Hans B. Amell
Chairman/Founder of CAG International AG, Minerva Group, WISP AMERICAS Inc., Catalyst Acquistion Group LLC., Veteran Officer in the Swedish Navy
Biography
Mr. Amell is a recognized Chief Executive and a Global Transformation and Corporate Agility expert with extraordinary experience in leading major change in Public and Private Organizations. Mr. Amell has served both mega organizations as well as Family Offices and small entrepreneurial companies. Mr. Amell’s background includes leading the global expansion and later the successful spin-off of the D&B group into 7 publicly held companies (Cognizant, Nielsen, IMS, Moody’s, Gartner, etc.). Turnaround and merger of AlliedSignal into Honeywell. Creation of Intrepid Learning, Private Acquisition of Gartner Custom Research, etc.
Mr. Amell began his career as a Management Consultant at McKinsey & Co. He is a dual citizen of United States of American and Sweden. Mr. Amell has a Post-Graduate ISMP Program at the Harvard Business School and BA/MBA equivalent from Stockholm and Uppsala University. Author of the just-released Radical Business Agility (April 2022 and business book hit “Mastering Agility (successfully navigating uncertainty)”, released October 2016.
Mr. Amell is married to Barbara (US Amell, has eight children (all US citizens) and is a seasoned skier and blue-water sailor.
Martin Wade III
Partner in Residence
Biography
Mr. Wade is Chief Executive Officer of IMSI, Inc. He also served from 1998 to 2000 in Mergers and Acquisitions at Prudential Securities and from 1996 to 1998 as a managing director in Mergers and Acquisitions at Salomon Brothers. From 1991 to 1996, Mr. Wade was National Head of Investment banking at Price Waterhouse, LLC. Mr. Wade also spent six years in the Mergers and Acquisitions department at Bankers Trust and eight years at Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb. Mr. Wade is credited with participating in over 200 Mergers and Acquisitions transactions involving a variety of Fortune 500 clients.
Mr. Wade was a partner in M/A Group at both Lehman and Solomon Brothers where he completed over twenty software company acquisitions and sales. From 2000 to 2006 , Mr. Wade served as Chairman and CEO of a public software development company where he was responsible for acquiring or establishing the commercial development of many leading software products. Mr. Wade has also consulted with other companies such as Alliance One in the development of proprietary inside software into succesful outside products.
Mr. Wade is a member of the Board of Directors of NexMed (OTC: NEXM), Command Security Corporation (OTC: CMMD) and Energy Transfer Group of Dallas, Texas.
Johan Lilliehöök
Partner in Residence
Biography
Mr. Johan Lilliehöök has a long international career and a wide range of management experience from leading positions in marketing & sales; business development & general management for companies such as SCA Consumer Division, Tetra Pak, SCA Hospital Division, MacMillan Bloedel (Forestry), Harmac Pacific (forestry). His last position prior to starting up his own consultancy firm was General Manager Europe for Pope and Talbot, a privately held forestry firm in Portland USA.
He has since been engaged as a management consultant for AB Torkapparater where he has led the transformation of the company from being a producer of industrial dryers into a systems & licensee provider of torrefaction technology, this to meet the growing demand of bio-energy as a substitute for coal in power plants. Mr Lilliehöök has also been engaged in Northern Europe for Paccess LLC. Paccess is a supply chain integrator based in Portland, USA, who integrates procurement, logistics, distribution, and fulfilment services to meet customers need in the paper and packaging business.
Mr Lilliehöök holds a Master of Science degree from Linköpings Institute of Technology, Sweden. The program corresponds to a combined a degree in mechanical engineering and business administration. Mr Lilliehöök is also a founding Board Member of St John’s International School ASBL in Brussels, Belgium.
Shaen Bernhardt-von Bernhardi
Executive Vice President, Mergers & Acquisitions
Biography
Mr. Bernhardt von Bernhardi began his professional career in the Enterprise Risk Services arm of Deloitte & Touche where he was responsible for identifying and mitigating operational risks for a variety of Global 1000 clients. Following his tenure at Deloitte he served as a Director of Business Development for PostX Corporation, and as a consultant for Merrill Corporation where he was responsible for developing and implementing early strategy and marketing efforts for the launch of Merrill’s flagship product, DataSite, an electronic deal room for Mergers and Acquisitions due diligence.
