Jeff was born in Santa Monica, California and is a fourth generation Southern Californian. He holds a Masters in Management from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Columbia University.

Jeff most recently served as Lead Case Writer at the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where he worked with Stanford faculty and some of the world’s preeminent business leaders and entrepreneurs to develop cutting-edge research and coursework for the school’s entrepreneurship classes. Previously, Jeff served as co-founder and CEO of Beam, an industrial safety management software startup for manufacturing companies. 

In his free time, Jeff enjoys baseball, basketball, surfing, grilling, and writing. Jeff and his wife Balyn, an assistant professor in UCSF’s Pharmaceutical Chemistry Department and Cardiovascular Research Institute, currently live in San Francisco.

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Brian was born on a U.S. military base in Tacoma, Washington. A military brat whose father retired as a Master Sergeant after 24 years in the U.S. Air Force, Brian grew up in Washington, Korea, Japan, Texas, and Germany, where he graduated from a U.S. military high school. Brian was the first in his family to attend college, graduating magna cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Princeton University.

Brian most recently was the head of technology investing at Newbrook Capital Advisors, an investment fund based in New York City. At Newbrook, Brian was responsible for sourcing, researching, and monitoring investments in the software, services, and hardware industries.

In his free time, Brian enjoys football, baseball, automobiles, history, and learning about technology. Brian and his girlfriend Heidi, a physician’s assistant at the breast cancer center at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, currently live in New York City.

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Pacific Lake Partners is a $200M AUM investment firm dedicated exclusively to investing in private companies through the search fund model. Co-founded by Jim Southern and Coley Andrews, Pacific Lake's experience spans from the first search fund acquisition in 1984 by Jim Southern to today. The firm has invested in over 100 search funds in the last five years across the United States, Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, and Africa. Pacific Lake's team of full-time professionals and Special Limited Partners bring a mix of deep search fund investing and growth-company operating experience to support our entrepreneurs.

Trilogy Search Partners is a closely-held investment firm that invests in acquisitions of small, profitable companies, sourced primarily through the search fund model. Trilogy’s roots include the formation and leadership of some of the largest mobile operations in the US as well as other global technology and wireless companies.  Trilogy partners with search fund entrepreneurs, providing them with expertise and capital throughout the process of sourcing, acquiring and operating companies that meet their criteria.

TTCER is an investment partnership established by key founding team members and investors in Asurion, the world’s leading provider of technology protection and support services for mobile devices. TTCER draws on a long history of operating and investing together to advise and collaborate with entrepreneurs with whom they have developed strong relationships. They invest only their own personal capital with a goal to drive superior long-term returns and help the leaders they work with build and grow enduring companies.

David Dodson has been active for twenty-five years in the formation of new businesses through entrepreneurial acquisition. Prior to entering the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Dodson worked at McKinsey & Company, where he worked for clients in oil field services, gas pipelines, liquefied natural gas, and offshore drilling. After graduating from the GSB, under the direction of Professor Irv Grousbeck, he wrote the original course material for search funds—then in its infancy. After one year as a case writer, David raised his own search fund.

Between 1990 and 2004, Dodson operated as CEO or Executive Chairman of five companies, including co-founding Wind River Environmental, the largest specialty trucking company of its kind; ADAP, Inc., an auto parts retailer that was eventually sold to Auto Zone; Smith Alarm Systems, Inc.; Paragon Systems, Inc.; and Worldbridge Broadband Services Inc, which was eventually sold to C-Corp.

Dodson has been an active mentor and investor in over fifty early stage companies, and has been on the board of directors of over a dozen companies, including Asurion, LLC, an insurance company with over 15,000 employees operating in 14 countries.

David is a resident of Wyoming and has three daughters: Caroline, Hannah, and Rachel; and his loving wife Wendy.

Gerald is an entrepreneur, investor, and educator. He currently serves as Vice Chairman of Asurion, the world’s largest provider of technology protection services, serving more than 250 million consumers globally.  Prior to serving as Vice Chairman, he served as Asurion’s President, and as Asurion’s Chief Financial Officer prior to that.  During Gerald’s almost two decades at the company, revenue has grown from $15 million to greater than $6 billion.

As an investor, he has supported the entrepreneurial journey of a large number of leadership teams in the for profit and not for profit sectors.  He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Carillon Assisted Living (provider of assisted living services in the Southeast), Datacor (ERP software for the chemical industry), National Video Monitoring (regional provider of video surveillance services), Sunrun (provider of residential solar services), and QMC Telecom (wireless infrastructure provider in Latin America).  He is a Trustee of the Nueva School and an investor in FARM, a social impact investment firm.  Gerald is also a Lecturer in Management at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

Gerald began his professional career with Goldman, Sachs & Co.  He holds an MBA from Stanford and a Bachelor's Degree in Commerce from Queen’s University in Canada. Gerald lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two sons.

Jim Ellis is a Lecturer in Management at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He is currently teaching two strategic management courses that center around the early stages of the entrepreneurial process.

Prior to coming to Stanford, Mr. Ellis held a number of positions with both large and small companies. In 1995, Mr. Ellis cofounded Asurion with Kevin Taweel to provide value-added solutions for the wireless communications industry. Previously responsible for Asurion’s sales and marketing efforts, Mr. Ellis is an active member of the company’s board of directors. Mr. Ellis has also held positions as a research associate at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and as a consultant with IMG and Cresap, McCormick, and Paget. He is a member of a number of Boards of Directors including BUILD, Asurion, Service Source Inc., Memento Press, Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, and Southern California Risk Management Associates.

