Who We Are

Investment Bankers

William J. Crusoe

Mr. Crusoe has thirty years of private placement and corporate finance experience gained through senior leadership positions at leading sell-side and buy-side market participants. At JP Morgan Chase and its predecessor companies (1987-2001), Mr. Crusoe was a Managing Director in the US Securities division responsible for originating, structuring, marketing and executing capital raising projects for domestic and international large corporate and middle market clients across a broad range of industries.

At Prudential Insurance Company of America (1971-1987), Mr. Crusoe co-led a team of 13 corporate finance professionals with responsibility to originate corporate finance transactions and maintain credit relationships representing portfolio investments of over $5 billion. He headed Prudential’s problem loan workout group and functioned as a chairman of various creditor committees. In this capacity, he formulated and implemented numerous debt restructurings in the airline, agricultural equipment, textile, railroad and other industries.

Mr. Crusoe has an MBA in corporate finance from the University of Michigan, Graduate School of Business, and a BA in economics and physics from the University of Chicago.

Michael E. Doyle

Mr. Doyle has over 25 years of experience in domestic and international corporate finance, including 5 years of private equity activity. Mr. Doyle serves as Chairman of the Supervisory Board for German Equity Partners, a LBO/MBO fund that specializes in German middle market buyouts. As a corporate finance specialist he served most recently with the ING Group where he was a Managing Director at ING Barings’ M&A department in New York, after an earlier ING assignment as EVP of BHF-Bank in Frankfurt, Germany. At BHF he was co-head of the Bank’s corporate finance division with direct responsibility for the M&A department and the Bank’s Private Equity activity. He had also served as President of Charterhouse, Inc. in New York, and a BHF-Bank affiliate at the time. Mr. Doyle’s prior experience includes 19 years with JP Morgan & Co., where among other responsibilities; he was head of Morgan’s M&A department. During his career Mr. Doyle has advised on approximately $6 billion of M&A transactions. Three fourths of his advisory transactions have been cross border.

Mr. Doyle graduated from Villanova University with a B.S. degree and a MBA from New York University Stern Graduate School of Business.

Walter V. E. Parker

Mr. Parker (“Van”) has extensive experience in finance, venture capital and corporate development. He served as a founding principal in the Sippican Group, LLC, a management consulting firm dealing with closely held and troubled businesses. Mr. Parker’s previous experience also includes serving as a Managing Director with Claymore Partners, Inc., a long-standing management advisory firm addressing the needs of troubled businesses; with the Corporate Finance Division for Xerox Credit where he served as Vice President and senior credit officer and was also responsible for commercial finance portfolio workouts. Earlier, he served with the Project and Lease Finance Group of Kidder Peabody & Co. where he focused on energy transactions and debtor advisories. Previous experience at Manufacturer’s Hanover Trust included responsibilities for commercial real estate, REITs and other selected non performing assets. Mr. Parker has also formerly served as an Independent Director and Chairman of the Audit Committee of a NASDAQ listed closed end fund and as Executive Director of the Greenwich Land Trust.

Mr. Parker is a graduate of the Xerox Advanced Management School. He received his MBA from Columbia University, where he received honors ratings for course work in banking and finance, and his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Colgate University.

Phillips G. Smith

Mr. Smith has over 30 years of experience in the corporate commercial banking and investment banking business. In addition, he has been the chief financial officer for two early stage companies, and an advisor to several other companies seeking their first round of institutional financing.

Mr. Smith began his career at The Bank of New York where he rose to Senior Vice President responsible for corporate banking to Fortune 1000 companies in the tri-state area, and was later responsible for the bank's business in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. He then joined International Strategy Services Inc. (ISSI), where as Managing Director-North America he brought U.S. corporations together with joint venture partners in the Portuguese speaking world. Some of these joint ventures included large scale project financing.

Following ISSI, Mr. Smith served as a founding principal in the Sippican Group, LLC, a management consulting firm dealing with closely held emerging and middle market businesses, including those requiring restructuring assistance in negotiations with creditors.

Mr. Smith is a graduate of Stevens Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Engineering (with Honors) and the Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania, with an MBA (with Distinction). As a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy he served on two ships in the Western Pacific. Mr. Smith is on the Board of Trustees and is Treasurer of Tabor Academy, a 500 student private secondary school located in Marion, Massachusetts.

