Daniel Peña is Chairman and Founder of The Guthrie Group (TGG), an investment consortium specializing in facilitating transactions, founded in 1997. With offices in the UK and Asia, it has acted as principal, advisor and agent to global and regional companies and institutions. Mr. Peña has a solid track record of building successful companies, understands and knows what it takes to manage rapid growth, as well as the practicalities of running an aggressive acquisition campaign.
Mr. Peña was also founder, former Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Great Western Resources Inc (GWRI), a Houston-based natural resource company which he took public on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). At the time of Mr. Peña’s decision to retire, GWRI was operational in the US, the Gulf of Mexico, the UK and South America and had a public market capitalization of $450 million (approximately $1 billion today), with interests in coal, and oil and gas exploration and production, drilling and construction pipeline. At the time the company was acquired in January 1997, he was the biggest individual shareholder.
Prior to founding GWRI, he was the Chairman of JPK Industries, Inc., a vertically integrated company in the petroleum industry, involved in oil and gas drilling, operating, production, crude oil refining and marketing. Prior to JPK Industries, he was with the investment banking firm of Bear Stearns and Co. where he advised clients throughout the US and internationally. Subsequent to this tenure at Bear Stearns, he served as President and CEO of Kennedy Industries Inc., a company with major interests in real estate, insurance, financial services, and the entertainment industry.
Mr. Peña has successfully negotiated transactions with many multinationals, all BIG 4 accountancy firms, many major international financial institutions and law firms and several foreign governments. In addition, he has successfully transacted business with both the Church and Bank of England. He currently serves as Chairman of his personal holding and other growing companies in various industries in the US, Europe, Canada and Asia.
Mr. Peña is the founder of Quantum Leap Advantage (QLA), the revolutionary method for super success with over 25 years of proven track record that have produced over $50 Billion of equity/value, since 1993. Mr. Peña with his mentees and devotees have created an unprecedented level of super success, producing from 7 figures to 11 figures wealth creation in various industries around the world. Mr. Peña’s principal instrument of success is his QLA Mentor Program used in conjunction with the step by step QLA Methodology that he personally used to create $450 Million. Together with laser beam focus, Mr. Peña has mentored and coached countless to achieve their dreams.
In recent years, since retiring, he has given keynote addresses, interactive workshops, seminars and conferences on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific on building businesses exponentially and has been recognized as a “super success high-performance business coach” and mentor. Mr. Peña still gives his week-long exclusive QLA High-Performance Business Success Seminars at his 15th-century storybook home Guthrie Castle, Scotland.
His achievements have garnered many multiple awards and recognitions, most recently he was the recipient of the “Order Of St John” appointed by Her Majesty The Queen, Washington National Cathedral, Washington, DC (Oct. 2017).
Jeremy Dickens has been a private equity and capital markets attorney with leading international law firms for more than 30 years. He has extensive M&A and investment experience on behalf of private equity firms, public and private businesses, family offices and a variety of other investors. He also has substantial experience with private and public capital markets transactions, acting for issuers and underwriters.
As an attorney in private practice, Jeremy worked on M&A transactions and IPO, high yield debt and other capital markets transactions aggregating over $15 billion in value, and served as the lead corporate lawyer on corporate restructurings, shareholder litigation, internal investigations, and SEC investigations. He has also served as a director of private equity-backed companies and, from 2007-2009, was President and a director of the holding company parent of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. As President of EMPG, he lead the company’s $4 billion acquisition of Harcourt Education from Reed Elsevier PLC and the $750 million sale of its college publishing business to Cengage, among other strategic transactions, and lead the company’s first financial restructuring of its then $12 billion capital structure.
Jeremy received his A.B, magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College, and his J.D., with high honors, from The University of Texas School of Law and was a judicial law clerk in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Vincent Hillery is a pro-active general counsel who has worked in a diverse business setting such as TCF Inventory Finance and the Transamerica Finance Corporation. As a Partner at Mayer Brown, he represented clients in corporate, commercial finance and other business transactions and matters as well as Fortune 500 and privately held companies in acquisitions, divestitures, mergers, joint ventures and other matters.
Vincent has managed the legal affairs of a $15 billion diversified global finance company with multiple business lines, as well as a $2 billion inventory finance company. He is an exceptional Legal Counsel that is immensely capable in handling legal activities in and within diverse businesses and firms, conversant with advising management regarding legal issues, policies, and matters affecting general finance operations. Currently serving as the National Practice Director at Patina Solutions — In-House Legal Solutions for an executive search, interim placement and project assignment firm.
Vincent has over 30 years of legal experience and is knowledgeable about most of the processes and procedures relating to corporate governance, corporate law, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, international transactions, joint ventures, commercial finance, litigation, risk management, insurance and securities law. He attended the University Of Chicago — A.B. Economics (1981) and came out with multiple university awards and recognitions. In 1984 he earned his JD from University of Chicago Law School where he was awarded the Mandel Prize (outstanding student in Mandel Legal Aid Clinic 1983-1984). Admitted to Illinois State Bar (1984), U.S. District Court N.D. Illinois (1984).
Edward James is an accomplished executive with over 25 years of experience leading organizations through transformation, M&A (over 40 transactions), and aggressive growth cycles. Edward’s background includes leadership roles in organizations from startups to global leaders in the transportation/logistics, consumer packaged goods, retail/wholesale, technology/telecom, professional services, and business/legal process outsourcing industries.
