Wharton Restructuring and Turnaround Conference

William J. Nolan - Senior Managing Director, FTI Consulting

William Nolan is a senior managing director in the FTI Corporate Finance practice and is based in Charlotte. Mr. Nolan has worked in all areas of corporate recovery, including working with senior management in business turnarounds and corporate bankruptcy. He has over twenty years of diverse financial consulting and management experience.

Mr. Nolan has considerable experience working with senior management teams in the areas of financial and operational restructuring, loan workouts and business planning. He has assisted management in developing business plans, devising short to medium term financial strategies and projections for use in troubled debt restructures, and implementing controls over cash expenditures, overhead and operating costs.

Mr. Nolan’s diverse background extends into financial services; manufacturing; restaurants; healthcare, and real estate wherein he has served as advisor to companies, and advised secured creditors, and unsecured creditors committees in out-of-court and in bankruptcy distressed situations. Mr. Nolan has considerable mortgage banking experience and has been very active in the reorganization of many sub-prime lending concerns. Mr. Nolan co-authored two articles in the American Banker entitled “The Fight for Survival: Sub prime Lending, Where to From Here” and “At What Point Are Servicing Rights Born?”

Mr. Nolan also has extensive experience in working in international insolvencies and workouts. As a member of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) United Kingdom insolvency practice, Mr. Nolan gained experience in the specialized area of UK insolvency, working as a receiver and administrator. Mr. Nolan’s UK experience included managing and selling companies, including companies associated with Polly Peck International, one of the UK’s largest ever insolvencies.

Prior to its acquisition by FTI Consulting, Mr. Nolan served as a partner in the U.S. division of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Business Recovery Services group. Prior to joining PwC, Mr. Nolan held an executive financial management position with the Pizza Hut division of PepsiCo. As a financial manager of over 300 Pizza Huts in the state of Ohio, Mr. Nolan was responsible for identifying under-performing stores and working with local management to improve their performance as well as developing and implementing plans to eliminate excess operating costs and preparing and executing annual operating and financial budgets.

Mr. Nolan is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, the Association of Insolvency & Restructuring Advisors and the International Bankruptcy Association. He served as treasurer of the Delaware Valley Chapter of Turnaround Management Association.

Mr. Nolan holds an M.B.A. in finance from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in economics from the University of Delaware.

Edward I. Altman - Max L. Heine Professor of Finance, Stern School of Business, New York University

Edward I. Altman is the Max L. Heine Professor of Finance at the Stern School of Business, New York University. He is the Director of Research in Credit and Debt Markets at the NYU Salomon Center for the Study of Financial Institutions. Prior to serving in his present position, Professor Altman chaired the Stern School's MBA Program for 12 years. He has been a visiting Professor at the Hautes Etudes Commerciales and Universite de Paris-Dauphine in France, at the Pontificia Catolica Universidade in Rio de Janeiro, at the Australian Graduate School of Management and MacQuarie in Sydney, University of Western Australia in Perth, Luigi Bocconi University in Milan and CEMFI in Madrid. Dr. Altman was named to the Max L. Heine endowed professorship at Stern in 1988.

Dr. Altman has an international reputation as an expert on corporate bankruptcy, high yield bonds, distressed debt and credit risk analysis. He was named Laureate 1984 by the Hautes Etudes Commerciales Foundation in Paris for his accumulated works on corporate distress prediction models and procedures for firm financial rehabilitation and awarded the Graham & Dodd Scroll for 1985 by the Financial Analysts Federation for his work on Default Rates on High Yield Corporate Debt and was named "Profesor Honorario" by the University of Buenos Aires in 1996. He is currently an advisor to the Centrale dei Bilanci in Italy and to several foreign central banks. Professor Altman is also the Chairman of the Academic Advisory Council of the Turnaround Management Association. He received his MBA and Ph.D. in Finance from the University of California, Los Angeles. He was inducted into the Fixed Income Analysts Society Hall of Fame in 2001, President of the Financial Management Association (2003) and a FMA Fellow in 2004 and was amongst the inaugural inductees into the Turnaround Management Association Hall of Fame in 2008. In 2005, Prof. Altman was named one of the "100 Most Influential People in Finance" by the Treasury & Risk Management magazine. He also received an Honorary Doctorate from Lund University, Sweden in May 2011.

