Our team has a long history of providing capital to U.S. and Western European middle market businesses while delivering our investors consistent returns. We have locations and key team members across the U.S., Western Europe and Japan as well as across emerging markets of Eastern Europe, South East Asia, India, and Latin America. We have experience participating in the success of a large and diversified portfolio of companies. We have developed a set of proven strategies that in combination are expected to deliver overwhelming results for middle market companies we are investing in.
We believe that to deliver extraordinary results, a private equity team must be highly experienced and battle tested, but it also must have a significant number of years of experience working with each other, and our core team has worked together in private equity and investing and corporate management for over 25 years and has delivered on a number of high value strategies together.
We also feel that investing successfully is all about people and that most private equity firms do not achieve above average results because most investments are made into companies they have not not heard of a few months prior to them making their investment decision, and they often bring in new management that they have never worked with before. Our team goes the extra mile and over the past 10+ years has developed numerous relationships with middle market company leaders and owners, and the majority of the companies we are investing in in many cases feel more like members of our advisory board and our team rather than outsiders, and the same thing goes for literally hundreds of high profile executives whom we have in our networks that we are expecting to bring in to help us improve the management of the companies we are investing in and acquiring.
The same is true for the add-on acquisitions that we have been looking at, investing in and advising for the last few years. And oftentimes the companies we work with feel the same way about us, thus oftentimes allowing us to be the preferred investor in their eyes giving us an advantage over our competitors.
Our team consists of experts across all specters of middle market investing and corporate management, as well as significant expertise in a number of unique strategies that we bring to the table which we believe will allow us to drastically improve returns on our investments.
Bryan Wood
Partner
Bryan Wood serves as a Partner for MVC. Bryan is a well known venture capital thought leader, and was a Founding Partner of Alta Berkely, a London based venture capital firm. He has more than 25 years’ experience in venture capital, investing in Europe and the USA and has overseen 11 successful IPOs, and brings the “Homerun focus” philosophy to MVC. He gained a BSIE from Virginia Tech and an MBA from Harvard University. Alta Berkeley manages venture capital funds investing in communications, information technology, media and health care companies in Western Europe (12 countries), USA and Israel. Principal fundraiser for six Venture Capital funds. As an investor 25% of companies went public, 1 in 8 were “Home Runs”
Michael Gitelmaker
Chairman, Partner & CEO
Michael Gitelmaker is the General Partner at Maximus Value Capital Partners. MVCP is a multi-strategy private equity investment firm, an experienced generalist investor focused on value deals with a strong growth component making debt and equity investments across the middle market.
Michael has longstanding, deep personal and professional relations with some of the wealthiest family offices and syndicates in Europe and Asia, representing over $6 Billion dollars in capital for investments and acquisitions. He has participated in raising and managing large venture capital and private equity funds. A seasoned investor and thought leader in varied industries including life sciences, technology commercialization, real estate, enterprise software, agri-tech, entertainment investment, telecommunications technology, government contracting and government relations, internet and broadband infrastructure, direct sales and marketing and mass media advertising and promotions. Over the last few years has been focused on developing a new business paradigm, combining numerous aspects from variegated industries and drawing on his creative genius and on many decades of our teams experience and expertise in numerous fields, that we believe will allow us to unveil a number of major global industry disrupting and market dominating conglomerates.
John Cooper
Former President of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Partner, Asset Manager Capital
John Cooper has led a highly successful career of more than 25 years in the financial sector as an executive, advisor and partner. He is a recognized leader in piloting organizational growth and turnarounds as well as leadership development, demonstrating exceptional client engagement and business acumen. He also has substantial board experience in the capacity of director and committee member.
He is known as a leader in delivering on rapid growth, turnarounds, and leadership development, with strong client engagement and business acumen. Prior roles include serving as President of Morgan Stanley Distributor, Inc., and President and CEO of Invesco Distributors, Inc.
John received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from Boston College, where he double majored in Marketing and Human Resources Management. John received the school’s highest honor for academic and athletic achievement, being named the Nathaniel Hasenfus Male Eagle of the Year, for his graduating class. He was a member of both the football and baseball teams, received eight varsity letters, and was inducted into the Boston College Athletic Hall of Fame.
Christopher Pair
Former CEO / COO of Herbalife, Partner, Live Longer Foods Wellness
Christopher Pair is a Partner with the Live Longer Foods & Wellness group of companies within the Maximus Value Group. With a focus on Consumer Products, Network Marketing, and International Expansion; Mr. Pair has effectively completed a wide range of significant projects.