Mr. Bernhardt von Bernhardi holds a Bachelor of the Arts in International Relations from Boston University, a Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center and a Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Entrepreneurship from the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business where he was also the recipient of the Eli Lilly Scholarship for Academic and Professional Merit. In addition, Mr. Bernhardt von Bernhardi studied International Finance at the Universität St. Gallen in St. Gallen, Switzerland and International Law at the Università degli Studi di Firenze in Florence, Italy.
Mr. Bernhardt von Bernhardi is an avid pilot, an experienced, ocean passage sailor, and a lifelong skier and hunter.
Jack H. Schwartz
Chief Technology Officer
Biography
Mr. Schwartz has more than 30 years of experience as a hands-on enterprise software technologist executive and product team builder, researching, envisioning, innovating, planning, designing, implementing, managing, teaching and evaluating software/hardware systems tools, applications, and SDLC methodologies and architectures.
Mr. Schwartz has served four times as Chief Technology Officer in small to medium sized enterprise web and mobile software product startups where he has led many teams and organizations to successful product delivery, revenue, market differentiation and funding.
Mr. Schwartz is an accomplished expert in the area of software systems architecture and engineering methodology, is a published technical author and teacher, and has served as an invited speaker at numerous technology forums.
Mr. Schwartz holds a Masters Degree from Brooklyn College and a B.A. from the University of Delaware with a strong academic background in theoretical and experimental cognitive science, and sensory perception, and a strong interest in applied physiological psychology in the area sensory prosthesis.
Atle Fjeld
Executive in Residence
Biography
Mr. Fjeld has served as Senior Vice President of Engineering and Chief Information Officer for TheSupply, and prior to that as Vice President Information Technology and CIO for Siebel Systems. Before joining Siebel Systems, Mr. Fjeld had a successful 21-year career at Unisys Corporation. Where his last position was Vice President of Order and Quotes Management.
Mr. Fjeld holds a Bachelor of Sciences in Computer Science from the University of Oslo, in Oslo, Norway.
Philip Örtegren
Project Manager
Biography
Mr. Örtegren is a highly experienced Key Account Manager and Marketing Specialist with experience working nationally and internationally with C-level positions from major companies. Mr. Örtegren serves as the Vice President/Co-Founder of US-based Quarter Oak Ranch LLC Est. 2013. Several years of B2B & B2C Service sales, Product sales and Marketing sales as well as product development.
Mr.Örtegrens career started as a highly recognized, internationally acclaimed professional athlete, which then lead him into the corporate business world.
Fredrik Borgstrom
Biography
Mr. Borgstrom has a background from Ericsson in Broadcast and Media services and Managed Services/outsourcing. He is currently representing some leading European media companies in the Americas as an independent consultant.Mr. Borgstrom brings 20+ years of experience across international markets in Telecom, ICT and Media industries, and has held several positions in the leading edge of new business development and global market establishment efforts. Prior to joining the telecom industry, Mr. Borgstrom served as a Technical Officer in the Swedish Armed Forces Coast Artillery branch part of the Swedish Navy.
Haig Armaghanian
Residence Partner
Biography
German “Jose” Vera
Director of Operations
Biography
Businessman, merchant, and entrepreneur; with more than 20 years of experience doing international business. Multi-year experience in Asia Pacific and Latin America. Participated, managed and integrated large projects for different Latin American companies. Provided advice and support for the formation of new companies including management, obtaining licenses, certificates, permits, among others transformational tasks. Have the necessary ability and agility to reach any business area as well as to reduce time in the different processes. Adapting quickly to changes in the market, internally and externally. Developed a profile as the go to person when something had to be fixed.
Diploma in Digital Marketing from Universidad de Alicante, Spain.
Married and father of five. Avid runner.