Professor Altman was one of the founders and an Executive Editor of the international publication, the Journal of Banking and Finance and Advisory Editor of a publisher series, the John Wiley Frontiers in Finance Series. He has published or edited two-dozen books and over 150 articles in scholarly finance, accounting and economic journals. He was the editor of the Handbook of Corporate Finance and the Handbook of Financial Markets and Institutions and the author of a number of recent books, including his most recent works on Bankruptcy, Credit Risk and High Yield Junk Bonds (2002), Recovery Risk (2005), Corporate Financial Distress & Bankruptcy (3rd ed., 2006) and Managing Credit Risk (2nd ed. 2008). His work has appeared in many languages including French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.

Dr. Altman's primary areas of research include bankruptcy analysis and prediction, credit and lending policies, risk management and regulation in banking, corporate finance and capital markets. He has been a consultant to several government agencies, major financial and accounting institutions and industrial companies and has lectured to executives in North America, South America, Europe, Australia-New Zealand, Asia and Africa. He has testified before the U.S. Congress, the New York State Senate and several other government and regulatory organizations and is a Director and a member of the Advisory Board of a number of corporate, publishing, academic and financial institutions. He has been Chairman of the Academic Council of the Turnaround Management Association since 2002.

Dr. Altman is Chairman Emeritus and a member of the Board of Trustees of the InterSchool Orchestras of New York and a founding member of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of American Finance.

Gary Lee - Co-Chair, Morrison & Foerster’s Bankruptcy & Restructuring Practice Group

Gary Lee is co-chair of the Morrison & Foerster’s Bankruptcy & Restructuring Practice Group. He advises clients on domestic and international restructuring and insolvency matters in the U.S., UK, and continental Europe. He is currently involved as counsel to one of the three Icelandic banks that are in restructuring proceedings in Iceland. Mr. Lee currently is involved in representing several hedge funds in restructuring and liquidation proceedings, including several matters in the Madoff SIPA proceedings.

Mr. Lee has been heavily involved in the implementation of foreign liquidations and schemes of arrangement in the U.S. and has been closely involved with issues arising under Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Mr. Lee also recently acted as debtor’s counsel to one of the largest mortgage banks in the United States, whose liquidating Chapter 11 plan was confirmed in Delaware. Mr. Lee has acted as counsel to the acquirer — in and out of Chapter 11 — in several major asset purchases of mining, smelting, and oil and gas operations. Mr. Lee has been involved in several European restructuring matters, including the operations of Global Crossing, Ish, Viatel, Star Telecom, and others.

Mr. Lee is a fellow of the American Bar Association, and previously served as the vice chairman of its Litigation Committee of the Young Lawyers Division. He is the co-chair of the Transnational Bankruptcy Committee of the International Insolvency Institute. Additionally, he is a member of the City Bar’s Insurance Law Committee, and is the former co-chair of its Insolvency Committee. He also served on the International Insolvency Committee of the American Bankruptcy Institute. Mr. Lee is a co-author of the “United States of America,” chapter of the book International Asset Tracing in Insolvency, Oxford University Press, 2010. He was honored as "Person of the Year" by the Association of Insurance and Reinsurance Run-Off Companies in 2011 for his work on the GTE RE liquidation. He was cited in Euromoney’s Guide to the World’s Leading Lawyers and is recommended by Legal 500 US 2011, where he is noted as "responsive, commercial and accessible."

Shaun O’Callaghan - Senior Managing Director, FTI Corporate Finance

Shaun O’Callaghan is a senior managing director in the FTI Corporate Finance practice and is based in London. Mr. O’Callaghan has more than 20 years experience as an advisor, executive and board director in the management of change in difficult and uncertain circumstances. He has worked with companies to resolve difficult lending situations and at board level to deliver complex, cross-border restructuring assignments. He works with both public and sponsor-backed companies on preparing for refinancing and debt advisory issues.

Mr. O’Callaghan also advises international companies on how they can lead their people through changing economic conditions. Clients include the Carlsberg Group and two of the top five FTSE 100 companies.

Prior to joining FTI Consulting, Mr. O’Callaghan was an executive director and interim chief financial officer of a listed international retailer and manufacturer, which had suffered a major operational crisis, requiring stabilization and a rebuilding of trust with investors and creditors. The group employed over 13,000 people and operated stores and manufacturing sites in Europe, the U.S. and China.

