Judd Appel has nearly 25 years of experience in accounting, finance, tax, mergers and acquisitions, corporate strategy and CFO leadership roles. He specializes in advising clients on buy-side and sell-side mergers & acquisitions (M&A) transactions. He also raises debt and equity capital, explores strategic partnerships and venture capital related situations.

Appel has worked in the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Asia handling M&A transactions in excess of $10 billion. Previously, he worked with Big 4 firms and other large global organizations, including General Electric Company, Honeywell International and ITT Corporation. Appel also consulted as an Operating Principal at Global Infrastructure Partners, a $45 billion NYC-based private equity fund.

Appel was trained and held a CPA license in Florida, New York and Georgia (currently inactive). In addition to his accounting training, he holds the Accredited in Business Valuation designation from the AICPA. Appel is a Registered Investment Advisor of Provenance Wealth Advisors (via Raymond James) and holds a Real Estate Associate license in the State of Florida.

Doug Barnard is the chief legal officer of CF Industries (NYSE: CF), an S&P 500 chemical company, having represented the company in its $750M initial public offering (CF was the top-performing company on the NYSE two years later, and outperformed Google over its first ten years as a public company); its $5B acquisition of a competitor following a fifteen-month, four-way, cross-border takeover battle; its $1.4B divestiture of a business segment; and its $3B production joint venture with a domestic customer. He was also Chairman of the Board of CF’s controlled public subsidiary Terra Nitrogen MLP (NYSE: TNH).

Doug has extensive experience in computer science, having led an enterprise-wide SAP implementation at CF, and he holds a professional certification in data science from Harvard. Doug is also coauthor of a chapter on artificial intelligence and the law, which was published in early 2019, and he spoke recently at Harvard Law School on a panel devoted to this topic.

Michael Benyamin is a Managing Director in Accenture’s Talent & Organization/Human Potential practice. Michael has more than 20 years of experience leading HR and workforce transformations, M&A integrations, human capital analytics, and HR platform change efforts for hundreds of companies worldwide. He is based in Florham Park, NJ.

Matthew Cantwell is an Operating Partner / Advisor / Executive focused on growth of venture-stage and middle market businesses, typically with global scope.

Matt has served as the Chief Strategy Officer for the International Division of McGraw Hill Education, responsible for strategy, business development and M&A for the $200m revenue division that sells into 130 countries. Previously, Matthew was a Manager on PwC’s M&A Advisory team where he led numerous commercial and operations due diligence exercises and value capture planning for private equity clients. Matthew was also an Associate at Battelle Ventures, a venture capital fund that commercialized intellectual property, and led strategy for 360ip, one of Battelle’s portfolio companies in Asia.

Matthew has a MBA from Columbia Business School’s EMBA-Global program, a MSc in Political Economy from The London School of Economics, and an undergraduate Finance degree from Penn State University’s Schreyer Honors College.

Desiree Castillejos is the Chief Strategy officer and VP of Corporate Development at Kimball Electronics, a publicly traded diversified manufacturer that serves the Medical, Automotive, Industrial and Public Safety markets. She is responsible for the inorganic growth of the company. She has over 15 years of experience working in corporate development and strategy in the technology industry and served most recently as Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Development, at Nokia.

Desiree received an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a MSc and a BSc in Computer Engineering from the Université de Technologie de Compiègne in France.

Robert Gallo has over 20 years of leadership experience in corporate affairs and marketing roles during large scale changes. He is a change program leader and boardroom facilitator with expertise in restructuring programs, post-merger integrations and digital transformations. Robert is an advisor to M&A functions and boards during major transformations, and a media and spokesperson preparedness trainer of senior teams.

Mr. Gilmartin is Senior Vice President, Deputy General Counsel at IQVIA Holdings Inc. (NYSE: IQV), a leading global provider of advanced analytics, technology solutions and clinical research services to the life sciences industry. With approximately 70,000 employees, IQVIA conducts operations in more than 100 countries. Mr. Gilmartin serves as global legal lead over Corporate Governance, Securities Law, M&A and IQVIA’s Research & Development Solutions Global Business Unit.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Gilmartin served as Chief of Staff to the CEO for IQVIA. He was previously a Senior Associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLC in New York City and Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP in New York City and London.

Mr. Gilmartin holds a B.S. in finance from Boston College and a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law.

