Advisors

Advisor

Alex Makhotin

Alex has dedicated his entire life to working with entrepreneurs. Most recently he cofounded Growth Equity Capital Partners (“GECP”) with the stated goal of developing world class organizations through Alex’s personal involvement in operations. Prior to GECP, he held several positions in private equity and investment banking where worked with and advised entrepreneur-owned companies on the growth, recapitalization, and sale of their enterprises. He received his MBA with concentrations in Entrepreneurship, Accounting and Finance from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business where he served as teaching assistant for several of the University’s highest rated entrepreneurship and investment courses. Alex received his B.A. with honors from The American University in Washington DC where he double majored in finance and international management with a minor in the French language.

Advisor

Mario Nigro

Mario Nigro is a partner in the Mergers & Acquisitions and Private Equity & Venture Capital Groups at Stikeman Elliott LLP. His practice focuses on business law, including acquisitions, dispositions, and reorganizations. Mario has extensive experience working with entrepreneurs and Search Funds in Canada.

Advisor

Jim N. Perry

Jim Perry is a Co-founder and Managing Director of Madison Dearborn Partners, a private equity investing firm based in Chicago. Over his 34 year career in private equity, Jim has either led or overseen more than 100 transactions and served on dozens of corporate boards. Jim currently serves on the Boards of Directors of Asurion Corporation, Centennial Towers, Intermedia.net, Inc., Liquid Web, The Topps Company, Univision Communications, Chicago Public Media and several organizations aimed at spurring small business growth and entrepreneurship across the United States and Canada. Jim is a long time investor and mentor of searchers, search funds and institutional funds focused on the search market. Jim holds a B.A. from The University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Advisor

Ed Truant

Ed is currently a principal of Balmoral Wood Litigation Finance, a company he co-founded with his two partners in 2015. At BWLF, Ed is responsible for investor relations, manager identification and all aspects of fund management, due diligence and manager allocation/portfolio construction. Ed has over 20 years of experience in mid-market private equity investing and M&A advisory experience, having previously been a partner at Imperial Capital Group a Toronto based mid-market private equity group.

Advisor

Mark MacTavish

Mark has over 25 years of experience as an investor and advisor. As an investor, Mark invests personal capital in select lower middle market businesses and certain non-private equity asset classes. As a value-added advisor, Mark sits on several operating company and philanthropic Boards as well as on Investment Committees and Advisory Boards for select private equity investment entities. From 2000 until Mark resigned in 2021 to focus on investment opportunities outside of institutional middle market private equity Mark held various senior leadership positions at ONCAP, the North American middle market private equity platform of Onex Corporation, in both Toronto and New York where he joined as one of the four initial founding hires and helped grow and lead the firm over four successively larger private equity funds. Prior to joining ONCAP Mark held private equity positions at Lehman Brothers in New York and J.H. Whitney & Company in Connecticut.  Mark holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Queen’s University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.