Private Equity Board Service

Overview

Private Equity Boards, who’s really in control and making decisions? A discussion on various approaches private equity sponsors take in interacting with the management and the  boards of their portfolio companies.

Registration

$35 Member Registration Fee
$45 Non-Member Registration Fee 

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Thank you to our National Sponsors!

Thank you to our Chapter Sponsors!

Panelists

Michelle A Lewis Board Director Chief Strategy & Corporate Development Officer

Michelle Lewis is an experienced public, private and family-owned business director and advisor. Since 2017, Ms. Lewis has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Adentra, Inc. (TSX: ADEN), a distributor of architectural products for the building envelope and interior working, living and playing environments. She Chairs the Nominating, Compensation and Governance Committee and has served on the Audit Committee. She also serves on the Board of e2log, a SaaS-based transportation management and logistics platform start up for international industrial supply chains.

Ms. Lewis’ career has included executive positions in wholesale distribution and manufacturing, Private Equity and Restructuring including as Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Corporate Development and Investor Relations with DistributionNOW (NYSE: DNOW), a spin off from National Oilwell Varco, a Senior Vice President, Shared Services for National Oilwell Varco, and a Principal, for The Capstreet Group, a software, tech-enabled and industrial distribution and services private equity firm. Prior to this, she held roles of increasing responsibility in sales, management or interim management roles in consulting and restructuring in the public and private sectors across industries as varied as education, healthcare and energy.

Michelle’s primary focus is on optimizing a company’s strategy and accelerating growth, organically and inorganically, while increasing efficiencies through organizational structure and technology. In this vein, she has closed $7B of cross-border transactions, across the United States, Canada, the UK, Norway, South Africa and Kazakhstan, and helped identify and/ or close several others. She has also identified and reduced significant expenses from non-core businesses and functions, liquidated assets to apply cash to other operations, and consolidated or moved locations and assets to improve profitability.

Mike Scott Managing Partner and Founder of Pelican Energy Partners Pelican Energy Partners LP

Mr. Scott is the founder of Pelican Energy Partners, a Houston-based private equity fund investing in energy service and equipment companies. Pelican’s team includes several former CEOs who have spent their careers building and leading companies in the energy sector, enabling a unique capability of partnering with small to middle market management teams in this sector.  The investor base of Pelican’s first fund, founded in 2012, is made up entirely of energy industry insiders, including approximately 30 former CEOs and 20 former energy company business owners.  Pelican’s second and third funds, raised in 2016 and 2018 respectively, consist of many high-quality endowments, foundations and pension funds in addition to industry insiders.  Pelican is managing $578 million and has completed twenty-five platform investments across the three funds.

Prior to founding Pelican, Mr. Scott was a Principal at Sorenson Capital, a private equity fund in Salt Lake City, where he focused on oilfield and midstream investments. Prior to joining Sorenson, he worked at Cameron International, a multi-national oilfield equipment manufacturer, where he held several management positions.

Mr. Scott earned a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Brigham Young University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.  He began his career as a power plant systems engineer at Honeywell, holds five patents, and has received several prestigious design and technical achievement awards.

Co-Moderators

Martha Gurwit Independent Board Director

Martha Gurwit is a former Capital Markets professional, and private company board member with expertise in corporate finance, debt capital markets, and executing transactions. She is recognized for raising $75 billion in debt for large cap, middle market, and private equity companies to support transactions and ongoing needs. She currently serves on the board of CorMedica Group, Inc., a privately owned MedTech Company. In 2020 Ms. Gurwit retired from Antares Capital as a Managing Director. Antares Capital is a private debt credit manager that supports over 400 middle-market private equity sponsors for companies with $20-$100 million of EBITDA. In her role, she worked with Private Equity Sponsors to structure senior debt financing and strategically position and market them with investors and rating agencies. She gained valuable international experience advising European and UK private equity sponsors wanting to tap into the US debt markets. Prior to Antares, Ms. Gurwit was with GE Capital Energy Financial Services where she was hired to grow the Capital Markets function in the energy sector. She started her banking career at JPMorgan where she spent over 15 years in the Investment Bank, first in Texas and then in NYC, working with public and private corporations providing corporate finance advise and capital structure solutions to support their activity. During her career she was active with industry forums and routinely served as a panelist at conferences discussing current market trends, direct lending, and Yankee Financings. She is a member of Golden Seeds, Women in Fund Finance, Exponent Women, and the Private Directors Association. She has served as a board member, Treasurer and President of her Co-op board in Manhattan. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Missouri and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Houston.

Suzanne Kean Board Member

Suzanne (Sue) is an energy industry executive with more than 35 years of diverse experience in global leadership roles in multi-national public companies, private equity portfolio companies and firms in the oil and gas, engineering and construction and marine industries. She served in C-Suite or senior management roles leading legal and compliance teams in global program development and cross-border transactions across multiple countries, including the United States, Middle East, including UAE and Saudi Arabia, Africa (Gabon), Indonesia, Brazil and Argentina. She has also served as the chief governance officer with both private equity owned companies and public multi-nationals. Ms. Kean’s career included executive positions with Rubicon Oilfield International, a Warburg Pincus sponsored company, McDermott International, Exterran, Trico Marine and First Wave Marine.

Sue’s recent awards and recognitions include being named in 2020 one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Oil & Gas and was the individual named as the 2018 recipient of the Bette Stead Ethical Leadership Award by the Greater Houston Business Ethics Roundtable.

Sue currently serves on the board of directors and executive committee of the Girl Scouts of San Jacinto and was the GSSJC co-chair of the Women’s Leadership Network (WLN). In 2022 Sue co-chaired the GSSJC Centennial Success to Significance fundraising event. She has also served as a member of the United Way campaign leadership team for the United Way Alexis de Tocqueville from 2007-2022 and served as the Co-Chair of the United Way Women’s Initiative.

Sue received her bachelor’s degree in economics from Vanderbilt University and her law degree from the University of Houston Law Center. She is married to Grady Walker and the couple have two adult daughters and four grandchildren.

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