Jessica Harger is part of Aon’s Transaction Solutions team and focuses primarily on tax insurance. Prior to joining Aon in 2016, Jessica worked as a tax consultant in several Big Four accounting firms, most recently in Ernst & Young’s Transaction Tax group. Jessica began her career at PricewaterhouseCoopers, advising financial services clients and focusing on international tax issues in M&A transactions. She has advised on both private equity and strategic corporate deals from the buy-side and sell-side. Jessica has experience in all stages of the transaction life cycle, including strategic analysis of opportunities, development of financial and tax structures, due diligence and negotiation of sale and purchase agreements, and post transaction implementation. Jessica was admitted to the bar in New York, and was recognized as a Power Broker in both 2019 and 2020 by Risk & Insurance for her work with tax insurance in M&A transactions.

Zafar Hasan serves as Corporate Secretary and Global Head of Legal, General Corporate, in the Law Department at DXC Technology, a Fortune 150 technology company with headquarters in the Washington, DC area. DXC has $24 billion in revenue and operations in 70 countries. DXC’s legal department has received numerous third-party acknowledgments as a world-class in-house law practice, including the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Award, 2018 Corporate Counsel Best Legal Department Honoree, ACC Value Challenge Champion, and National Law Journal Law Department of the Year. Mr. Hasan reports to DXC’s General Counsel and has daily interaction with C-level executives and DXC’s Board of Directors.

Mr. Hasan has a broad legal background and serves as global legal lead in a number of areas at DXC, including M&A, Securities Law, Corporate Governance, Subsidiary Management, Finance, Global Employment (including Executive Compensation), Cybersecurity, and Real Estate.

Mr. Hasan is a graduate of Northwestern University (Phi Beta Kappa), The University of Michigan Law School, and The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (MBA With Honors in Finance and Accounting).

Preston Hopson is Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary at Tetra Tech, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTEK), a leading provider of consulting, engineering, and technical services with 20,000 employees around the world. He is member of the Executive Leadership Team and provides oversight for all human resources and legal matters, including corporate governance, litigation, compliance and regulatory and governmental affairs.

Prior to joining Tetra Tech, Preston served as Vice President, Assistant General Counsel at the engineering and infrastructure firm AECOM. He previously was a Senior Associate with O’Melveny & Myers, LLP as well as a Judicial Clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Preston sits on the board of directors of the Association of Corporate Counsel – Southern California and the Leadership Council of the Posse Foundation, which provides college scholarships to students with leadership potential. He also is an adjunct professor at the USC Gould School of Law.

Preston holds B.A. and J.D. degrees from Yale University.

Ajay Kattel is Senior Counsel and Assistant Corporate Secretary at SVB Financial Group (NASDAQ: SIVB), an S&P500 diversified financial services company helping innovative companies and their investors move bold ideas forward by offering commercial, investment and private banking and funds management to technology, life science, private equity and venture capital companies in centers of innovation around the world. He oversees legal and regulatory aspects of merger integration management at SVB, as well as its private bank, wealth management, and deposit product business units.

Prior to SVB, Ajay served as Assistant General Counsel and Vice President at Bank of America Corp. and was with Bryan Cave HRO (now Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP). Ajay sits on the board of directors of the SVB Foundation. Ajay received his Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Miami (FL), his Juris Doctor from University of Denver, and is admitted to practice law in Colorado, Washington (state), Hawaii, and Montana.

Dominika Korytek focuses her practice on international tax planning, with an emphasis on technology companies. She advises clients on tax strategies for international expansion, domestic and international acquisitions, reorganizations and dispositions.

Dominika also advises clients related to international tax planning in mergers and acquisitions, dual consolidated loss issues, permanent establishment risk analysis,withholding tax and indirect (VAT/GST) tax planning. She also works closely with policy teams to obtain tax rulings and exemptions outside of the US.

She is a frequent author and speaker on topics pertaining to international taxation.

Hemant Kumar is Chief Financial Officer of Sol-Millennium Medical Group. He is also a member of Sol-M Board of Directors. Sol-Millennium is a global medical device company.

Prior to Sol-M, Hemant has served in various leadership roles with Baxter, American Express, and Delphi (General Motors) in various geographies across the globe. With Baxter, he was Vice President for Global Financial Planning & Reporting for its $17B business, prior to which he served as CFO for Baxter Canada, North Asia and Controller for Asia Pacific and India. At American express, he was responsible for Financial Reporting for Asia Pacific for credit card business lines. With Delphi, he led operations finance and controllership for India operations. He started his career with Ranbaxy Laboratories.

