SAGE PARTNERS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Partner / San Francisco, CA
Cedric Crocker works with start-ups, social ventures, and established media, digital learning, professional development, and publishing enterprises in the United States and Europe.
Cedric is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, where serves as District Chair, Europe/Middle East/Africa for the Alumni Association Leadership Award, as a Dean's Seed Fund Grant Judge for the Haas School of Business, and Mentor at the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Program. He is a Trustee of Common Purpose, a U.K. charitable trust devoted to developing leaders who can cross boundaries and is Senior Advisor to the European Learning Industry Group (ELIG), a European Commission-sponsored consortium of companies and universities committed to changing the way Europe learns.
David Rosenblum has nearly 40 years experience as a management consultant and advisor across a wide range of industries, with particular focus on healthcare and financial services. He has worked intensively in the areas of strategy, finance, and M&A, with a particular focus on helping clients achieve strategic value through acquisitions and divestitures. As a senior partner at Deloitte Consulting, he led the strategy service line; was COO for a highly successful $800 million business unit; and established and led a corporate development function that, over a two year period, screened over 200 potential transactions, closing 10 deals that positioned the firm in key high growth markets. He is an advisor to a well-known private equity firm and has advised on both the buy and sell-sides since retiring from Deloitte Consulting in 2013. He is an advisor to a medical diagnostics start-up and a LP in an early stage venture capital fund.
Donald holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson with an emphasis on international business and a BS in Physiology from the University of California Davis. When not advising management teams, he can be found at Soliste, the boutique winery he co-founded in Sonoma County, or in the kitchen where he enjoys the wine country lifestyle with his wife and two rescue dogs.
Job Titles:
- Founding Partner of Sage Partners LLC
Edward F. (Ted) West has 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur and advisor to founders and boards of innovative companies and start-ups. He has demonstrated leadership and results in venture growth, strategic management, marketing and product innovation, business and corporate development, fundraising, team building, organization development, and successful strategic exits.
Mr. West is a Founding Partner of Sage Partners LLC and its Lead Partner in Venture Acceleration. Since 2004, he has advised start-ups including Memetrics (digital marketing optimization, sold to Accenture), GetMeIn (online ticket sales, sold to Ticketmaster), BOHH Labs (breakthrough cloud data security), Giving Assistant (e-commerce for social good), and Strateq Health (advanced healthcare information and analytics solutions).
Mr. West served as Chair and Interim CEO of LookSmart (search advertising, NASDAQ-listed) and as senior executive at Pacific Telesis.
Companies need more than just ideas and enthusiasm, they need strategy, structure, people and culture to focus their efforts, be it to drive innovation, capture new markets or dominate existing ones. Hugo is adept at helping CEOs and their teams focus where it matters most. Notably, even focused efforts do not alone deliver solutions. Hugo understands that the great enabler of good strategy - is pragmatism and moving quickly. And leveraging one's network to great effect. Hugo opens doors where others see only walls
Hugo studied civil and corporate law at the University of Nijmegen and tax law at the University of Leiden. He attended various curriculums, a.o. at IMD (Lausanne, Switzerland). Hugo's initial professional career was in tax and legal advisory, with Deloitte The Netherlands.
Hugo has been on various Boards such as the Dutch Red Cross; Round Table; the Dutch-Czech Chamber of Commerce and many more. He was also a candidate for the European Parliament on behalf of a cross-political initiative focusing on a strong Europe taking social responsibility for all. Hugo lives with his wife Marianne in the Swiss Alps.
John E. Conway brings over 25 years of enterprise and management consulting experience to Sage Partners. He has worked extensively with and developed game-changing strategies and tactics for Media/Entertainment/Sports, Consumer Electronics, Healthcare, Telecommunications and Aerospace/Defense industry sectors. His clients have ranged from AT&T and IBM to DirecTV and The Walt Disney Company as well as numerous start-up ventures. He served as co-founder and CEO of the sports media/product venture, Electric Red.
John has spent almost his entire 30-year consulting career assisting the leadership of large businesses, SMEs and start-ups - both domestically and overseas -- to develop and implement business strategies and address other "big issues" of strategic importance.
He has held leadership roles in strategy consulting practices at EY, PwC, Accenture, and Booz & Co (now Strategy&). His consulting engagements have focused on: enterprise, business unit, customer and product strategies; business model development and refinement; value proposition development; growth strategy (e.g., market and product assessment and market entry); strategic marketing (e.g., customer experience, branding, positioning); financial modeling; and, process/performance improvement. John is particularly adept at - and has a passion for - working with clients to create logical, compelling, analytically-supported stories for investors, boards, management and employees.