Mr. O’Callaghan was previously the lead partner for KPMG’s strategic and operational restructuring practice, based in London. He helped international companies build robust restructuring plans and advised lenders on the validity of the business and finance assumptions in plans submitted to support a refinancing. He led major projects in the airline, retail and technology sectors.

In financial services, Mr. O’Callaghan was part of a three person team responsible for the restructuring of a life assurance business prior to its $7 billion floatation on the London stock exchange.

Mr. O’Callaghan is the published author of “Turnaround Leadership: Making Decisions, Rebuilding Trust and Delivering Results after a Crisis,” Kogan Page, 2010.

Mr. O’Callaghan holds an M.A. from Oxford University. He is a chartered accountant and a graduate of the advanced management program at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and the senior executive programme at London Business School.

Mark B. Cohen - Managing Director and Head, Restructuring & Workout Global Lending Group, Deutsche Bank

Mark B. Cohen joined Deutsche Bank in September 2000 as Managing Director and Head of Restructuring & Workout within the Corporate and Investment Bank. He supervises the bank's investments in distressed loans and securities from various business groups including Leveraged Finance. Mr. Cohen’s principal business initiatives include directing recovery strategies for the Bank ranging from rescue financings, 363 sales, loan sales, debt-to-equity conversions, asset divestitures, debt restructurings as well as establishment of turnaround management teams in the borrowing companies.

His responsibilities also include advising companies on balance sheet restructurings, providing DIP and Exit Financings, and structuring asset sales whether out-of-court M&A or in-court 363 auctions.

Before joining Deutsche Bank, Mark Cohen worked for the Swiss Bank Corporation/ UBS Warburg for 10 years as Executive Vice President in Global Loan Workout.

Mark Cohen graduated with a B.A. degree in Economics from the University of Virginia.

Steve Moyer - Senior Vice President, Portfolio Manager and Analyst, Distressed Debt Group, PIMCO

Mr. Moyer is a senior vice president, portfolio manager and analyst in the distressed debt group in the Newport Beach office. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2009, he was a director with Tennenbaum Capital Partners. Previously, he was a partner and director of research at Imperial Capital, and he has also held positions at Banc of America Securities, Kemper Securities, Drexel Burnham Lambert, First Boston and the law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue. He has 24 years of investment experience and holds a JD from Stanford University School of Law and an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He received an undergraduate degree from Grinnell College. He is the author of "Distressed Debt Analysis: Strategies for Speculative Investors," a leading textbook in the field.

Michael A. Weinstock Co-founder and Co-Portfolio Manager, Monarch Alternative Capital LP

Mr. Weinstock is a co-founder and co-Portfolio Manager of Monarch Alternative Capital LP. Prior to joining Monarch in March 2002, Mr. Weinstock was a Managing Director of Lazard and served as co-Portfolio Manager of the Lazard Debt Recovery Funds. In 1992, he joined Lazard’s then-recently formed High Yield Bond Department to build a distressed debt research effort. Under Mr. Weinstock’s leadership, Lazard’s distressed debt research team was ranked #1 in the distressed debt category by Institutional Investor magazine in 1998. Prior to joining Lazard, Mr. Weinstock became a distressed debt research analyst in 1991 when he joined R.D. Smith & Co., a pioneer in the field of distressed debt investing. Prior to that, he was an investment banker for seven years at Salomon Brothers and Goldman Sachs working on corporate finance, securitization, and mergers and acquisitions transactions. He currently serves on the Investment Committee of the Jewish Community Foundation of Metro-West New Jersey. Mr. Weinstock graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, summa cum laude, with a B.S. in Economics and from Harvard Business School with an M.B.A.

Michael Schwartz - Partner and Head of Research, Normandy Hill Capital

Michael is a Partner and Head of Research of Normandy Hill Capital. Prior to joining Normandy Hill, Michael was a Position Manager at Aristeia Capital, LLC, a $4 billion hedge fund focused on distressed, event driven, special situation and convertible arbitrage investing. He managed $500 million of investments across various industries. Michael was responsible for discovering overlooked, misunderstood and complex distressed and special situations and evaluating and implementing trading and investment strategies. Prior to Aristeia Capital, Michael was a Senior Associate at GSC Partners (f/k/a Greenwich Street Capital), a multi-strategy investment fund with $23.0 billion of assets under management focusing his efforts on stressed and/or defaulted securities. Prior to GSC Partners, Michael was a Senior Analyst at Jefferies & Company, Inc. focusing on restructuring & recapitalization and M&A advisory assignments including debtor, board of directors' and creditor committee representations. He began his career as an Analyst at Alex Sheshunoff, Investment Banking; a boutique investment bank focused on advisory and valuations for commercial banks and thrifts. Michael received his B.B.A. in Finance from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas graduating Summa Cum Laude as Valedictorian.

