Executive Officers

Lee Einbinder, 59
Chief Executive Officer & Director

Mr. Einbinder was a Vice Chairman at Barclays prior to retiring in August 2019. He was responsible for senior client relationships across the financial services industry, including Banks, Specialty Finance, Financial Technology, Asset Management and Financial Sponsors. Mr. Einbinder was at Barclays since the acquisition of Lehman Brothers in 2008, and during that time was also co-Head of the Financial Institutions Group and a member of the Investment Banking Operating Committee. Prior to joining Barclays, Mr. Einbinder worked at Lehman Brothers from 1996 to 2008, where he was Head of the Specialty Finance group and founded the Financial Technology group. He previously worked in similar capacities at CS First Boston and Salomon Brothers. Mr. Einbinder recently joined the Advisory Board of Communitas Capital Partners, an early stage venture capital fund for FinTech and marketplace companies, and the Investment Committee of Nassau Street Ventures, an investment fund affiliated with Alumni Ventures Group. Mr. Einbinder is also a Director, Treasurer, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Roxbury Land Trust. He received his M.B.A. with Distinction from the Wharton School and his B.S.E. cum laude from Princeton University.

Howard Kurz, 62
President, Chief Financial Officer & Director

Mr. Kurz has over 30 years’ experience as a successful institutional investor and asset manager. Mr. Kurz was the founder and has been serving as the Chief Executive Officer of Lily Pond Capital Management LLC (“LPCM”), an alternative investment manager headquartered in New York since January 2001. Most recently, LPCM was the investment manager of a Private Equity Fund (Lilypad Investors I) which provided early stage operating capital and expertise to an array of alternative investment management firms. Lilypad Investors I recently exited its final portfolio investment. Before founding LPCM, from September 1996 to January 2001, Mr. Kurz was Managing Director and Head of North American Financial Markets at The Royal Bank of Scotland Plc. Additionally, he was responsible globally for Foreign Exchange, Emerging Markets, and principal investments and was a senior member of the division’s Executive Committee. Prior to RBS, Mr. Kurz was a Managing Director at Lehman Brothers where he headed the Multi-Markets Proprietary Trading unit. He received his B.A. from University of Pennsylvania.

Board of Directors

Jay N. Levine, 57 [Resigned 8/20/2020]
Director 

Mr. Levine has been serving as Chairman of the Board of Directors of One Main Holdings, Inc (“One Main”) since June 2018. Mr. Levine previously served as President, Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of OneMain from October 2011 to September 2018. Mr. Levine joined the new OneMain shortly after it was acquired by Fortress Investment Group in 2011 and within two years he led the company’s return to profitability and IPO. During his tenure as CEO, Mr. Levine also completed the acquisition of the company’s largest competitor (One Main Financial Services) from Citigroup and led its integration into the successor company. From December 2008 to February 2011, Mr. Levine was brought in to help restructure and served as President and Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Capmark Financial Group Inc., a commercial real estate finance company. On October 25, 2009, Capmark and certain of its subsidiaries filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and eventually emerged from bankruptcy on September 30, 2011. From 2000 to 2008, Mr. Levine served as President and Chief Executive Officer of RBS Greenwich Capital, a financial services company, with responsibility for the company’s institutional business in the United States. Previously, Mr. Levine was co-head of the Mortgage and Asset Backed Departments at RBS Greenwich Capital. Mr. Levine earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of California Davis.

