IR Magazine Forum – Small Cap
STAND OUT IN THE CAPITAL MARKETS

Christopher Stroh is the Director of the Situational Analytics team at IHS Markit which focuses on sustainability focused ownership and targeting studies, transactional risk analyses for companies considering or undergoing strategic changes, and produces scenario-focused analyses for IHS Markit’s various bank and exchange partners. He was previously Co-Director of the Corporate Analytics team at Ipreo which focused on institutional investor targeting strategy for global IR programs. In this role, he helped investor relations teams globally understand the institutional investors they should focus on when preparing for investor days, roadshows, and conferences. Prior to joining Ipreo, he began his career in private wealth management. Christopher Stroh attended Boston University where he double majored in Economics and International Relations with specializations in Europe and International Business.

Greg MacDonald is a capital markets veteran with more than 25 years of experience as an award-winning equity analyst covering U.S. and Canadian stocks in New York and Toronto. During his career on the sell side, Greg covered various sectors, including many years focusing on telecom, media and technology companies.

Greg was a Top Gun ranked analyst by Brendan Wood for multiple years; ranked top three in sector stock picking by Starmine for 5 of his last 10 years in active coverage; and ranked the #1 overall large-cap stock picker in Canada in 2006.

From 2012 to 2019, Greg was Canadian Head of Research for an international investment dealer, where the team achieved a significant improvement in ranking with buyside investors. Greg has an undergraduate degree in Economics, a Masters in Business Administration and is a CFA.

Sourabh Banerji is a member of the Small Cap Value portfolio management team at Columbia Threadneedle Investments. Prior to joining the firm in 2019 Mr. Banerji was an equity analyst at Cutler Group, an equity analyst at Integre Asset Management, and a portfolio analyst at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. He joined the industry in 1999. Mr. Banerji earned a Masters of Business Administration at the Columbia Business School, New York and a Bachelor of Technology at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, India.

Lucy Lu is the Head of Investor Relations of Sixth Street Specialty Lending, Inc. (NYSE: TSLX). Ms. Lu was previously a Vice President in the Leveraged Finance Group at Deutsche Bank, where she was responsible for originating, structuring, and distributing leveraged loan and high yield bond financings. Prior to Deutsche Bank, Ms. Lu worked at UBS, where she was an Associate Director in the Leveraged Finance and Financial Sponsors Group. Ms. Lu received a BA in Economics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Since March 2019, David Meniane has served as CarParts.com’s Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Under David’s leadership at CarParts.com, the company has undergone a comprehensive operational turnaround with record financial growth. David has become a recognized leader in e-commerce, having led the transformation of CarParts.com at the organizational, logistical, and financial level.

Throughout 2020, CarParts.com showed exceptional, double digit, profitable growth with $43.1M of gross profit in Q3 alone and a market cap that has grown 26.6x to $800M. In total, David hired more than 800 people in 2020 and the firm is projected to have over 2,000 employees by early 2021, amidst the country’s high unemployment rates.

In order to transfer savings to consumers and overhaul the company’s revenue stream, David has facilitated the firm’s strong relationships with manufacturers and suppliers, which has reduced supply chain costs, increased inventory efficiency, and improved warehouse operations. David has built an inventory forecasting team and process, from scratch, for sixty-five thousand SKUs and five warehouse locations, and invested heavily in the company’s data science team. The firm has improved inventory turns by 40% in 18 months and opened two distribution centers in 12 months, located in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Grand Prairie, Texas.

David comes with more than a decade of experience in consumer-packaged goods and retail execution, including 3 years at the start up accelerator funded by the Coca Cola Co.

David holds a BS in Accounting and a Master of Business Taxation from the University of Southern California. He currently maintains an active CPA license in the state of California. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife of 15 years, Deborah, and their beautiful daughter, Bella.

