Taking Your Family Business to Market
Overview
$30 Member Registration Fee
$50 Non-Member Registration Fee
Immediately following the event, join us after the event for an intimate dinner with the event's panelists. Network with fellow PDA members and delve deeper into the panel discussion's topics. The dinner will be held at Moe's Cantina - River North (155 W. Kinzie St.), from 7:30-9:30pm CT. Guests will split the bill and pay for any/all of the speakers that attend to thank them for volunteering their time for the evening.
Thank you to our National Sponsors!
Thank you to our Chapter Sponsors!
SILVER
BRONZE
Thank you to our Event Sponsor!
Panelists
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Joseph Baez Managing Principal CliftonLarsonAllen's
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Joe is the managing principal of CLA’s Greater Chicagoland Offices and a member of CLA’s private equity industry practice. He serves private capital clients through their investment life cycle with deal flow, capital, value creation, and industry insights. Joe has more than 20 years of experience in professional services working with a wide range of closely held companies as they deal with the challenges of mergers and acquisitions in addition to serving other accounting, assurance, and tax needs. Through this experience, Joe has gained a comprehensive understanding of the concerns that owners and managers of middle-market companies face.
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Mike McArthy Chief Financial Officer CJ Drilling Inc
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Mike is an award-winning business and financial executive with more than 30 years of domestic and international experience in private equity and family-owned companies, as well as subsidiaries of public companies. He is a strategic, visionary and innovative CFO experienced in designing & executing complex succession planning (including MWBE diversity expertise), and leading companies through successful financial turnarounds & periods of high growth. Mike has played significant roles in 30 M&A transactions. In the last six years, Mike has guided five founders and their Boards as they, with Mike’s leadership, raised funds for their business or went through a sales process. Mike is a registered CPA with an MBA from Northern Illinois University and a BS in Operations Management from Illinois State University. Mike is a coach for numerous Special Olympic sports teams in his community for the Northwest Special Recreation Association. Mike and his wife live in the Chicago suburbs.
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Peter Spier Business Law Partner Quarles & Brady LLP
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Peter Spier is a partner in Quarles & Brady’s Business Law Practice in the firm’s Chicago office. His extensive corporate law experience includes representing privately held companies, private equity funds and venture capital investors in structuring and negotiating mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity financings, and complex contractual transactions. Mr. Spier serves as outside general counsel for middle-market and emerging growth companies—helping them with everything from addressing formation issues and corporate governance to structuring and negotiating joint ventures and strategic acquisitions. He also frequently represents multi-generational family businesses, helping them achieve their business and financial objectives, including guiding owners through succession planning and exit strategies. Mr. Spier is a frequent speaker and author on issues facing privately-held companies and has been named by Law Bulletin Media as an "Illinois Leading Lawyer" (top 5% of attorneys) each of the past six years in the areas of Mergers & Acquisitions, Securities & Venture Finance and Closely & Privately Held Business Law. Mr. Spier received a B.A. from The University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. He serves on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of ACG Chicago and as Chair of the Chicago Bar Association’s Business Transactions Committee.
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William P. Watkins Managing Director Harris Williams
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Mr. Watkins has over 30 years of investment banking and corporate finance experience. He has completed a range of financial advisory assignments including mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, and capital raises on behalf of private equity firms and public and private companies in several industries. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Watkins was a managing director with National City Capital Markets Investment Banking Group, where he provided investment banking services within the Industrial Group. Mr. Watkins’ previous experience also includes mergers and acquisitions advisory with Piper Jaffray, as well as leveraged finance and general capital raising with Heller Financial’s Corporate Finance Group and Bank of America via its acquisition of Continental Bank. Mr. Watkins earned an M.B.A. with concentrations in Finance and Operations Management from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a B.S. in Business from Indiana University, Bloomington. He is a board member of Achievement Centers for Children, Lake Erie Nature & Science Center, and Association for Corporate Growth-Cleveland Chapter. Mr. Watkins lives in the western suburbs of Cleveland with his wife and two children
Moderator
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Anne Smart Advisor, Generation6 Family Enterprise
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Before joining Generation6 Family Enterprise Advisors she worked with family businesses at the Loyola Family Business Center, retiring as the Director in 2022. Her extensive work with family businesses includes mentoring and coaching individuals, family owners and stakeholders and developing family education programs and processes. During her Loyola tenure, she also supported the development and execution of Loyola’s Family Business Institutes, led the peer group program and guided or led the education and service needs of individual family members and other stakeholders.
She helps large family businesses perpetuate sustainability and growth for their enterprises and the families that own and operate them. Anne is certified in TMP, Hogan, LVI assessments, holds a certificate in Family Business Advising from FFI. She has a BA in Communications from St. Xavier University and completed additional graduate coursework in organizational behavior at Benedictine University. She has four adult children and lives with her husband in a suburb of Chicago, IL.