Hemant is an Executive Scholar from Kellogg School of Management. He is also a Chartered Accountant (CPA eq.) and Management Accountant (CMA eq.) from New Delhi. He did his Bachelor’s in Commerce (Hons.) from Delhi University.

Janet Lee joined Ansys as Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary in June 2017. She brings over 25 years of legal experience in international technology, finance, intellectual property transactions, litigation and risk management. From 2010 to 2017 she was General Counsel/Vice President, Legal & Intellectual Property for HERE North America. From 2007 to 2010 she was the Director of Nokia Research Center, Legal & Intellectual Property. She served as Assistant General Counsel for America Online, Inc., from 1999 to 2007. Lee was an attorney at Cooley Godward LLP from 1996 to 1999. From 1995 to 1996 she was General Counsel to the Renaissance Capital Group. She was an attorney for Clifford Chance from 1993 to 1995, and for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison from 1991 to 1993. Lee is a graduate of Stanford Law School.

Dolores Linehan serves as Vice President, Senior Counsel, Employment at FactSet (NYSE, NASDAQ: FDS), a leading global financial information services company.

In this role, she is responsible for global labor and employment matters for FactSet’s over 10,000 employees in 24 countries. Her experience spans employment and corporate compliance, employment benefit and labor aspects of M&A, internal investigations, employment and independent contractor agreements, international employee assignments, compensation and benefits, non-compete issues, and global employment-related policies. In her 17 years with the company, Dolores has regularly advised executive and senior leadership and partnered with business leaders around the world to address critical legal and human resources matters.

Dolores is based in FactSet’s Norwalk, Connecticut headquarters. She received a B.A. from Roger Williams University and a J.D. from New York Law School, and is admitted to practice law in New York and Connecticut.

Dan MacAndrew is the principal consultant at OneConstant, a management consulting firm focused on delivering M&A technology solutions to private equity firms and their portfolio companies. He provides pre-close strategic advisory, and post-close integration and separation services, having planned and executed over 75 IT due diligence, post-merger integration and carve-out engagements. Prior to launching OneConstant, Dan held Director positions in the Transaction Advisory and Management Consulting practices of PwC, KPMG, RSM, and boutique management consulting firms.

Helen Mantel advises clients on complex cross-border transactions and post-merger integrations, helping clients through the full deal cycle from inception to successful integration. Ms. Mantel also counsels companies across a variety of industries on carve outs, spin offs, legal entity rationalizations and the expansion and management of their overseas operations. Ms. Mantel is Chair of Baker McKenzie’s North America Cross-Border Transactions and Integrations Steering Committee. She is also a member of the Firm’s Professional Responsibility and Professional Conduct Committee, and Co-Chair of the Chicago Office Diversity & Inclusion Committee.

Rob McGillen, with CBIZ Private Equity Advisory, focuses on technology diligence, post deal integration, and optimization of private equity fund holdings in the mid-market. Rob McGillen is a multi-industry CIO, start-up founder, and experienced IT M&A transformation leader, having participated in over 50 transactions during the past 25 years.

Previously Rob was global head of technology and CIO at Grant Thornton LLP where he led IT diligence, post deal integration, and shared IT services across five continents. In the past decade as digital innovation has become more common, Rob has worked with private and public companies ranging from $50m to $30b as they optimize value through digital capabilities and platforms.

With sector experience spanning financial services, professional services, manufacturing, food & beverage, commercial insurance, technology, and Health and Live Sciences, Rob brings a world of experience to clients and boards as they acquire, transform, and optimize companies in the mid-market.

Brian is SVP, Director of Corporate Development & Strategy for First Horizon Corporation. In July 2020, First Horizon completed its merger of equals with IBERIABANK Corporation and its acquisition of 30 branches from Truist Financial. The company has more than $84 billion in assets and more than 450 branches in 12 states across the southern U.S.

Brian’s primary responsibilities include mergers & acquisitions, strategic planning, budgeting, and forecasting. Since joining First Horizon in 2012, Brian has led teams for 9 acquisitions including the pending transactions.

Prior to First Horizon, Brian spent 14 years as an investment banker where he focused primarily on financial institutions.

Brian earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University, a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler Business School, and he is a CFA charter holder.

Tatyana Mosenkis served as Associate Director of Business Development in one of the divisions of former United Technologies Corporation (UTC). United Technologies Corporation was an American multinational conglomerate that merged with the Raytheon Company in April 2020 to form Raytheon Technologies, and spinoff Carrier and Otis divisions into public companies.

