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by Baz Hiralal
Chris Ventresca and Hernan Cristerna are now co-heads of global mergers and acquisitions at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Before becoming sole head of North America M&A, Ventresca co-headed it with former Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP partner Jim Woolery, who left in February to become deputy chairman of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP. Ventresca has been with JPM since July 1988, starting as a computer programmer.
Cristerna was head of M&A for Europe, the Middle East and Africa since 2008 and was previously co-head with Larry Slaughter, who joined Lazard earlier this month as vice chairman of investment banking. Earlier, Cristerna was global head of consumer M&A. He joined JPM in 1996 from Schroders plc.
NBGI Private Equity appointed food and drinks industry veteran Tim Kelly as a senior adviser. Kelly was previously chief operating officer of wine and spirits company Constellation Brands Inc. and COO at Rank Hovis McDougall, responsible for eight standalone business units. He was part of the management team that led the initial public offering of RHM and joined the board of Premier Foods following its $2.4 billion purchase of RHM in 2007. Kelly began his career with Unilever, before joining Coca-Cola Enterprises Europe. Later, he was marketing director at Diageo plc in Ireland and president of Guinness Bass Import USA. Kelly is a nonexecutive director for DEFRA and Burts Potato Chips, and is a senior adviser for the consumer and retail sector at KPMG. He is the firm's second senior adviser, following former Rentokil Initial senior executive Sandy Young.
NBGI is focused on lower mid-market U.K. deals. The firm said it will appoint a senior adviser for the healthcare space, soon.
Jung Yeon Son joined Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP as a partner in the firm's corporate practice group, based in Palo Alto, Calif. Son joins from Technology Crossover Ventures in Palo Alto, where she was associate general counsel, working on fund formation as well as regulatory compliance. Before that, she was vice president and associate general counsel at Blum Capital Partners in San Francisco. She also practiced at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in New York and Palo Alto. Previously, Belvis was a partner for more than 20 years at Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione.
New York-based Tradepoint Systems LLC a financial services technology provider, enlisted Shmuel Nadata as managing partner. He held a product management role at Thomson Reuters, leading teams responsible for the development, testing and support of a foreign exchange-focused product and the AthenaTrader multi-asset execution management system. Nadata previously worked at Microsoft Corp. and Citibank NA.
Independent financial advisory and investment banking firm Duff & Phelps Corp. hired Carl Jenkins for its Boston office as a managing director in the dispute consulting business.
He provides litigation consulting, forensic accounting and witness testimony in cases including commercial, securities-related and post-acquisition disputes. Jenkins is experienced with financial audits and tax matters, mergers and acquisitions, valuations, white collar investigations and general financial and business consulting. He was a managing director at CBIZ Tofias and Mayer Hoffman McCann PC. Before that, he was a managing director at UHY Advisors FLVS Inc. and a managing partner at Brown & Brown LLP, where he worked from 1996 to 2006. From 1983 to 1996, Jenkins was with MacDonald, Levine, Jenkins & Co., where he was a partner. He spent the previous five years with KPMG.
In Frankfurt, Roger Kiem joined White & Case LLP's mergers and acquisitions practice as a partner. He focuses on the financial services sector and joins the firm from the Frankfurt office of Shearman & Sterling LLP.
Kiem will be joined by Andreas Wieland as a local partner in Frankfurt. He also hails from Shearman & Sterling, where he worked in the corporate practice. He covers M&A and financial regulation.
Steptoe & Johnson LLP expanded its intellectual property litigation practice in Chicago, adding patent litigation partners James R. Nuttall, John L. Abramic and Glen P. Belvis. Nuttall and Abramic were previously with McAndrews, Held & Malloy. Nuttall was with McAndrews since September 1997, while Abramic was there since May 1999. Belvis comes in from Foro Energy Inc., where he was chief IP counsel.
Search firm CTPartners hired Noah Schwarz from Heidrick & Struggles as a principal in the financial services practice in New York. Earlier, Schwarz spent nearly six years with Goldman, Sachs & Co., first covering alternative investments and then moving into a global management and strategy team. Previously, he was a member of the legal restructuring practice at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP.
NBGI Private Equity appointed food and drinks industry veteran Tim Kelly as a senior adviser.