Samuel M. Greene - Partner, Centerview Partners

Mr. Greene has extensive experience representing companies, creditors and other constituents in complex Restructuring, M&A and Financing transaction across a wide range of industries. Selected company side experience includes representing Bedford Fair, Bruno's Supermarkets, Calpine Corporation, CMS Energy, Colo.com, Cygnus Business Media, Favorite Brand International, F&W Media, Laidlaw, MagnaChip Semiconductor, McLeod USA, Oakwood Homes, PG&E, Polymer Group, Port Townsend Paper, Stallion Oilfield Services, TECO Energy, The Dialog Corporation, United Australia/Pacific and U.S. Office Products. Mr. Greene has also represented creditor and equity constituencies in various transactions including CDX Gas, Dow Corning Corporation, Extended Stay Hotels, Hilex Polymer, Kerzner Resorts, Mirant Corporation and Station Casinos.

Mr. Greene is a member of several industry trade organizations including the American Bankruptcy Institute and the Turnaround Management Association and is a frequent lecturer on restructuring topics.

Mr. Greene received a B.A. (with honors) from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law.

Alan D. Holtz - Managing Director, AlixPartners

Alan is a Managing Director in the firm’s Turnaround and Restructuring Services practice focused on providing advisory services to clients, primarily in the middle-market, where he co-leads the firm’s service line. For almost 24 years, he has advised on all aspects of the financial and operational restructuring processes, including bankruptcy planning, business planning and analysis, cash management, operational improvement, creditor information management, valuation and the structuring and negotiation of plans of reorganization. Alan has provided these services to companies and their management and directors, and also to financial institutions and creditors’ committees, across a wide variety of industries.

Alan received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is immediate past Chairman and past President of the Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors (AIRA) and is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Insolvency and Restructuring Advisor. Alan is also a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and is a frequent speaker and author on the subject of corporate restructuring.

Bryan Eshelman - Executive Vice President, Charming Shoppes, Inc.

Bryan Eshelman has been at Charming Shoppes, Inc. since 2010 where he currently serves as the EVP & Chief Supply Chain Officer. In this role, he has responsibility for Global Sourcing, Information Technology, Distribution and Logistics. Prior to joining Charming Shoppes, Bryan was a partner in the retail practice of AlixPartners, LLP, a turnaround and advisory firm. Prior to AlixPartners, Bryan spent over 15 years at Kurt Salmon Associates, a management consulting firm focused on the retail industry.

Bryan holds an M.B.A. in Finance from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and a B.S. in Applied Mathematics & Economics from the University of Virginia. He and his wife Elizabeth, and their six children, live in the Philadelphia suburbs.

Neil Heyside - Managing Director, CRG Partners

Neil Heyside is a seasoned senior executive with more than 20 years of experience in process improvement, change management and operational reengineering in the U.K., U.S., Europe and South Africa, delivering tailor-made solutions to his clients. He has served numerous large and small companies in a wide array of industries, including:

• Financial services
• Food processing
• Healthcare
• Hospitality
• Manufacturing
• Media & publishing
• Retail
• Transportation
• Utilities
• Waste management & recycling

Mr. Heyside provides strong, flexible leadership, working closely with management teams to devise powerful and effective operational improvement programs that unlock the incremental value of core business processes, such as production planning and scheduling, inventory management, customer service, information technology and transportation. Utilizing an iterative process, Mr. Heyside offers clients a rigorous and effective methodology that focuses on aligning systems, people, resources and business processes to drive the implementation of high-impact improvement strategies that produce quantifiable results.