Robert Matza, 63
Director 

Mr. Matza retired as President, Partner and member of the Executive Committee of GoldenTree in June 2019 after almost 14 years at the firm. Mr. Matza joined GoldenTree in January 2006 and managed GoldenTree’s business management infrastructure, which provides operational support to GoldenTree’s investment products and client franchise. During his time at GoldenTree, Mr. Matza was part of the senior management team that oversaw significant growth in assets under management (from approximately $7 billion to over $30 billion), long only and alternatives (private equity and hedge funds), product lines and personnel. Prior to GoldenTree, Mr. Matza served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Neuberger Berman, Inc., as well as a member of its Board of Directors and Executive Committee, and following its acquisition by Lehman Brothers, a member of Lehman Brothers’ Management and Investment Committees. He joined Neuberger Berman in April 1999 as a Principal, and led the team that successfully completed the initial public offering of Neuberger Berman in November of that same year. Between 2000 and 2003, he negotiated and completed several acquisitions and lift outs. In 2003, Mr. Matza negotiated the $2.6 billion sale of the company to Lehman Brothers. Assets under management grew from approximately $55 billion to over $107 billion from the time that Mr. Matza joined Neuberger Berman, until he left at the end of 2005. Mr. Matza’s industry experience prior to 1996 includes 16 years with Lehman Brothers and its predecessor companies, where he last served as Managing Director, Chief Financial Officer and a member of the Operating and Investment Committees. In 1996, he joined Travelers Group as its Treasurer and became Deputy Treasurer of Citigroup after Travelers and Citicorp merged in 1998. While at Citigroup, he served on the Finance, Investment and Merger & Acquisition Committees. He began his professional career at Coopers and Lybrand. Mr. Matza currently serves on the Board of Managers (as well as audit and compensation committees) of AG Artemis Holding LP, the holding company of Advisor Group Inc., a privately owned network of independent broker-dealers that was purchased by a private equity firm for $2.3 billion in 2019. He is also serving as a Senior Advisor at Rockefeller Capital Management, a financial services firm offering global family office, asset management and strategic advisory services to ultra-high-net-worth clients, institutions and corporations, and to Algorand, a newly established blockchain company focused on the commercialization of the secure blockchain to transact for global institutions focused on Wall Street and the securities markets. Mr. Matza is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board and the Board of the Center for Institutional Investment Management of the University at Albany’s School of Business. Mr. Matza earned his bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Albany, his MBA in Finance from New York University and he is a Certified Public Accountant.

Diane B. Glossman
Director 

Ms. Glossman spent 25 years as a research analyst, retiring as a Managing Director and head of U.S. bank and brokerage research at UBS. Prior to UBS, Ms. Glossman was co-head of Global Bank Research and head of Internet Financial Services Research at Lehman Brothers, and prior to that at Salomon Brothers for nine years where she was co-Head of U.S. Bank Stock Research. Over her sell-side research career, Ms. Glossman specialized in money center banks, trust banks and broker dealers, covering all aspects of banking and financial services, including banking technology and the revenue generating businesses of cash management, trade finance, and securities services. Ms. Glossman was a multiple-time member of Institutional Investor’s All-America Research Team. During her decade on the buy-side, she was responsible for coverage of all financials along with a variety of other industry sectors. Ms. Glossman has been serving as a member of the Board of Directors and Audit Committee of Barclays Bank Delaware, Barclays US consumer operations, since June 2016 and chaired the Audit Committee since December 2018. She has also been serving as a member of the advisory board of Barclays US LLC, the U.S. intermediate holding company of Barclays PLC, since its inception in April 2015, and since the advisory board upgrade into the Board of Directors, a member of the Board of Directors, Audit Committee Chair and member of the Governance Committee. In addition, she has been serving as a member of the Board of Directors and its various committees of Live Oak Bank/Live Oak Bankshares, a $4 billion North Carolina-based bank, since August 2014, and assisted in its initial public offering. She has been involved with Bucks County SPCA, a humane organization serving Bucks County, Pennsylvania, since 2003 and currently serves as the Chair of the Finance Committee. Ms. Glossman’s previous board experience includes serving on the Board of Directors or Board of Trustees of WMI Holding, from bankruptcy emergence in March 2012 through its merger with Nationstar in August 2018; Ambac Assurance, a public finance insurance company, from October 2010 to February 2018 when it emerged from regulatory rehabilitation; QBE NA, the American subsidiary of the Australian insurer QBE, from February 2015 to December 2017; Powa Technologies Holdings Plc, a London-based mobile technology start-up, from July 2013 to November, 2016; State Street Global Advisors Mutual Funds from September 2009 to April 2011; and E Charge, an internet payment start-up company from 1999 to 2001. In addition to her directorships, Ms. Glossman has also worked as an independent consultant with a number of banks in the U.S. and U.K. on projects relating to strategy, business execution, and investor communications. During 2013 and 2014, she was a senior fellow at the Center of Financial Stability and was joint author of a report on bank capital. At that time, she also wrote articles for the Cornerstone Journal of Sustainable Finance and Banking regarding the banking industry. In 2013, she also served a member of SASB’s financial industry working group engaged in establishing sustainability reporting metrics for commercial banks, custody banks, and asset managers. From 2003 to 2005, she was an advisor to Citigroup’s Global Consumer Group and a member of its planning group. During much of that time, she was acting head of the International Retail Bank. Ms. Glossman received a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, with a double major in finance and health care administration, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Aris Kekedjian, 53
Director 