In her role, Tatyana was driving global M&A activities to execute on divisional growth strategy, leading end to end deal process and integration planning, as well as external relationships with financials advisers.

Prior to UTC, Ms. Mosenkis was a Business Development (M&A) Manager with GE Capital (GE Money) and GE Industrial Systems. As part of her role, she supported building and maintaining playbooks for M&A integrations.

J. is managing director for Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) within Accenture Strategy. His role focuses on working with leading clients on global M&A transformation deals to address the critical issues facing their businesses. Over the past decade, he has been a prolific author and thought leader on M&A and industry-related topics. J. is based in Cleveland.

Jeffrey Olin is the Vice President, Tax of CF Industries (NYSE: CF), an S&P 500 chemical company and the world’s largest producer of ammonia for agricultural fertilizer. Prior to CF, Jeffrey was the Vice President – Global Tax of CDK Global, a $4 billion revenue spin-off of ADP. During his tenure at CDK, Jeff led several acquisitions of technology companies and participated in the divestiture of their digital marketing business.

Jeff has extensive experience in international taxation as a Tax Partner with Arthur Andersen and McDermott Will & Emery including mergers and acquisitions, leading the tax-free spin-off of Fortune Brands Home and Security, the sale of Titleist/Acushnet Golf, the acquisition of the Skinny Girl and Connemara spirits businesses, and the acquisition by Spectrum Brands of the Black and Decker Home and Hardware division.

Jeff, a J.D., LL.M., C.P.A., taught international taxation for ten years in the Kent Law School LL.M. program in Chicago.

RONALD J. PRAGUE is Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary of Synchronoss Technologies, Inc., a publicly-held company based in Bridgewater, New Jersey, a position he has held since 2006, where he is responsible for all of the company’s legal affairs. Synchronoss is a provider of mobile cloud innovation, messaging, digital and IoT products, supporting hundreds hundred of millions of subscribers across the globe. Prior to joining Synchronoss, Mr. Prague was Group Counsel for Intel Corporation’s Communication Infrastructure Group. Mr. Prague also practiced law with the New York law firms of Haythe & Curley (now Torys LLP) and Richards & O’Neil (now Morgan Lewis). Mr. Prague is a frequent speaker at various legal conferences and has written several articles on various legal issues. He is a member of the Board of Advisors of ACC New Jersey, and is co-chairperson of the ACC New Jersey Technology and Small Law Committees, and a member of the Livingston Sports Council and Cornell Agriculture and Life Sciences Alumni Board. Mr. Prague is a graduate of Northwestern University School of Law and received a B.S., with distinction from Cornell University.

Paul Price is the Director of M&A Integration and Corporate Development. At IBM, he has been involved in executing more than 100 acquisitions spanning software, services, and hardware. He drives acquisition performance post close to deliver strategic and financial objectives.

He has implemented process and technology improvements across the entire M&A lifecycle, with particular focus on data-and-analytics-driven innovation and insights.

He is a recognized thought leader in M&A/Post-Merger-Integration and has participated in many conferences and contributed to multiple research initiatives and publications. He holds a patent for acquisition performance/risk prediction & mitigation.

Ed Richards is Vice President, Corporate Business Development for The Lubrizol Corporation. In this position, Mr. Richards is responsible for the company’s business development activities, including acquisitions, divestitures, investments and strategic partnerships.

Mr. Richards originally joined Lubrizol in 1985, where he held multiple roles of increasing responsibility in sales and marketing management, and business development. In 2006, he took the role of chief executive officer for Engine Control Systems Limited, where he guided the company through two ownership changes. He also served as president of EPR Consulting Services, where he supported venture capital portfolio investments by creating strategic market and business plans while occupying interim CEO roles. Mr. Richards also provided consulting services to the Energy Enterprise Division of NorTech, a technology-based economic development organization serving Northeast Ohio before accepting his current role with Lubrizol in 2012.

Mr. Richards earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Cleveland State University. He is a member of the American Chemistry Council, American Chemical Society, Association for Corporate Growth, ChemPharma Professional Association, Mining Diesel Emissions Advisory Committee and Society of Automotive Engineers.