Mr. Heyside also possesses particular expertise with Media and Publishing industry clients. Representing over 650 publishing titles, he has implemented improvement programs across virtually all functions of the organization, a significant portion being editorial departments. He has demonstrated the ability to significantly streamline the operations of publishing companies through implementation of cost re-deployment and reduction without sacrificing quality or performance. A few noteworthy engagements include:

• Led a Transformation program for a large U.S. daily and Sunday newspaper, where he integrated print and online sales teams, resulting in a 32% increase in total sales capacity, and reinvested $2.5 million in the online operation to yield an anticipated $18 million of incremental online revenue in 2010
• Worked with a leading regional publishing group in the U.K. where he restructured the sales force, its processes and its incentives, resulting in a 20% increase in revenue above plan
• Advised one of the world’s largest media groups, specializing in children’s magazines and books, where he reduced inventory levels and increased turns from 2 to 3.5, reduced direct costs by 38% through functional consolidation and improved planning and scheduling and reduced content creation costs by 20%
• Successfully completed the re-engineering of a Waste Management Recycling group, developing and implementing industry-appropriate ‘best practices’ across 88 landfill sites

Mr. Heyside runs customized Leadership Development programs for publishing executives that have graduated over 350 participants, and has coached numerous executives one-on-one. He is also a frequent presenter at conferences in the U.K. and U.S. on the topic of Change Management. He received his degree in Law and Economics from the University of Liverpool.

Ryan Mathews - Founder and CEO, Black Monk Consulting

Ryan Mathews, founder and CEO of Black Monk Consulting, is a globally recognized futurist, cultural ecologist, speaker and storyteller. He and his work have been profiled in a number of periodicals including Wired, which labeled him a, “philosopher of e-commerce.” His opinions on issues ranging from the future of retailing and ethnography to gerontology and social media have appeared on the pages of literally hundreds of newspapers, magazines and Internet publications including The New York Times, the Washington Post, Business Week, Advertising Age, Forbes.com and Fortune. American Demographics labeled him the “futurist to watch” in an article on individuals who have had the greatest impact on American demography over the past 25 years.

Ryan has written cover stories for Fast Company and other leading magazines and has been a frequent contributor to National Public Radio’s Marketplace on topics related to innovation. He is widely regarded as an expert on consumers and their relationship to brands, products, services and the companies that offer them.

He is the co-author of three books: The Myth of Excellence: Why Great Companies Never Try To Be The Best at Everything which made the Wall Street Journal, Business Week and Financial Times (Germany) bestseller list; The Deviant’s Advantage: How Fringe Ideas Create Mass Markets; and What s Your Story?: Storytelling To Move Markets, Audiences, People and Brands. Ryan was also a contributor to the best selling, Business: The Ultimate Resource and The Change Champion’s Fieldguide: Strategies and Tools For Leading Change In Your Organization.

Ryan’s books have been translated into several languages including German, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Russian.

Ryan received his BA from Hope College in philosophy and Inner Asian history and did his graduate work at the University of Detroit where he studied phenomenological ontology. He has also served on the Advisory Board of the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management at Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business and is currently Industry Strategist and Senior Futurist at SmartRevenue.com.

Marcia L. Goldstein - Partner, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

Marcia Goldstein is chair of the Business Finance & Restructuring department at Weil, Gotshal & Manges and a member of the firm's Management Committee. She has practiced with the firm for over thirty years in all areas of domestic and international debt restructuring as well as crisis management and corporate governance. She has been a lecturer at Yale Law School, Columbia Law School and Cornell Law School and is a frequent speaker at restructuring seminars both domestically and internationally.

Ms. Goldstein has been the lead restructuring lawyer assisting AIG with respect to various aspects of the overall restructuring of the company, including its obligations to the Federal Reserve, led the firm's restructuring for Kaupthing Bank, the largest Icelandic bank which was in insolvency proceedings in Iceland and Chapter 15 in the US and served as lead restructuring counsel for General Growth Properties, a publicly traded REIT which is the largest real estate company to seek Chapter 11 relief. She also served as lead counsel in the Chapter 11 cases of Extended Stay Hotels, a chain of 680 hotels, Washington Mutual Corp., LandSource, a large land development company, Advanta Corp, provider of small-business credit card account services, and BearingPoint. She has also represented debtors, bank groups, secured and unsecured creditors, statutory creditors' committees, trustees, and other parties in other major debt restructurings and Chapter 11 cases. These include Alliance Mortgage, American Home Mortgage, Hollinger, Inc., Galvex Holdings, Inc., North American Bus Industries Rt., Regal Cinemas, Inc., Washington Group International, Inc., AMF Bowling Worldwide, Inc., Exide, Inc., Oxford Automotive, Inc., United Companies Financial Corp., Marvel Entertainment Group, CRIIMI MAE, Storage Technology, Inc., Southland, Inc., and Warnaco, Inc.

