Burke Dempsey is Executive Vice President and Head of Investment Banking for Wedbush Securities Inc. His personal specialty is investment banking for financial institutions and fintech companies. He is a member of Wedbush’s President’s Executive, Underwriting, and Fairness Opinion Committees. During his 38 years of covering financial services, tech, media and analytics companies he has executed over 275 publicly announced transactions worth approximately $72 billion and was honored as a Leader of Influence by the Los Angeles Business Journal. Mr. Dempsey has helped companies position for, and execute watershed mergers and IPOs.

Before joining Wedbush, Mr. Dempsey was Managing Director and co-head of Financial Institutions at Sterne Agee, Managing Director and Head of Investment Banking at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., and a Managing Director at UBS heading their fintech efforts.

Mr. Dempsey holds a bachelor’s degree in Applied Earth Science from Stanford University. He holds his Series 7, 24, and 63 licenses.

Jay Goffman is Client Chairman of Teneo’s Financial Advisory Business. In this role, he leads client development and execution for Teneo’s North American Financial Advisory business, while also working across the broader business globally.

Prior to joining Teneo, he was Vice-Chairman, Global Advisory at Rothschild & Co, a large international investment bank, where he advised clients across Rothschild’s Restructuring, Debt Advisory and M&A practices.

Before Rothschild, Jay spent 36 years as a lawyer focused on restructuring, debt advisory and distressed M&A. For the last 24 years of his legal career, he practiced at Skadden Arps, where he was the long-time Global Head of the Corporate Restructuring Department.

Kathleen Lauster, CFA is a Managing Director at Fairfield Capital Advisors and heads the Capital Advisory Restructuring practice. She leads the Fairfield team in providing expert financial support and advising companies and creditors with strategies to unlock capital and maximize recoveries in distressed, restructuring, and special situations. Fairfield assists companies with their liability management, helps raise capital, and advises on the sale of their businesses. Additionally, Fairfield unlocks liquidity for private equity sponsors, providing tailored liquidity solutions to limited partners in secondary transactions.

Kathleen has over 20 years of global financial services and commercial real estate experience, working for and advising firms in Europe and the U S with their capital raises, restructurings, asset management, and valuation. Kathleen has a deep understanding of the economic, operational and institutional aspects of credit, structured securities, and the derivatives markets, focused on fundamental valuation. Her clients have ranged from early stage ventures to Fortune 500 firms.

Prior to joining Fairfield, Kathleen served as a Managing Director of Restructuring and Corporate Finance at Silver Leaf Partners, LLC where she focused on Capital Advisory and Special Situations in the middle market space. Before that, Kathleen was a Senior Vice President within Houlihan Lokey’s Financial Restructuring and Real Estate Strategic Advisory Practice, where she advised U. S. and European creditors and debtors in both healthy capital raises along with illiquid, distressed, and restructuring scenarios. Her clients included the Icelandic Banks, Bank of Ireland, GGP, Capital Trust, Lehman Brothers, UBS, the National Asset Management Agency, and CIT Group, Inc.

Brett Willis represents clients in a wide range of corporate and partnership tax matters, including, domestic and international mergers and acquisitions, reorganizations, restructurings, private equity investments, joint ventures, U.S. and non-U.S. financial instruments, real estate investments trusts (REITs), and foreign investments in the United States including under the Foreign Investment Real Property Tax Act.

Brett has represented various prominent private equity funds, asset managers and public and private REITs. He has significant experience in federal income tax matters relating to domestic and cross-border corporate and financial transactions, including M&A transactions, restructurings, financial instruments and joint ventures. In addition, Brett has significant experience with all tax matters relating to fund formation and investments in funds. His representations have been profiled in numerous publications.

Prior to joining Pillsbury, Brett was a senior vice president at Oaktree Capital Management, LP and a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP.