Moderator

Josh Lerner

Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking at Harvard Business School

Josh Lerner graduated from Yale College with a special divisional major. He worked for several years on issues concerning technological innovation and public policy at the Brookings Institution, for a public-private task force in Chicago, and on Capitol Hill. He then earned a Ph.D. from Harvard’s Economics Department.

Much of his research focuses on venture capital and private equity organizations. (This research is summarized in Boulevard of Broken Dreams, The Money of Invention, Patent Capital, and The Venture Capital Cycle.) He also examines policies on innovation and how they impact firm strategies. (That research is discussed in the books The Architecture of Innovation, The Comingled Code, and Innovation and Its Discontents.) He co-directs the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program and serves as coeditor of their publication, Innovation Policy and the Economy. He founded and runs the Private Capital Research Institute, a nonprofit devoted to encouraging access to data and research, and has been a frequent leader of and participant in the World Economic Forum projects and events.

In the 1993-1994 academic year, he introduced an elective course for second-year MBAs. Over the past two decades, Venture Capital and Private Equity has consistently been one of the largest elective courses at Harvard Business School. (The course materials are collected in Venture Capital and Private Equity: A Casebook, now in its fifth edition, and the textbook Venture Capital, Private Equity, and the Financing of Entrepreneurship.) He also established and teaches doctoral courses on entrepreneurship, teaches in the Owners-Presidents-Managers Program, and leads executive courses on private equity. He is the Jacob H. Schiff Professor.

Among other recognitions, he is the winner of the Swedish government’s Global Entrepreneurship Research Award and Cheng Siwei Award for Venture Capital Research. For information on Josh’s compensated outside activities, please see www.bella-pm.com.

Speaker

Catherine Faddis

CIO, Grace Capital

Catherine Faddis founded Grace Capital in February 2006. She is the lead portfolio manager for the firm’s equity and balanced investment strategies. Prior to Grace Capital, Mrs. Faddis worked at Nichols & Pratt as Director of Research, at Putnam Investments as a Global Equity Research Analyst and at Deloitte & Touche as an Auditor and CPA. She has over 20 years of investment experience. Cate is on the Board of Overseers for the Children’s Museum of Boston, a member of the College Club of Boston, the proud mother of twins and an amateur beekeeper. Ms. Faddis graduated from the College of William & Mary and earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Speaker

Rodney B. Herenton

Co-CEO, Founder, Channing Capital Management, LLC

Rodney B. Herenton is a Founder, Co-Chief Executive Officer and Chief Business Development & Strategy Officer for Channing Capital Management, LLC. Mr. Herenton has over 18 years of investment management experience. Formerly, he was First Vice-President of the Private Fund Group at Morgan Keegan & Company, Inc. He was also an Associate in the Investment Banking Department at Bear Stearns, where he was responsible for deal execution of mergers and acquisitions, equity and high-yield bond transactions, and he was an Associate in the Corporate Finance Department at Lehman Brothers. Mr. Herenton received a BA in finance from Morehouse College, and a MBA from Harvard Business School.

Speaker

Luis Maizel

Co-Founder, LM Capital Group

Luis Maizel, MBA, is the President of LM Advisors, Inc. and the Senior Managing Director of LM Capital Group, the largest Hispanic money manager in the USA. Luis sits in various other public and private boards of Directors including USD, First Choice Bank, Comexhidro and Minera del Pitic. He received a BS in Mechanical Electrical engineering from the National University of Mexico, an MS in Industrial Engineering from the same UNAM and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he graduated as a Baker Scholar, the schools highest academic honor. Luis is a contributor to many publications both in the US and Mexico and served as an economic advisor in a previous Mexican Administration.

Speaker

Dorien Nuñez

Co-Founder and Director of Research for OMNIResearch Group

Dorien Nuñez is the co-founder and director of research for OMNIResearch Group. He is also the Co-founder of the OMNI Wall Street Advantage and Creator – ESG coverage in WOKE Research – Analytical Services for Investment Activists. Dorien has almost 40 years of experience in the Institutional Investment Management and Financial Services Industry. Institutional consultants, investment managers, federal, state and local elected officials from around the country draw upon his expertise regarding Performance Measurement Analytics, systems and tools, Emerging Manager Programs and Minority Business Development.

In the 1980s Nuñez raised the seed capital for the Emerging Manager Trust (which later became part of FIS – now EXPONA). He served as Consultant to the first minority-owned institutional pension consulting firm, Progress Investment Management. He was CIO of a start-up Emerging Fund of Hedge Funds which morphed into the Film Fund that invested and produced various films including the Twilight series. He helped launch a Midwest based P.E. fund targeting minority and women businesses. He has been: A Consultant to the Presidential Commission on Minority Business (under President George H. W. Bush); a delegate to the White House Conference for Small Businesses under President Bill Clinton; an advisor to Governors, Mayors and City Councils on Pension Funds and Small Business Development. At HBS, Nuñez was a David L. Babson Scholar and recipient of the Uehlman Award for his research on the Futures Market. His Undergraduate degree is from Harvard College in Sociology with emphasis in Psychology and Statistics. He is a proud alumnus of the public-school system of New York City and an avid amateur astronomer and saxophone player.