Ted White – Managing Director

 

Ted White is co-founder and a Managing Director of Legion Partners Asset Management.

Prior to founding Legion Partners, he most recently served in various functions with Knight Vinke Asset Management, a European-based activist fund manager. Positions included Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer, where he was responsible for finance, operations, legal, marketing and client service functions. He is a former Deputy Director of the Council of Institutional Investors (CII), where responsibilities included policy development and implementation. Previous to Knight Vinke, White was a Portfolio Manager, Director of Corporate Governance, for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (“CalPERS”), where he was responsible for all components of its Governance Program, including $3 billion in active management, policy development and implementation, proxy voting and focused engagement activities. Prior to CalPERS, White was an Investment Officer – Deputy State Treasurer at the California State Treasurer’s Office, where his duties included fixed income portfolio analysis and trading, among other responsibilities.  He is a current member of the Council of Institutional Investors Corporate Governance Advisory Council.  White served as Co-Chairman of the Executive Remuneration Committee of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) until December 2014 and is a former member of the Standing Advisory Group for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).

White earned an MBA from California State University in Sacramento with a concentration in finance. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Legion Partners is a deep-value oriented activist investor focused in the small/mid cap space in North America.  It was seeded at the beginning of 2014 by CalSTRS with a $200MM commitment.

Legion Partners believes that shareholder engagement/activism can help to catalyze change and is critical for long term investment success.  The firm tends to work behind the scenes so that ideally no one even knows that they are involved with a company, but they have and are willing to be publicly involved, take board seats, and run proxy contests when they believe it is in shareholders’ best long-term interests.  In addition to the fund, they make co-investments (single stock funds) where they want to own a greater percentage of a target company.

 

 

 

 

Jason Wild is the President and Chief Investment Officer of JW Asset Management, LLC.   The firm has a strong history of finding opportunities within the healthcare sector, investing in both private and public companies.  Since inception in 1999, JW Partners, LP has gained 27.31% annually net of all fees and expenses compared to 6.27% for the S&P 500 during the same period. (Ending 8/31/18)  Mr. Wild is the Chairman of the Board at Arbor Pharmaceuticals, a private pharmaceutical company based in Atlanta, Georgia where JW Asset Management along with KKR are the company’s two largest investors.   JW has been an active investor in the Cannabis sector since 2014, investing in many of the sector leaders, including Canopy Growth, Cronos Group and TerrAscend Corp., where he is the Chairman of the Board.

Amy Rosen Wildstein is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Springboard Growth Capital. She has twenty five years of direct investment experience. Ms. Wildstein started her career at the Blackstone Group, working on principal investments as well as mergers & acquisitions. Subsequently, she joined Morgan Stanley Capital Partners where she evaluated and structured investments for the firm’s $2.0 billion investment fund, focusing on buyouts and growth equity investments across a range of industries, including consumer, media, technology and healthcare. In 1999, Ms. Wildstein co-founded Solera Capital, a private equity fund with an all-women team. She was involved with fund formation, capital raising and the development of the Fund’s investment strategy. In 2001, Ms. Wildstein co-founded Boldcap Ventures, investing in early to mid-stage companies in media/technology and life sciences and leveraging an investor base of women entrepreneurs and executives.

Ms. Wildstein has played key roles in developing and executing financing strategies for portfolio companies, including public equity and debt financings, bank facilities, and private equity placements. She is also experienced in managing and monitoring existing portfolio companies and has served on the board of directors of private and public companies. Ms. Wildstein serves on the National Advisory Board of Springboard Enterprises and is a member of the NY Fashion Tech Lab Expert Network. She is on the Board of the University of Michigan Social Venture Fund and the Board of Advisors to the Dean of the Ross School of Business. Ms. Wildstein received a Bachelor of Business Administration with Distinction from the University of Michigan.

 

 

John Wise is CEO and Chairman of the Board of Loci, Inc., a high-growth tech company that is redefining the world of innovation by developing a platform technology which maps the landscape of innovation. Loci takes search and analysis to the next step. It’s software is the poised to be the leader of the next generation of search engines which looks backward to outline direct ancestors of a concept and looks forward to outline direct descendants of a concept.

John has extensive technical and engineering management experience with a proven track record of successfully creating, developing, and implementing new products and services, managing organizational and product growth, and creating process improvements.

Mr. Wise has been granted a patent pertaining to invention research, involving a wide breadth of technical disciplines. He has three more patents pending, and over eighteen more in the drafting process.

John is also an experienced inventor in auto racing technologies with around 1000 inventions. In roles such as lead mechanic, crew chief, design engineer, team manager, data acquisitions, and technology consultant. John has won several national and world championships in his racing tenure, including leading GMG’s Alec Udell to the 2016 Pirelli World Challenge Championship.

As CEO of Loci Inc., John is bringing a unique perspective to the team. One from the user’s eyes. In many ways he is the ideal customer for Loci. This helps direct the team to a clear common goal. In addition, he brings a refreshing optimism to the team, with the critical engineering eye for getting things done.

 

Joseph L. Wisniewski is a Partner with Deloitte Tax LLP. He has over 30 years of experience consulting clients on various tax matters. He specializes in tax issues relating to partnerships, real estate investment trusts and unrelated business income tax for the real estate industry. He has served a wide range of real estate clients including private equity firms, pension advisors, institutional investors, REITs, and developers. Specifically, Joe assists clients with structuring fund formations for both domestic and international investment in real estate as well as real estate investment trusts (REITs) structuring, debt restructurings, merger and acquisition transactions, due diligence projects and ongoing operational tax matters. Joe also has significant experience helping companies design fund structures which accommodate the tax sensitivities of various domestic and international investor types.

In addition to his client responsibilities, Joe also leads Deloitte’s real estate practice in the Central Region. In this role he is responsible for facilitating strategic growth and innovation as well as overseeing the provision of client service to our real estate clients.

Joe attended Northern Illinois University where he received a B.S. in Accounting. He also holds a J.D. with distinction from The John Marshall Law School. He is a member of many professional and civic organizations including the ABA, AICPA, Northern Illinois University Business School Board of Advisors, Roosevelt University Real Estate School Board of Advisors, NAREIT, ULI and many others.