F9 Brands, Inc. owns and manages companies in the building products, home improvement and home décor markets with over $350M in annual sales. To date, the largest of the portfolio companies is Cabinets To Go, the nation’s largest specialty retailer of kitchens, closets and flooring with 100+ stores nationwide. Other companies/brands include Gracious Home, a luxury home goods retailer, Thos Baker, a provider of fine outdoor furniture, and Southwind Building Products, a manufacturer and supplier of flooring to the dealer and commercial markets.

Operating at the investment company level; coordinating and participating in all financial, reporting, integration, tax, cash management, investment, M&A, and operational aspects of multiple businesses and interests.

Initially brought in to reorganize, prep books and records for sale, and help lead divestment of an underperforming closely held business. Role expanded to the rollup, analysis, budgeting and reporting of various wholly owned businesses, commercial real estate investments and private and public investments/holdings of a multi-generational family, their related entities, various operating businesses, investment vehicles and private charitable foundation. Lead private and public investment effort, due diligence, manager selection and portfolio management. Helped update and organize generation skipping trusts, estate plan, gifting, present and future tax optimization.

Founded and headed Avian Securities, a FINRA member, technology/clean energy/med tech focused, institutional research boutique brokerage firm. • Grew firm to always profitable, well respected, full service BD, with over 200 institutional customers, 100+ high net worth customers, covering 150 companies, with employees and assets based in 5 states and 3 different countries• Headed all research efforts including driving 12 industry analysts and cultivating personal relationship with an extensive network of Hedge Funds, Mutual Funds, and PE Funds, private and public companies and their management teams; facilitating the necessary dialog between investors, management teams, analysts, and bankers (many of which inherently do not understand each other’s needs) • FINOP responsible for all accounting functions including all financial and regulatory reporting, budgeting, audit, payroll, and tax planning/positioning, compliance activity including interaction with regulatory agencies (SEC, Justice Department; FINRA, and various state regulators,) SOX Compliance, Focus Filings, OATS reporting, NMS reporting, 606 reporting, writing and maintaining supervisory procedures, AML, counterparty risk evaluations and controls, employee supervision, insider trading assessments and investigations, etc. • Supported sales team and covered a select number of high profile institutional accounts convinced that all manages need to maintain active lines of communications with key customers, so they could adequately and continuously assess the quality and impact of products and services delivered. • Directly involved with over $1B in capital raises; participated in a business plan that brought resources from Israel, Belgium, the UK, and the US together to locate, evaluate, develop, fund and profit from various early stage companies and technologies (primarily in Biotech, medical devices, and high technology.)

- Trader/PM at long/short multinational hedge fund.- Responsible for idea generation, research, hedging efforts (using listed and OTC derivatives), as well as all trading activities.- Met managements, attended conferences, evaluated business (both product potential and balance sheet viability) and developed industry sources in a bottoms-up fundamental effort to pick stocks; used technical analysis and quantitative screenings to supplement fundamental stock picking efforts.- Acquired seminal skills for covering companies including reading managements, anticipating street reactions, and evaluating appreciation potential from (in my opinion) one of the best analysts on the Street.- Involved in all aspects of fund management and risk control.

- Stumbled (through skill and good fortune) into role as senior option trader 6 months out of school.- Responsible for committing (Customer Facilitation) and subsequently trading out of institutional US listed option orders (Senior Institutional Block Option Trader.)- Managed~$100M hedged volatility arbitrage book profitably though the volatile 1994 economic environment; Participated in firm-wide risk control efforts.