Mr. Kekedjian retired from GE in 2019 after a 30 year career with the company, most recently serving as head of Corporate Development and Chief Investment Officer since 2016. During this time, Mr. Kekedjian led a number of notable M&A transactions, including the $30 billion merger of GE Oil & Gas with Baker Hughes, creating a $22 billion business with operations in 120 countries, and the $11 billion merger of GE Transportation with Wabtec Corporation, creating a technology category leader for rail equipment, services and software. Mr. Kekedjian was previously a Managing Director and Global head of Business Development/M&A at GE Capital from 2010 through 2016. Mr. Kekedjian led the GE team that divested more than $200 billion of GE Capital’s business across the world. He also led the merger of Met Life’s online bank with Synchrony Financial and a subsequent $3 billion IPO and $20 billion stock split transaction for Synchrony Financial. He also led IPOs of both Cembra Money Bank in Switzerland and Moneta Bank in the Czech Republic. Prior to those divestitures, Mr. Kekedjian was responsible for creating comprehensive strategic plans for deal activities in the banking, real estate, leasing, mortgage, credit card and commercial lending sectors. From 2008 to 2010, Mr. Kekedjian served as Managing Director, Global Corporate Development and Chief Executive Officer for GE Capital, MEA region, responsible for company-wide strategic partnership and alliance development with global, sovereign capital partners. Mr. Kekedjian was previously the Chief Financial Officer of GE Banking & Consumer Finance for the EMEA region (GE Money) from 2004 to 2008, a $10 billion net revenue business with over $100 billion in assets and operations in 25 countries. He joined GE as a part of the Financial Management Program in 1989.

Shami Patel
Advisor

Shami Patel is a Managing Director of Cohen & Co. (in its asset management group) and was active in all aspects of the IPO and business combination process of FinTech I (Nasdaq: FNTC) and FinTech II (Nasdaq: FNTE), including origination, due diligence and execution. He served as a Director, Chair of the Audit Committee and member of the Compensation Committee of FinTech I and FinTech II. FinTech I raised $100.0 million in its initial public offering in February 2015 and completed its initial business combination when it acquired FTS Holding Corporation in July 2016, in connection with which FinTech I changed its name to CardConnect Corp. The common stock of CardConnect Corp. was traded on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol “CCN” until CardConnect Corp. was acquired by First Data Corporation on July 6, 2017. FinTech II raised $175.0 million in its initial public offering in January 2017 and completed its initial business combination when it acquired Intermex Holdings II in July 2018, in connection with which FinTech II changed its name to International Money Express, Inc. The common stock of International Money Express, Inc. is currently traded on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol “IMXI.” Mr. Patel currently serves as an advisor to FinTech III (Nasdaq: FTAC), which raised $345 million in its initial public offering in November 2018 and is currently looking for an initial business combination target. Aside from his SPAC experience, Mr. Patel has served as the Co-Head of the Venture Capital Team and General Partner of Pacific View Ventures, a division of Pacific View Asset Management, LLC, an investment advisory firm, and as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Golden Pacific Bancorp, Inc., a financial holding company that provides banking and other financial products and services. He has served at Clean Pacific Ventures Management, LLC, a venture capital firm specializing in early stage investments, as a venture partner, and was a partner at, and served on the Executive Committee of, Hexagon Securities, LLC, a credit focused investment bank and securities firm. From 2001 to August 2009, he served as Managing Director and Senior Partner at Cohen & Company, where he helped launch Alesco Financial, Inc., where he served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Investment Officer from 2006 to 2009. From 1999 to 2000, he served as Chief Financial Officer for TRM Corporation (Nasdaq: TRMM), a consumer and financial services company. In 2000, he founded iATMglobal.net, a middleware software business where he served as Chief Executive Officer and which was sold to NCR Corporation in 2001. He served as Vice President of the West Coast Region for Sirrom Capital Corporation, a mezzanine finance fund, from 1998 to 1999. Prior to this he was in the business services group at Robertson Stephens, an investment banking firm from 1997 to 1998 and served as a strategy consultant in the energy group at Andersen Consulting from 1991 to 1993. Mr. Patel has served on the Board of the Duke University School of Law since 2011 and has been a Senior Lecturing Fellow since 2012 and a member of the Advisory Board of the Law and Entrepreneurship Program at Duke since 2013. Mr. Patel has also served on the Executive Committee of the Seven Hills School since 2010 and has been the Treasurer of the Board of Trustees since 2012.