Ms. Goldstein graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University with an A.B. in 1973. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Cornell Law School in 1975, where she was articles editor of the Cornell Law Review. She currently chairs the Law School Advisory Council.

Michael L. Cook - Partner, Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP

Michael L. Cook is a partner in the New York office where he devotes his practice to corporate restructuring, workouts and creditors’ rights litigation, including mediation and arbitration. His clients include lenders, acquirers, reorganization trustees, creditors' committees, troubled companies, professional firms, businesses seeking mediation and arbitration, and other parties, e.g., Leucadia Nat'l Corp., Cerberus Capital Management, General Electric Capital Corp., CIT Group, Hilco Capital, UniCredito Italiano, Credit Suisse First Boston, Japan Leasing (USA), Ames Department Stores, Carter Hawley Hale Stores, A.H. Robins Company Inc., Quigley Company Inc., PriceWaterhouse Coopers, KPMG, Chanin Capital Partners, Duff & Phelps Securities, Deloitte & Touche, Goldin Associates, and Panasonic Corporation.

Mr. Cook chairs the Board of Regents of the American College of Bankruptcy and is a member of the Practising Law Institute Bankruptcy Law Advisory Committee, a member of the International Insolvency Institute, a former chair of the American Bar Association’s Creditors’ Rights Litigation Committee, and a former chair of the Bankruptcy Litigation Institute. A frequent contributor to major publications, Mr. Cook serves as lead editor and contributing author of Bankruptcy Litigation Manual (rev. ed., Aspen Law & Business, 2010–11), is a contributing author to Collier Bankruptcy Guide (rev. ed., Matthew Bender, 2010) and Collier on Bankruptcy (15th rev. ed., 2003), and co-authored Creditors’ Rights, Debtors’ Protection and Bankruptcy (3rd ed., Matthew Bender, 1997) (with NYU School of Law Professor Lawrence P. King) and A Practical Guide to the Bankruptcy Reform Act (rev. ed., Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984).

Mr. Cook received his A.B. from Columbia University and his J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Edward O. Sassower - Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Edward Sassower is a partner in the Restructuring Group of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. His practice involves representing debtors, creditors and distressed or special situation investors in bankruptcy cases, out-of-court restructurings and acquisitions. Some of Edward’s significant company-side representations include MSR Resorts, Sbarro, Horizon Lines, Majestic Star, Muzak, Leiner, Calpine, Constellation Energy, and NRG Energy. Some of Edward’s significant ad hoc committee representations include Capmark Financial Group, Lyondell Chemical Company, AbitibiBowater, Mirant, and Avecia. In addition, Edward has represented many private equity and hedge funds in connection with asset acquisitions from companies in distress. Edward earned both his B.A. and J.D. from Duke University.

Damian S. Schaible - Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

Damian Schaible is a partner in Davis Polk’s Insolvency and Restructuring Group. Since joining the firm in 2002, he has worked on a wide range of corporate restructurings and bankruptcies, representing debtors, creditors, agent banks, lenders, asset purchasers and other strategic parties. He currently serves as the Chair of the Committee on Bankruptcy and Corporate Reorganization of the New York City Bar Association.

Mr. Schaible has played a key role in a number of high-profile restructurings in recent years, including representing the debtors in Delta Air Lines’ and Frontier Airlines’ successful chapter 11 cases and representing the agent for the prepetition senior lenders in the Tribune, C-BASS and MediaNews Group cases. Mr. Schaible regularly represents potential investors in distressed asset and company acquisitions in and out of Chapter 11.

Mr. Schaible graduated magna cum laude from NYU School of Law, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif and served on the NYU Law Review. Following graduation, he clerked for Judge Danny J. Boggs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

The Honorable Kevin Gross - Chief Judge, United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware

Judge Kevin Gross was invested as a judge on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on March 13, 2006 and became Chief Judge on July 1, 2011. Born in Wilmington, Delaware on August 7, 1952, he has been a life-long resident of Delaware. He attended the University of Delaware, from which he graduated in 1974 with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. He thereafter attended Washington College of Law of American University where he was a member of the Law Review. Upon graduation from law school in 1977, Judge Gross was a judicial clerk for the Delaware Court of Chancery. He was admitted to the Delaware Bar in March, 1978.