These range from his Partnership with Mandalay Entertainment Production and Alticor as Co-Producer of ‘The Age of Nutrition” which was a multimillion dollar success and was presented on Discovery and multiple other media outlets. He served as Director of Neways during its successful sale to a Private Investment Fund for 400mm + and also was a Catalyst and active adviser with Cook Associates Capital on the effective refinancing of a Personal Care Co in Germany. He has been instrumental in the due diligence Team of Blackstone; launched an energy drink firm; as well as a Video capable social network . Prior to establishing his own firm Mr. Pair served for nearly 20 years as Executive Vice President and the principle executive, COO, responsible for International Expansion at Herbalife; the now 5 billion dollar public firm During that tenure which resulted in his responsibility as CEO after the passing of its founder, Mr. Pair served as the Vice Chairman of the Direct Selling Association, and the Boards of the Consumer Health Products Association and the Nutritional Products Association. He also serves as President and CEO of Cynergy Partners Inc.; an Investment and Consulting firm based in Beverly Hills, Calif. He received his BA as well as his MBA from the University of Redland; and also served as a reserve in the OC California Sheriff’s Office.
Sean Rowland
Partner / CIO, MVC Commercial Partners
Sean serves as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of MVCP. He brings over 25 years of experience in fund and investment management, commercial real estate and partner development to create significant value for MVCP investors. He gained significant experience while serving in a senior role at Chotin Fund Management, where he managed and ultimately liquidated an $8 billion residual and non-investment grade MBS portfolio. He successively created and led the structured product investment team where he was the senior portfolio manager of multiple debt portfolios totaling over $2 billion in assets under management. He subsequently formed Surge Capital Management, a real estate and structured credit investment firm, growing assets under management to over $800 million over the first year of operation. In these leadership roles, he established investor and venture relationships globally, including partnerships in the U.S., Dubai, Asia and Europe.
Rogerio Ramos
Partner
Rogerio Ramos brings his experience in fund management, portfolio management, and fund structuring. Ramos structured and invested in over 80 funds in more than 30 Emerging Markets. He advised HNWI, Family Offices, and Institutional Investors on VC investing, Fund Manager selection, and Corporate Governance. Solid experience working with start-up, early-stage, and mid-market companies. Ramos holds an MBA from Johns Hopkins University, a master’s in International Trade and Investment Policy from George Washington University, and an Executive Program in Venture Capital / Private Equity from Harvard Business School.
Irving Kau
Partner
Irving Kau brings extensive experience in the buy-side/investor, sell-side/advisor, and corporate side. Kau has successfully completed over $100M in investment for 15+ companies and taken 8 companies public on NASDAQ. Based on its unique niche, expertise in growth industry sector and capital markets, primary investments routinely return an average ROI of 50% – 90%. MBA from Rice University in Finance & Strategy and Ph.D. at USC in Business Strategy, and has held FINRA Series 7, 86 & 87 licenses.
Dr. Ralf Köster
Partner
Former CEO of Bartec, an enterprise software company which Ralf built to $500M EUR in annual sales, Germany Entrepreneur of the year. Ralf worked in various Executive and CEO roles in the European and US Technology & Manufacturing sectors e.g. for Honeywell, Lignum and Bartec. He is an experienced company builder and a known expert in the field of international business cooperations with deep expertise in the APAC region and China. Dr. Koester was Entrepreneur of the Year (2015) in Germany.
Adeel Rouf
Partner, TitanIvy International
Adeel Rouf has made a career for himself as a leading expert on special purpose acquisition companies. SPACS are publicly traded companies formed solely to acquire or merge with a private company, providing an alternative route for the target company to go public by bypassing the traditional IPO process
Adeel’s success in this realm has amounted to a total of $1.3 billion raised, two completed IPOs and mergers, and a sharpened expertise for closing billion-dollar deals.
Frank Mastrangelo
Partner, TitanIvy International
Frank Mastrangelo is a banking and payments veteran, having co-founded The Bancorp Bank and served as its CEO, President and COO at various points its inception in 1999. Previously, Frank served as SVP, CTO, and Co-Chair of the Technology Committee for the former Jefferson Bank, where he was responsible for setting the overall technical strategy at Jefferson. Prior to joining Jefferson, Frank worked as a Systems Specialist for PNC Bank’s Family Wealth Management Divison and Technical Representative for ROI Computer Services, Inc. Frank also spent five years as Systems Manager to Walter H. Annenberg and The Annenberg Foundation, where he developed and oversaw technology systems for the Foundation, 40 fiduciary trusts and six charitable trusts with assets totaling $3.2 billion. Frank is a member of FinTech, a Washington, DC-based oversight committee charged with crafting and reviewing legal, regulatory and public policy for technology-driven financial services companies.
Kevin Schubert
Partner, TitanIvy International
Kevin Schubert serves as President & Chief Financial Officer
at Rubicon, a leading digital marketplace for waste and recycling and a provider of innovative software-based solutions for businesses and governments worldwide with 8M+ service locations, 8K+ vendor and hauler partners, $650M in annual revenues. Kevin has held senior executive and advisory roles with multiple public companies, including Red Rock Resorts Inc., the Las Vegas Sands Corp., and he recently held the role of Chief Financial Officer for Ocean Park Group, an early-stage company focused on experiential hospitality.
Schubert holds a JD and an MBA from The University of California, Los Angeles, and a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems from The University of Arizona.
Operating Partners & Advisory Boards