Gina Sandon, Director, M&A Synergy, leads a team of global experts responsible for the successful integration of acquisitions go-to-market and offering/development functions into IBM. Her current role involves working with Corporate Development / Business Development leadership from concept approval, due diligence, integration strategy and design, through execution and transfer of business to operations. She has a passion for the acquired employee experience, culture and organizational change management, and leveraging enterprise design thinking for co-creation of new approaches to drive growth.

Carl Sottosanti served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Penn National Gaming, Inc. (NASDAQ: PENN), a $5.5 billion revenue company with 42 gaming facilities in 20 jurisdictions, a growing online/media business and a $17 billion market cap. Carl joined Penn in May 2003 and focused primarily on M & A, development opportunities, corporate governance, commercial transactions, compliance and labor/employment. The legal department is responsible all company legal, compliance and risk management matters. The recent Barstool Sports and Pinnacle Entertainment acquisitions are among the many transaction he led at Penn.

Prior to joining Penn, Carl worked at two other public companies (GC at Sanchez Computer Associates, a leading international banking software and fintech company and Salient Three Communication, a diversified telecom technology company). He began his career with a large Philadelphia law firm. Carl has extensive teaching and lecturing experience on gaming, business and employment law topics. Carl graduated magna cum laude from Villanova University where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and he received his JD from Villanova University School of Law, where he was an Editor on the Law Review and graduated cum laude.

Brian D. Walters serves as Senior Vice-President and General Counsel for Matthews International Corporation, Pittsburgh’s oldest company in continuous operation since 1850 and operating in over 25 countries. For over 16 years, Brian has directed all legal matters for this publicly-traded corporation both nationally and internationally, as well as serving as a member of Matthews’ executive leadership team and secretary for the nominating and corporate governance committee of Matthews’ Board of Directors.

In addition to his day-to-day legal responsibilities, Mr. Walters has led 70 domestic and foreign acquisition initiatives on behalf of Matthews, including actively negotiating deal terms, drafting definitive agreements, managing due diligence, coordinating strategies to secure transaction approval from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, managing HSR filings, as well as filings with the competition authority of the European Union, and leading project management offices as part of integration management. Brian’s deal experience includes recent stock purchases of public and private companies in Austria, China, England, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, the United States and Vietnam. With over 11,000 employees, Matthews reported revenue of approximately of $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2020, having tripled in size during Mr. Walters’ tenure with the company, primarily through strategic acquisitions and mergers.

Matthew Wiener is the head of Aon’s Transaction Liability team for the Southwest region and the national leader for its energy practice. In this role, he is responsible for the development and implementation of transactional-based risk solutions, including the deployment of insurance capital for M&A transactions through representations and warranties, litigation, tax, and other contingent liabilities insurance. Prior to joining the Aon team, Matthew was an attorney at Vinson & Elkins LLP, where he specialized in corporate finance and securities law matters, including mergers and acquisitions, private equity, public and private securities offerings, divestitures, and general corporate representation, with a significant focus on the energy sector.

Michael Wolf has practiced mergers & acquisitions law for over twenty years, both at large law firms and as inhouse counsel. Trained at Kirkland & Ellis and Jenner & Block, where he co-chaired the firm’s mergers & acquisitions practice and served on the firm’s management committee, Michael now serves as Vice President and Deputy General Counsel responsible for of all business development and licensing for Baxter International, a global healthcare company.

During the course of his career, Michael has had the opportunity to represent clients such as General Motors, Honeywell, General Dynamics, Aon and Baxter on a variety of public and private acquisitions and divestitures.

Prior to beginning his legal career, Michael worked in a variety of capacities for Merrill Lynch while earning his M.B.A. from DePaul University and J.D. from Chicago-Kent College of Law. He earned his B.A. in economics from University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign.

David Wright is responsible for business and technical services delivery at RKON. This includes advisory, professional and managed services. RKON started 20 years ago driving IT Transformation for the Fortune 2000 and found those organizations struggling with their M&A Activities. RKON focuses mid-market where they have identified a common set of attributes that applies to most, if not all, companies, helping them achieve stability, risk reduction, and cost predictability.

Prior to RKON, David was the Sr Director, Cloud and Integration at Pacific Gas & Electric Company in San Francisco, CA. He lead an organization that was responsible for consolidating PG&Es’ technology platforms through adoption of cloud and modern application development standards. He also held other leadership roles in IT Telecommunications, IT program and product delivery, Community Wildfire Safety program and NERC CIP.

His focal points are around employee engagement and collaboration, service delivery frameworks, process management effectiveness and operational excellence.

David is also a veteran of the British Armed Forces.