While much of John's work has been performed for financial services clients, he has also led client engagements in industries including technology, consumer products and pharmaceuticals. John has spoken at banking and branding industry conferences, has contributed to articles in industry publications and has also led industry studies (e.g., the Bank Administration Institute (BAI) biennial Consumer Payments Preferences Study).
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Director
- Partner Emeritus / San Francisco, CA
John R. Gaulding is a co-founder and director of Sage Partners. He currently serves on the board of directors of Monster Worldwide, Inc., (Nasdaq: MNST) the parent of Monster.com, the world's largest internet career site. He also serves on the board of Yellow Pages Group, Inc., the largest media company in Canada (Toronto: YEL) and ANTS Software, a publicly-held database software company.
Larry specializes in growth, governance and organization. He co-developed and leads the Opportunity Oversight practice of Sage Partners. He has advised companies in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Russia. He was U.S. President of the SIAR, Managing Partner of the MAC Group, Senior Vice President of Gemini Consulting, and has practiced independently. At the MAC Group he co-founded the practice, "Managing Strategic Change", co-led the Industrial Practice and directed the firm's overall practice development process. He co-authored the article Bringing Opportunity Oversight Onto the Board's Agenda published in March 2013 by MIT Sloan Management Review and serves on the Advisory Board of "Strategy & Leadership".
Be it with start-ups, scale-ups and mature businesses, Marc has been focused on accelerating outcomes and delivering measurable results. His reputation is that of a creative problem solver, putting into play solutions, which notably, can be sustained by the teams on whom the organization will depend, long after Marc's engagement is over.
Job Titles:
- of Counsel / Los Angeles, CA
Michael D. King is retired from IBM, where he served as the vice president and general manager, global education industry, with responsibility for strategy, marketing, and sales across schools and higher education. He oversaw all facets of IBM's work with K-12 schools and higher education institutions, including the development of industry-specific solutions. IBM's portfolio in education includes consulting and information technology services, analytics tools, and other software, as well as cloud and high-performance computing.
Mimi Macksoud brings over 35 years of experience in diverse industries and companies to Sage Partners. She is co-Leader of Sage Partners' Opportunity Oversight practice. She has worked extensively as an advisor to CEOs, CMOs, other C-suite executives and boards of directors, and has considerable operational experience as an entrepreneur, CEO, and chief marketing officer. Mimi is currently a member of the board of directors of Community Consulting Teams of Boston, Inc. where she co-chairs the Client Development Committee. She is also a Trustee and Co-Chair of Danforth Art, where she is a member of the Governance Committee.
Rich Schneider brings 40 years of advisory consulting experience in a variety of industries and with organizations of all sizes. He has served as a trusted advisor for leaders who have grown into ever increasing responsibilities and achieved multiple successes. He works with boards and executive management teams on challenges of growth, new business entry, and pursuing big opportunities.
Rich received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is a "semi-retired" instrument-rated private pilot, amateur race car driver, and blue-water sailor. He currently enjoys tamer hobbies such as advanced photography and boating along the New England coast. He and his wife live in the Boston area.
Bob Kueppers spent virtually his entire career with Deloitte LLP, and as a partner from 1986 through May 2015. Kueppers background is in the firm's audit practice, although many of his responsibilities covered the entire firm including consulting and tax in addition to audit. Kueppers served Deloitte as Deputy CEO, Vice Chairman and Managing Partner of the Center for Corporate Governance prior to his retirement.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder of the Strategy Consulting Firm Braxton Associates
Tom brings his deep knowledge of strategy and governance to a variety of Board assignments, including: serving as the Lead Director and Chair of the Compensation Committee for Natrol (NTOL: NASDAQ), a manufacturer and marketer of vitamins and supplements, StratBridge where his focus was strategy and growth, Healthwise, a not-for-profit at the center of changes to health care, and on the Advisory Board for the Dean of Penn State's College of Engineering. In addition, Tom was the inaugural Chair of the World Economic Forum's Technology Pioneers, and served as a director of Advanced Ticketing Systems (UK).
Job Titles:
- Founding Partner of Sequel Venture Partners
William E. (Bill) Mitchell is the Founding Partner of Sequel Venture Partners, LLC (www.sequelvp.com, formerly Sequel Capital Management, LLC), formed in January 2011 to support companies, not-for-profits, and individuals who provide innovative products and services that make our world a better place. Bill invests to make a difference.