In December 2018, The Financial Times described Frank Aquila as “one of the most influential and high-profile M&A and corporate lawyers in the U.S.” who has “played a role in many of the largest and most complex deals.” In December 2019, Mr. Aquila was one of the dealmakers profiled in an article in The Financial Times titled “Deal lawyers are masters of seeing the next move.” The Wall Street Journal profiled him as one of the six top dealmakers of the year in 2019 and one of the seven top dealmakers in 2018. These recognitions highlight Mr. Aquila’s consistently broad multidisciplinary practice.

During the course of his career, Mr. Aquila has advised on deals totaling more than $1 trillion in value, including advising on more than $100 billion in 2019. He has been called upon by global leaders such as Amgen, Andeavor, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Cheniere Energy, Diageo, Diebold Nixdorf, International Airline Group, Kraft, Navistar International, Novartis, Tiffany & Co. and United Rentals to advise them and their boards of directors on M&A, proxy contests, activism, unsolicited bids, corporate governance, crisis management and a range of matters affecting corporate policy and strategy.

Mr. Aquila is a member of the Firm’s Management Committee and is Global Head of the Firm’s M&A Practice.

Kathleen Camilli is one of the nation’s leading economists, highly regarded by investors across the world. Her insights and forecasting track record have helped corporations avert financial disaster and preserve capital for decades. She brings gravitas to the boardroom, plus a wealth of money management and operating experience. Her insights are amplified by her work for institutional investors, boards and companies. Ethical, discreet, and objective, Kathleen is a valued board member.

Since June 2015, she has served on the board of AGF Investment Management (TSX), one of the oldest independent investment management firms in Canada with global operations in London, Dublin, and Hong Kong. Since 2012, she serves on the board of the UniFirst Corporation (NYSE) the third largest uniform rental company in the North America with facilities in Europe, Central America and Canada.

Josh Dubofsky advises market-leading companies and private equity firms on strategic transactions and corporate governance matters.

Mr. Dubofsky has nearly 20 years of experience advising corporate clients and private equity firms in their most complex domestic and cross-border transactions. He regularly advises on significant public company transactions and governance matters, private company mergers and acquisitions, and private equity investments.

Mr. Dubofsky works closely with boards of directors, management, and shareholders on mergers, acquisitions, and other strategic corporate transactions, public and private equity and debt financing, corporate governance, takeover planning, and activism defense, and general corporate representation of both publicly traded and privately held companies.

Michael E. Ellis is a partner in the Corporate Department. He is a general corporate lawyer with a focus on public and private mergers and acquisitions and securities. He has participated in multiple buy- and sell-side representations in a variety of transaction structures, including tender offers, stock and asset purchases and sales, mergers and joint ventures.

Mike has represented public companies in their ongoing corporate and securities law matters, including providing advice on corporate governance matters and drafting various types of documents required to be filed under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, such as periodic reports and proxy statements.

Clients Mike regularly represents include Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., Henry Schein, Inc. and Ascena Retail Group, Inc.

Patrick’s principal areas of practice are private equity, mergers and acquisitions and shareholder activism. Patrick is the co-head of V&E’s Shareholder Activism practice, which advises public companies in competitive proxy solicitations, strategic investor relations, and corporate governance. He also counsels senior management, boards of directors, investment managers and both private equity and strategic investors in a wide variety of complex business transactions, corporate governance matters, strategic investor relations and other special situations. His experience includes advising clients in connection with shareholder activism related investments, hostile takeovers, public and private M&A transactions, strategic minority investments and corporate capital investments. Prior to joining Vinson & Elkins, Patrick practiced law at a leading shareholder activism law firm and a preeminent corporate law firm in New York City.

Daniel Ganitsky is co-head of our global Private Equity and M&A Group and a member of the Latin America Practice Group. Over the course of his career, Daniel has had significant roles in numerous public company transactions, acquisitions of private companies or businesses, restructurings, proxy contests and financial advisor representations. Since joining Proskauer less than a decade ago, he has worked on over 70 publicly announced transactions with an aggregate value of more than $100 billion.

In 2014, Law360 selected Daniel as one of ten “Rising Stars” in mergers & acquisitions and two years earlier, M&A Advisor selected Daniel as one of the top 40 M&A professionals under the age of 40. He also has been recognized by Chambers USA, Chambers Global, Chambers Latin America, The Legal 500 United States, The Legal 500 Latin America and Super Lawyers.

Richard Gluckselig is an Assistant General Counsel and Assistant Corporate Secretary at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., an S&P 500 biotechnology company headquartered in New York whose mission is to help patients with serious diseases. In his role, Richard focuses on disclosure, corporate governance and financing matters, as well as strategic transactions, shareholder engagement and board support. Previously, Richard worked as a member of the securities and public companies practice group of an international law firm in Manhattan. Richard holds an LL.M. from the University of Michigan.

Kal Goldberg is a Partner at Finsbury Glover Hering. He advises managements and boards on communications strategies across a wide variety of domestic and cross-border M&A, restructuring, shareholder activism defense and preparedness, IPO, litigation and crisis situations. He is a frequent speaker on ESG issues.

Recent representations include Grubhub in its acquisition by Just Eat Takeaway; JCrew Group in its financial restructuring; Nightstar in its acquisition by Biogen; Takeda Pharmaceutical Company in its acquisition of Shire Pharmaceuticals; Express Scripts in its sale to Cigna and subsequent deal defense against Icahn Enterprises; Tribune Media Company in its proposed acquisition by Sinclair Broadcasting Group and subsequent acquisition by NextStar Media; Praxair, Inc. in its merger with Linde AG and; SABMiller in its merger with AB InBev.