Following his clerkship, in September 1978, Judge Gross joined the firm of Morris and Rosenthal, and became a Director of the firm in 1985 which later changed its name to Rosenthal, Monhait, Gross & Goddess, P.A.

Judge Gross was an active participant in the Wilmington desegregation case on behalf of the plaintiff class beginning with the remedy phase of that case; has handled several child custody and parental rights’ cases; and has mediated many cases pending in Bankruptcy Court, District Court, Superior Court and the Court of Chancery.

Recent cases include: Los Angeles Dodgers, NewPage Corporation, Friendly’s Ice Cream Corporation, Nortel Networks Corporation, Boscov’s, Pierre Foods, Mervyn’s Holdings, Sharper Image, Village Inn, Cadence Industries, Dynamerica Manufacturing., Intermet Corporation, Source Interlink Companies, Aventine Renewable Energy and Pacific Ethanol Holding.

George Varughese - Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal

George Varughese is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal in New York, where he leads the firm's Corporate Finance Group. Mr. Varughese brings nearly 30 years of experience on Wall Street, specializing in M&A transactions, financing, restructurings, strategic financial advisory and private equity. 

At A&M, he has led the successful engagements on the sale of Lund International, Allied Office Products, Recon Construction Services, Regatta Pacific Alliance Group, Thermasys Corporation and Tropical Sportswear Int'l. He has also led the restructuring of debt securities of Healthsouth Corporation, MAXX Corporation, Murray Energy Corporation, Frozsun, Ziff Davis and USI Corporation, Canwest LP, Nextmedia LLC, Taylor Wharton International and True Temper Sports Inc. In addition, he has assisted in the financing for Quaker Fabric, Preferred Unlimited, Advance Watch Company, K Hovnanian Homes and Murray Energy. 

Prior to joining A&M, he was a Managing Director with DLJ Merchant Banking. Prior to that, he led the restructuring group at Kidder Peabody. He joined the investment banking business at Drexel Burnham Lambert in 1982, and eventually became a Managing Director with the firm's Investment Banking practice. 

Some of his notable transactions have included Republic Health, one of the first pre-packaged Chapter 11 cases, Charter Medical Corporation, Mesa Petroleum, NV Homes, Nortek Inc., Divi Hotels, Southland Corporation, American Shared Medical Services, Koger Properties, MDC Homes, Hovnanian Development, Lincoln Property, Lorimar Telepictures, Continental Homes, First City Bank of Texas, Richardson Electronics, American Healthcare Management, After Six Inc. and American Medical Company.

Mr. Varughese earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a master's degree in business administration from Stanford University. He served as a Professor of Finance at the Indian Institute of Management. He currently serves on the board of the Vellore Foundation and Birch Family Services and is a member of the investment committee of GEO PEP S.C.A., the fund investment program of Quilvest.

Victor Vescovo - Partner, Chief Operating Officer & Managing Partner, Insight Equity

Victor leads the operational efforts of Insight Equity to improve portfolio companies' performance and realize significant returns to the firm's investors. Victor works closely with incumbent management to clearly identify immediate profit improvement areas, potential sources of hidden value, and long-term growth strategies.

Currently, Victor is a Managing Director and Board Member at all of Insight Equity's portfolio companies. Before co-founding Insight Equity, Victor was Vice President of Product Development at Military Advantage, a venture-backed company sold to Monster Worldwide in 2004 for $40 million. Prior to that, he was a senior manager at Bain & Company where he focused on merger integration and operational improvement cases.

In the early nineties, Victor worked in the mergers & acquisitions department of Lehman Brothers where he was responsible for company due diligence and transaction execution, as well as working overseas in the Middle East advising the Saudi government on business investments.

Victor received his MBA from the Harvard Business School where he was named a Baker Scholar for graduating in the top 5% of his class. He has also received a Master's Degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a double major BA in economics and political science from Stanford University.

Additionally, Victor is a Commander (0-5) in the US Navy Reserve with a specialization in operational targeting. He has participated at the staff level in combat operations for the Middle East and Balkan theaters, and served for more than a year after 9/11 supporting counter-terrorism efforts overseas. Victor is also an accomplished mountaineer, having scaled the highest peak on all seven of the world's continents including Mt. Everest.