Most recently, Edward served as the Chief Financial Officer of the largest eDiscovery/LPO service provider in the world, Epiq ($1.1 Billion in revenue), leading the organization through significant organic and acquisitive growth events that resulted in 4X growth in revenue and a global expansion.
Edward earned an MBA from Cumberland University and lives in Atlanta where he is an active member of his church and community.
John Schmidt was Founder and Partner-In-Charge of the Transaction Advisory Practice Group of RSM US, a $5 Billion global accounting firm with 800 offices in 120 countries. His focus from 2003 until retirement in 2015 was on leading teams in performing approximately 500 financial due diligence projects for private equity funds and strategic buyers. John started this practice group in 2003 with two other Partners. Today there are approximately 350 full-time professionals in this practice group.
John brings experience in accounting, tax and business consulting, with a specialization in financial, tax and information technology due diligence. John’s focus has been on providing buy-side due diligence and sell-side assistance, which includes consultation on terms of letters of intent, purchase agreements and post-closing working capital disputes to middle-market private equity funds and domestic and international corporate acquirers. Transaction enterprise values have ranged from $5 million to in excess of $300 million.
John accumulated over 30 years of experience in leadership roles, starting immediately after graduating from Northern Illinois University in 1971. John earned a BS degree in Accountancy in 1971 and subsequently completed a 4-year firm sponsored Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.
Tom Hunter has over 35 years in the lighting business and is knowledgeable about most of the players in the industry directly or as competitors, customers or suppliers. He is familiar with most of the emerging technologies from a product and market development standpoint.
In his career, Tom has been the Head of Sales and Marketing for three major lighting companies in the US, and VP of the Fluorescent Product Group for Acuity Brands Lighting. There he was responsible for all aspects of the largest product group in the lighting fixture industry. He is currently retired from full time employment and is now consulting on a project-by-project basis. He is currently a consultant for start-up companies with technology for powering and controlling lighting fixtures.
Tom has been a member of the Progress Committee of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) for several years. The Progress Committee meets each year to evaluate all the new advances in design and technology in the lighting industry and report to the Society on those they find significant. He has given many seminars on energy conservation, the Green Revolution and emerging lighting technologies. He has also worked with The Clinton Climate Initiative and NAESCO (National Association of Energy Service Companies).
Mark Johnson is a ‘graduate’ of U.S. Department of Energy, Navigant Consulting, IBM Energy/Utilities & Schneider Electric with extensive clean energy experience that helps him ‘connect the dots’.
Mark’s successful leadership of multi-billion-dollar organizations includes Smart Cities Chief of Schneider Electric where he increased sales revenues profitably by over +$300M to new customers and closed new projects across $11B North American business. Mark served at the U.S. Department of Energy Headquarters in Washington, DC as the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Program’s Head, ‘standing-up’ the $11 billion funding program from ground-zero to over 2,500 cities, counties, states and tribes with educational outreach guidance workshops and technical assistance. He was also a senior executive and public corporate officer of Navigant Consulting, the largest global energy consultancy; IBM Energy/Utilities and Oil-Dri Corporation deploying multi-million-dollar clean energy projects.
Mark has deployed energy-efficiency and renewable-energy projects nationwide, automated systems with integrated analytics, benchmarking and tracking metrics to prove project efficacy, and increased productivity by identifying energy efficiency and renewable energy best-practices. Mark has an MBA from Loyola Chicago and BA from the University of Notre Dame. He is also a licensed Certified General Contractor who knows the engineering and deployment details of construction and building.
Olena Zhytnytska has over 10-year experience in technology and development with a demonstrated track record with both commercial and civic organizations. Starting as a junior engineer, she built her career around IT and telecommunications. In just three years she became the Head of Project Management, one year after becoming the Head of Development, soon after becoming Chief Technology Officer.
Olena is skilled at Project Management, Requirements Analysis, Agile Methodologies, and Global Delivery. She has successfully released well over 100 projects for small, medium, large and many fortune 500 companies, including Coca-Cola, Samsung, Microsoft, Ogilvy, Havas, McCann, Ferrero, Kimberly-Clark, Alfa-Bank and unite4:good.
Olena is a strong business development professional with a Master’s Degree focused in Fiber-Optic Communication, Computer Networks, Tropospheric Scatter, Satellite Radio Systems and Broadcasting from the Military Institute of Telecommunication and Informatization (Kyiv Polytechnic Institute).
Oleg Melikhov has 15 years of Product Architecture, Product Design and Product Development experience. His professional career was built on a foundation of Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Advertising, Social Media, Search Engine Optimization, Digital Content Distribution and Graphic Design. He currently holds leaderships roles with a focus on deal sourcing, financing and strategy.
Oleg is a serial entrepreneur that has continued to learn from 20 years of success and failure. After launching his first business in his early teens, he launched and participated in a dozen technology startup companies. One of his eye-opening professional learning experiences was working with hundreds of nonprofit foundations around the United States in an effort amplify their reach through digital channels.
A graduate of University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) with dual degrees in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, Oleg prefers hands on experience over traditional academia. Additionally, he completed a non-degree International Business program at Sophia University (上智大学) in Tokyo, Japan.