Kal holds an MBA in finance from NYU’s Stern School of Business and is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, MO.

Dr. Shane Goodwin is the Associate Dean of Graduate Programs and Executive Education and serves as a Professor of Practice in the Department of Finance at The Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. Dr. Goodwin is a Board Leadership Fellow at the National Association of Corporate Directors. Additionally, Dr. Goodwin leads The Applied Corporate Governance Institute at The Center for Global Enterprise, an organization that advises companies to understand, engage, and succeed with their investors in complex and contested shareholder matters.

Most recently, Dr. Goodwin served as a Senior Fellow and Director at the Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law and Public Policy at Columbia University, a research institute established by Columbia Business School and Columbia Law School, served as a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation and as a Postdoctoral Fellow of Business Economics at Harvard Business School. His research is focused on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and shareholder activism.

Laurie Hays is Managing Director, Special Situations at Edelman. Laurie advises on strategic communications for activism defense, M&A, crisis, CEO transitions and other board related matters. She spent more than 30 years in the finance media world as a reporter and leader of newsrooms at the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, where she built the global activism and deals team. She began her advisory practice five years ago as a partner at Brunswick.

Laurie has served as a key advisor on numerous high stakes situations in mergers and acquisitions, activism defense, #MeToo and CEO transitions. She has advised large private companies and public institutions on workplace misconduct allegations. She advised on activism defenses for Argo, E.W. Scripps’, AIG and Yahoo!.

Born in Boston, Laurie attended Phillips Exeter Academy and graduated from Harvard College where she received an honors degree in History. She serves on the boards of directors of The Craig Newmark School of Journalism and The Knight Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism and was a founding director of The Marshall Project. She is married with two daughters and lives in New York City.

Sheila Hooda is an experienced independent board director, committee chair, and a recognized transformation leader with a breadth of global business, finance, risk and technology expertise. She is the CEO of Alpha Advisory Partners and a former C-level operating executive with over 30 years of leadership expertise driving complex customer-centric transformations, scaling growth and providing strategic direction at Fortune 500 firms.

Ms. Hooda serves on the boards of ScION Tech Growth 1 (NASDAQ: SCOAU), Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company and ProSight Global, Inc (NYSE: PROS), and previously Virtus Investment Partners (NASDAQ: VRTS). Her Board Leadership includes serving as chair of the Audit, Risk and Nominating and Governance committees. Ms. Hooda has been named to the Directorship 100 by NACD. Previously Ms. Hooda held leadership positions at Credit Suisse Investment Bank, TIAA and Thomson Reuters across the US, Europe and Asia and started her career in the USA with McKinsey & Co.

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.

Kai Liekefett is a partner in New York and co-chairs Sidley’s Shareholder Activism Practice. He has 20 years of experience in corporate law in New York, London, Germany, Hong Kong and Tokyo. He spends 100% of his time on activism campaigns and proxy fights, and in the last 5 years, Kai has been involved in over 50 proxy contests, more than any other defense attorney in the country. Under Kai’s leadership, Sidley rose to the top of the activism defense league tables, including the No. 1 ranking by Bloomberg and FactSet for H1 2020.

Kai has been named “2019 Dealmaker of the Year” by The American Lawyer for Sidley’s groundbreaking Wynn Resorts proxy contest. He has been recognized in the 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 editions of Chambers USA as one of only seven leading attorneys for Corporate/M&A: Takeover Defense.

Patrick McGurn is Special Counsel and the Head of Strategic Research and Analysis at ISS. Considered by industry constituents to be one of the leading experts on corporate governance issues, he plays an integral role in ISS’s policy development process and thought-leadership initiatives.

As a respected authority on corporate governance issues, Pat is active on the nationwide speaking circuit with appearances before a variety of groups, including the Council of Institutional Investors, Corporate Board Member, American Bar Association, New York Stock Exchange, National Directors’ Institute, the International Corporate Governance Network, and others. Pat is also a frequent commentator who is regularly featured in business and industry publications, including the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, New York Times, and Pensions & Investments, among others.

Pat is a graduate of Duke University and the Georgetown University Law Center.

For over a decade, Andi has worked with companies across industries to provide strategic communications counsel on a wide range of high-profile, complex issues. Her areas of expertise include: Mergers & Acquisitions, Shareholder Activism, Crisis Communications, Investor Relations and Public and Relations and Spin-offs.

In 2012 Andi was named one of PR News’ “People to Watch.” Prior to joining Joele Frank in 2006, she worked at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide in the Corporate and Investor Relations practice. She received a BA in English from Dartmouth College.

Mark Viviano is a Managing Partner and lead Portfolio Manager on the public investment team. Prior to joining Kimmeridge, Mr. Viviano spent 17 years at Wellington Management Company, with over 15 years focused on portfolio management and research analysis on companies in the energy sector, including E&Ps and global natural resources. Mr. Viviano has an undergraduate degree in Economics from Hamilton College and a Master of Science degree from Boston University with High Honors. He is a CFA Charterholder.

Tensie Whelan (NYU ‘80), Clinical Professor for Business and Society, is the Director of NYU Stern School of Business’s Center for Sustainable Business, where she is bringing her 25 years of experience working on local, national and international environmental and sustainability issues to engage businesses in proactive and innovative mainstreaming of sustainability.

As President of the Rainforest Alliance, she built the organization from a $4.5 million to $50 million budget, transforming the engagement of business with sustainability, recruiting 5,000 companies in more than 60 countries to work with Rainforest Alliance. She transformed the Rainforest Alliance frog into an internationally recognized and credible brand. Her previous work included serving as Executive Director of the New York League of Conservation Voters, Vice President of the National Audubon Society, Managing Editor of Ambio, a journal of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, and a journalist in Latin America.