Anthony G. Polazzi - Managing Director, Sun Capital Partners

Mr. Polazzi has spent more than a decade working in private equity and leveraged finance. Prior to joining Sun Capital Partners in 2003, Mr. Polazzi worked as an Associate in the Leveraged Finance Group of CIBC World Markets. He received dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Economics and Mathematics from Claremont McKenna College.

Gregory L. Segall - Chairman, President and CEO, Versa Capital Management

Mr. Segall has overall responsibility for Versa Capital Management and its investment strategies including leadership and supervision of the investment and portfolio management activities of the firm and its affiliated investment funds. He has led Versa and its predecessors since their founding in 1992.

He is Chairman of the firm’s Investment, Portfolio and Management Committees, and is currently a Director of Versa’s portfolio companies Allen-Vanguard, Bell and Howell, Black Angus Steakhouses, Bob’s Stores, Central Parking Systems, Holliston, Ohio Community Media, Polartec, Republic Storage Systems, and Simplexity.

A former Governor of the State Bar of California by legislative appointment, he is a frequent commentator for media outlets such as CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox, and guest lecturer for numerous universities and professional organizations on topics including corporate bankruptcies and restructurings, distressed investing and other economic, business and financial issues.

Mr. Segall is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO), various industry and professional associations, and is past President (‘03-‘09) of the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center in Philadelphia, for which service he received the 2003 ‘Turnaround of the Year (Pro Bono) Award’ from the Turnaround Management Association. He is a graduate of Pepperdine University, where he received his M.B.A.

David Robbins - Managing Director, Bayside Capital

David is a Managing Director of Bayside Capital. David is involved in all aspects of the investment process, including sourcing, transaction structuring, financing, and execution of post-closing growth strategies. He has over thirteen years of experience in private equity, special situations, and credit investing.

Before joining Bayside, David was with GSC Group, a middle-market focused special situation and corporate credit investment firm. While at GSC, he was co-head of the control distressed strategy and led investments across a variety of industries. David also sat on the Board of Directors of several GSC portfolio companies. Prior to GSC, David was with The Blackstone Group, in the Principal Investment and Mergers and Acquisitions Groups, where he worked on a variety of private equity and advisory transactions.

David received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.

J. Scott Victor - Managing Director, SSG Capital Advisors

J. Scott Victor is a founding partner and Managing Director of SSG Capital Advisors. Scott is a nationally recognized leader in the restructuring industry with over 25 years of experience representing companies in bankruptcy proceedings and out-of-court workouts. He has completed over 150 sale, refinancing and restructuring transactions in North America and Europe for companies facing operational and/or financial challenges. He is an expert in the restructuring, refinancing and sale of middle-market companies and has testified as an expert witness in bankruptcy courts throughout the United States. Prior to his transition to investment banking, he was a partner and a senior member of the bankruptcy and restructuring department at Saul Ewing LLP.

Past clients include publicly traded, privately held, private equity sponsored and family owned businesses across many industries. Scott has conducted over 100 presentations globally on bankruptcy and insolvency law, distressed mergers and acquisitions, restructurings and special situation financing issues and is frequently called upon by the media for his expertise.

Scott is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy. He is active in the American Bankruptcy Institute having served as a member the Board of Directors, the Co-Chair of the Investment Banking Committee and the Board of Advisors for the ABI Mid-Atlantic Bankruptcy Conference, VALCON Conference and Complex Financial Restructuring Conference. He is a member of the Turnaround Management Association serving on the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of TMA International as well as Vice President of Chapter Relations and past Chairman and President of the Philadelphia chapter.

Flip Huffard - Senior Managing Director, Blackstone

Flip Huffard is a Senior Managing Director in the Restructuring & Reorganization Group.

Since joining Blackstone in 1995, Mr. Huffard has worked on a variety of restructuring and reorganization assignments for companies, creditor groups, corporate parents of troubled companies and acquirers of distressed assets. These assignments include LA Dodgers, Lee Enterprises, Princeton Review, Homer City, Tribune Companies, Flying J, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Winn-Dixie Stores, Fleming Companies, New World Pasta, Adelphia, Dade Behring, The LTV Corporation, and Harnischfeger Industries.

Mr. Huffard has provided expert witness testimony in numerous bankruptcy cases on valuation and capital structure issues and is a frequent public speaker on restructuring topics.

Before joining Blackstone, Mr. Huffard worked at Hellmold Associates, Inc., and Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co., Inc.

Mr. Huffard received a BA from Harvard College and an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.