Mr. Ellis holds an MBA from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree with high honors in economics from Dartmouth College. He is also a recipient of Ernst and Young’s prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Will founded Housatonic Partners in Boston in 1994 and has been Managing Director since that time. Prior to founding Housatonic, Will worked with T. Rowe Price Associates and Walker & Company where he was named to the Board of Directors. Will has over two decades of experience investing in recurring service companies across a wide variety of industries.

Will is a Director of Carillon Assisted Living, Lincoln Peak Holdings, QMC International, and ZircoDATA. Outside of Housatonic, he is a Director of WGBH, the College of the Atlantic (Chair), as well as a founding partner at FARM, a social impact investing collaborative. He is the author of The Outsiders.

Will holds an A.B. from Harvard College and M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Doug Tudor is an active investor with diverse experience in operating, acquiring and scaling high-growth businesses.

He is Managing Partner of Ravenscourt Partners, a private investment firm focused on teaming with executives to build leading middle market, technology-enabled service companies. He spent nine years as a senior executive at Asurion, the leading global provider of technology protection services, which grew from $225 million to $4.8 billion in revenue during his tenure. Prior to that, he raised a search fund and was co-founder and President of Clear Creek Environmental.

Mr. Tudor received a Bachelor of Arts in History from Brown University and a Masters of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Peter Kelly is a Board Director of ResponseLink, LLC, eCompliance LLC, AquaVita Holdings, Krueger-Gilbert Health Physics, Inc., and NorthStar Anesthesia. He is the former Chief Financial Officer, President and Chief Executive Officer, from 1993 to 2010, of Pacific Pulmonary Services (“PPS”), a healthcare provider of home respiratory services acquired in 1993 by the search fund that Kelly co-founded. Since 2008 PPS has been a subsidiary of a multinational company. 

Kelly is a former Board Director of PPS, Guardian Home Care Holdings, Inc., Medical Equipment Distributors, Inc., The Governance Institute Inc., the Council for Quality Respiratory Care, and the American Association for Homecare. He also teaches a course at IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain and is an investor in private companies and active search funds. Prior work experience includes TA Associates, a risk capital firm where he originated investments in software and communication companies. 

Kelly was an undergraduate student at Stanford, where he received both a Bachelor of Arts in Science, Technology and Social Theory and a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering in 1985. After working in venture capital, he returned to Stanford and earned an MBA from the Graduate School of Business.

Rick Gustafson has spent the majority of his career in Silicon Valley as a serial technology company CFO, with the last fifteen years focused on guiding enterprise SaaS companies through key growth and transition stages. He most recently spent eight years as the CFO of ServiceMax, the industry's leading field service management SaaS company, where he was a key contributor to the company’s strategy, rapid growth and $1 billion acquisition by GE Digital (NYSE: GE).

Previously, he served in CFO roles at Genius.com, a marketing automation SaaS company (acquired by CALD), Coupa Software (IPO: COUP), an eProcurement SaaS provider, and Ketera Technologies, a spend management SaaS company.

Gustafson earned an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a BA in Economics/Business from UCLA.

Andrew is the CEO of Integra Partners, a leading, tech-enabled, healthcare services company.

Prior to joining Integra, Andrew was the managing partner of Duane Street Capital, a private investment firm. He has also held roles at Vestar Capital Partners and Goldman Sachs, & Co. Andrew has been successfully involved with numerous entrepreneurial growth companies, including Bonobos, New Media Learning, Second Time Around and Axial Markets.

Andrew holds a Bachelor's degree from Emory University and an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business.

TBU

Kent Weaver is currently Chairman and CEO of Progressive Home Care, a Northern California-based health care company. Previously, Kent held executive positions in marketing and product management for a VC-backed marketing automation startup, as a regional CFO and business analyst in Pepsico's Pizza Hut Division, and as a management consultant at Ernst & Young.

Kent received his MBA from the Fully Employed Program at the University of California, Los Angeles and BS in finance from the University of Southern California.

Kent is currently a board member at VRI, Discovery Outsourcing, Data Fusion Technologies, Onesource Water, Integra Partners and Healthwyse.

TBU

Lucas was CEO and Ryan the President and Chairman of the Board of OnRamp. OnRamp provides computing infrastructure for companies that require high levels of security and availability.

Prior to OnRamp, Lucas worked as a consultant for Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman).  Lucas holds an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and a B.A. in Government from Dartmouth College.

Prior to OnRamp, Ryan worked for Aero Logistics and worked as an investment professional at Farallon Capital Management.  Ryan holds an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.  He received a B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

TBU

Will is the CEO and G.J, the President of RIA in a Box.  RIA in a Box is a financial services firm that provides the leading number of registrations and ongoing compliance services to RIAs (Registered Investment Advisers) throughout the United States.

Will is a former manager of business development at LX.TV, a digital media content provider acquired by NBC Universal in 2008. Bressman joined the company at its founding and during its growth, Bressman helped broker distribution and content partnerships. Prior to LX.TV, Bressman worked on strategy and analytics projects at Good Morning America. Bressman holds an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and is a graduate of Harvard College magna cum laude with a degree in History

G.J. previously worked in the investment management division of Goldman Sachs serving as a trusted advisor to a select group of high net worth entrepreneurs, families, and foundations. King holds an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and a B.A. from Brown University where he graduated magna cum laude.

Angel and Guillermo are co-founders and managing partners of Alza Capital Partners. Angel and Guillermo are some of the pioneers of the search fund industry in Mexico and Latin America having raised their first search fund, Lottus Capital Partners, in 2013. Through this search fund, Angel and Guillermo acquired Universidad Tres Culturas, a private university in Mexico City, which they ran as Co-CEOs and successfully sold in 2017 achieving an IRR of 65%.

Angel and Guillermo combine over 20 years of valuable experience as private equity investors and CEO-level operators, and have experience in every phase of the search fund model including fundraising, deal sourcing, financial analysis, M&A, business management and high level board advisory.