John W. Speiser

Mr. Speiser has 30 years of commercial banking experience in a variety of areas, primarily focused on generating new business and managing customer relationships with domestic and foreign financial institutions. At PNC Bank, Mr. Speiser first worked in the distressed asset division as an asset-based lender, and later was instrumental in opening a New York private banking advisory office and building the business portfolio. As General Manager of the New York Branch of Commercial Bank of Kuwait, Mr. Speiser succeeded in turning around an unprofitable operation by adding commercial and international banking services, and re-allocating the bank’s investment portfolio.

From to 1988 to 1996, Mr. Speiser was at Barclays Bank Plc, providing capital markets products to US domestic money-center banks. Prior to Barclays, Mr. Speiser spent 3 years at Midlantic/PNC and 11 years at the Bankers Trust Company, working exclusively with foreign financial institutions. Mr. Speiser was stationed in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Singapore for many years with responsibility for a large portion of South Asia. Later, he was with Bankers Trust with responsibility for Southern Europe, including Turkey and Egypt.

Mr. Speiser has an MBA from The Garvin School of International Management (Thunderbird Graduate School; Phoenix), and a BA from Rutgers University.

Advisors

Jeffrey N. Fink

Mr. Fink is counsel to Centre. He has over 20 years experience working with the interplay of business and legal issues, having spent a number of years in private legal practice in New York, Boston and Seattle before joining Centre Capital. In private practice, he worked with private equity and venture capital funds, their portfolio companies and other on and offshore businesses, providing a full range of business law services: mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and other partnerships, licensing, financings for private investment funds and operating businesses, public and private securities offerings. He has done restructuring work on both the debtor and creditor side. Jeff was formerly a member of Convergent GC, LLC, a Boston-area provider of outsourced general counsel services, and Senior Counsel at Proskauer Rose LLP in New York, and occasionally continues to mediate business disputes.

Mr. Fink has a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a founding editor of the Journal of Chinese Law and an associate editor of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, and an A.B. from the University of Pennsylvania in Oriental Studies and International Relations, where he graduated Cum Laude. He is a member of the New York and Massachusetts bars.

Brenda Lewis

Ms. Lewis has over 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur, venture manager and business strategist. She has in-depth expertise in the mission critical enterprise wireless systems and services market, including location services, CRM, security, payments processing, logistics, asset management, billing and customer care. Her pioneering efforts include launch of the first wireless bond, FX and commodity quotation service and of the first privately funded wireless data service in China. She founded Transactions Marketing, Inc. in 1982 and has managed greenfield positioning, marketing strategy, business development, venture capital strategy and launch for 18 firms in telecommunications, including mobile Internet, enterprise applications integration, voice processing, location determination, wireless data and network infrastructure ventures. She has also managed e-commerce re-structuring projects for Digital, McGraw-Hill, The Equitable Companies, TRW and several systems integrators.

Prior to founding Transactions Marketing, she had a 15-year corporate career as a systems analyst, project manager and marketing officer in international energy, shipping and metals with Exxon, Marine Management Systems and Pechiney Ugine Kuhlmann. At Exxon, she was “hooked” on wireless as a member of the launch team for the first global, interactive, real time satellite vessel communications and control system.

Ms. Lewis graduated cum laude in economics from Smith College and holds an MBA from the University of Connecticut. She attended Harvard Business School’s PMD program and earned a certificate in Telecommunications Management from NYU.

Mark N. Perrin

Mr. Perrin is counsel to Centre. He has over 23 years experience as a practicing attorney in the areas of domestic and international secured loan workouts, restructurings, working capital and equipment finance and acquisition finance. He has negotiated and closed amended and restated syndicated secured commercial loan facilities (cash flow and asset-based), restructuring amendments, forbearance agreements, asset disposition agreements and syndicated DIP credit facilities together with distressed loan purchase and sale transactions in connection with individual loans and commercial bank loan portfolios. Mr. Perrin's experience includes representation of the administrative agent, individual lenders and borrowers as a senior in-house attorney (Fleet Boston Financial Corp. and CrossLand Savings FSB) and as outside counsel (Chadbourne & Parke LLP, Proskauer Rose LLP and Buchanan Ingersoll PC). Mr. Perrin has closed loan workouts and restructurings and new financings in a diversity of industries, including but not limited to media, software, automotive parts manufacturing, financial services, restaurant services, health and fitness clubs, health care infrastructure and renewable energy. In addition to his legal experience, Mr. Perrin was a member of the International Division of European American Bank and was engaged in the workouts of a steel manufacturing company and a major distributor of capital equipment each located in Latin America.

Mr. Perrin has a J.D. from Quinnipiac University School of Law and a B.A. in Economics and Business from Lafayette College. He is a member of the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and District of Columbia bars.