm in December 2008. The company, purchased in 1987, after an 11 month unfunded search, grew from $4MM to $32MM developing a value added products niche in the Datacomm/Telecom electronics markets and a supplemental factory in Xiamen, China. After taking on substantial debt, Jim transformed the second generation, family owned business. A focus on quality led to early qualification for ISO-9000 in 1992 and emphasis on lead time reduction and lean manufacturing techniques resulted in a Bronze Shingo award in 2008.
Jim has a BS degree from Babson College and after graduating from Harvard Business School in 1976, joined General Electric and moved on to Product General Manager positions within the GE materials businesses. After 5 years, he left GE to run 3 turn-around situations which prepared him to strike off on his own in 1987.
Kevin Taweel
Mr. Taweel is chief executive officer of Asurion, the largest provider of technology protection services, serving many of the world’s leading companies. Since its founding in 1994, the company has grown from a 40 person operation and now employs more than 10,000 people, serving over 200 million customers worldwide. Prior to co-founding Asurion, Kevin served as chairman and president of Mill River Corporation, an investment company. He also worked in mergers and acquisitions for Salomon Brothers.
Kevin serves on the advisory council of the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he also teaches a course in entrepreneurship. He is on the board of ResponseLink. He received a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from McGill University and an MBA from Stanford.
Institutional
Hunter Trust
Jocelyn H. Hornblower, Managing Director
Jocelyn spent three years as an equity research and investor relations associate, and then was a corporate development manager for a software company. For the past five years, she has been a case writer and consultant working through the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. She recently joined Hunter Trust as a managing director and co-manages the sourcing, assessment, and management of new investment opportunities. Jocelyn received her BA from Middlebury College and her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Lacey H. Wismer, Managing Director
Lacey was a health care investment banker at Deutsche Bank for two years, and for the past seven years has consulted for health care start-ups and the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She joined Hunter Trust in 2010. She sits on the board of a health care manufacturing and distribution company and co-manages the sourcing, assessment, and management of new investment opportunities. Lacey received a BA from the University of Colorado and an MBA from the Stanford GSB.
Ashley H. Riley, Advisor
Ashley spent two years as an investment banking analyst, a year as an investor relations analyst, and two years teaching school. She is a philanthropic entrepreneur, having founded two foundations and served on several non-profit boards. She is currently the executive director of The Fit Kids Foundation. She joined Hunter Trust as an advisor in 2011. Ashley received a BA from Middlebury College.
Andrew M. Hunter III, Advisor
After 15 years as an investment banker, Andy co-founded Hunter, Keith Industries, Inc., an investor/manager in private equity. He has overseen more than 50 investments and served on more than 20 boards since 1985. Andy received a BA from Northwestern University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Robert W. Horstman, CFO
Robb has worked for 18 years as an investment advisor to the Hunter family office, preceded by ten years in the tax practice area of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. He advises Hunter Trust on investment opportunities. He earned his BA from Creighton University and an MBT from the University of Minnesota.
M2O
Michael O'Connell
Mr. O’Connell is currently the Managing Director of M2O Investments, a family investment fund. He was formerly the Managing Director and President of Anhalt, O’Connell & Steffanci, Inc., an investment management firm specializing in debt securities with $1 billion under management. Previously, Mr. O’Connell owned and operated the National Lines Bureau, a ship mooring company for the Los Angeles and Long Beach Harbors. He is currently an investor in over 20 private companies. Mr. O’Connell received a BA, with high honors, from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
M-K O'Connell
Michael-Kevin (M-K) O'Connell joined M2O, Inc. as a Managing Director in 2009. Prior to joining M2O, he was a Manager with L.E.K. Consulting. During his tenure there, Mr. O'Connell led project teams across a diverse range of industries and business issues. Before L.E.K., Mr. O'Connell worked in commercial real estate as the Director of Research for CB Richard Ellis in New England.
Mr. O'Connell received his B.S., magna cum laude, from Boston College and his MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania where he was the recipient of the Thomas P. Gerrity Leadership Award.
Pacific Lake Partners
Jim Southern
Mr. Southern is a founding director of Pacific Lake Partners, a $35 million private equity fund investing in small-cap buyouts using the search fund model. Pacific Lake backs promising entrepreneurs searching for established, profitable service companies in high growth industries. In addition, Mr. Southern manages a portfolio of private equity investments in small to medium sized companies. His portfolio includes more than 50 search funds. Search fund investing consists of providing search and acquisition capital to promising entrepreneurs whose intent is to acquire a small, established company with revenues of $10 million to $30 million. Previously, Mr. Southern was himself a beneficiary of search fund investors early in his career. His first search resulted in the acquisition of Uniform Printing, a $43 million printer of specialty insurance documents, where he served as its CEO and chairman for 10 years. Investor returns from distributions and exit exceeded 30x the acquisition capital.
Mr. Southern holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and resides in Wolfeboro, NH and Boston, MA.
Coley Andrews
Coley Andrews is a founding partner of Pacific Lake Partners, a $35 million private equity fund focused on small cap buyouts exclusively through the search fund model. Search fund investing consists of providing search and acquisition capital to promising entrepreneurs who are recent graduates of top MBA programs. The entrepreneurs' intent is to acquire a small, established company with revenues of $10 million to $30 million and a history of profits and growth. Since co-founding Pacific Lake, Mr. Andrews has invested in over 25 search funds. He is currently a director of Out of Home America and a board visitor at Vector Disease Control, Alphacredit, Yoforia, Yates & Associates, Arizona College and Raptor Technologies.
Mr. Andrews holds an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a BA from Dartmouth College. He and his wife Alisa along with their two boys live outside of Washington, DC.