James Hasso is head of the small cap team and a portfolio manager for the small cap strategies at Voya Investment Management. Previously at Voya, Jim was an analyst covering the financial-related sectors. Prior to joining Voya, he held research analyst/associate portfolio manager roles at First Investors Corporation, Valenzuela Capital Partners, Mitchell Hutchins Asset Management, and Spears, Benzak, Salomon & Farrell. James serves on the Board of Trustees of the New York Foundling, holds a seat on the Leadership Council of Americares, and is an active member of the Centennial Society of the Economic Club of New York. Jim earned an MBA in finance from Fordham University and a BA in economics from Lehman College.

Julie MacMedan is a strategic, senior executive with extensive experience in investor relations, corporate positioning, capital markets and financial analysis. She has established the internal investor relations function for three consumer facing companies across omni-channel retail, internet publishing and interactive entertainment.

Nominated for Best Investor Relations, Small Cap, by Investor Relations Magazine, Ms. MacMedan has led strategic corporate communications and investor relations programs at public companies experiencing disruptive and rapidly changing business environments.

Currently, Julie is head of investor relations for LL Flooring (NYSE:LL), one of North America’s leading specialty retailers of hard-surface flooring.

Ms. MacMedan joins LL Flooring from Tailored Brands, the parent company of The Men’s Wearhouse and Jos A Bank. Previously, she was senior vice president at strategic communications and investor relations consulting firm Financial Profiles, Inc. after serving as vice president, investor relations for internet publisher and e-commerce marketplace operator Demand Media, Inc. Prior to Demand Media, Ms. MacMedan spent nearly nine years at leading interactive entertainment company, THQ Inc., where she was vice president of investor relations and corporate communications.

Ms. MacMedan began her career with The Nasdaq Stock Market in Washington, D.C., where she listed initial public offerings and counseled public companies regarding market dynamics and the strategy and practice of investor relations.

Julie earned an MBA from George Mason University, and a BS in Business Administration from the University of Richmond, where she graduated magna cum laude.

Heinrich Ey has worked at Allianz Global Investors since April 2006.

He is Co-CIO for European Small caps since 2016 and manages in his function retail  and institutional money together with a team of 5 members. Before taking on his current role, he was managing an analyst team of six regional telecom and media analysts and covering 30 telecom stocks with his own modelling and formal recommendations. He was also the lead portfolio manager for the Allianz Telemedia funds, which has won several awards from Lipper and Euro Finanzen in the last couple of years. His focus had been also on digital disruption trends and their impact on traditional business models within his industries, and he is part of the jury for the German Stevie Awards since 2016.

Before taking on this role, Ey worked for four years as an analyst at AGI. Prior to that, between 2000 and 2002, he managed European and global equity funds for institutional and retail clients and was a member of the TMT sector team at Allianz Asset Management. He started his career in asset management in 1995 as a buy-side trader for equity, fixed income and derivatives at Allianz.

Annemarie Brissenden oversees investor relations for Amarillo Gold Corporation, a TSXV-listed gold development company focused on Brazil. A Certified Professional in Investor Relations, Annemarie is passionate about helping public companies tell the right stories to the right investors. She has spent almost 20 years in investor relations, largely focused on the resource sector. She has experience in corporate transactions, shareholder activism, and was a lead contributor to one IPO. As a consultant, she’s advised on social media messaging, website content creation, and rebranding. Annemarie has also served as a campaign manager for a successful municipal campaign, produced corporate disclosure through a plain language firm, and as a judge for the CPA Canada corporate reporting awards program.

Gervais Williams is Head of Equities at Premier Miton Investors and manages a number of funds and trusts that aggregate to over £1.5bn, he joined the group in 2011. His fund management career extends over 30 years including 17 years at Gartmore Group Ltd, where he was Head of UK Small Companies investing in UK smaller companies and Irish equities. Gervais is a member of the AIM Advisory Council, and a board member of the Quoted Companies Alliance. He was a member of the Patient Capital Review panel with the Chancellor of the Exchequer two years ago where the recommendations were put into legislation in the subsequent budget. Gervais Williams has published three books, ‘Slow Finance’ in the autumn of 2011 (Bloomsbury), ‘The Future is Small’ published in November 2014 (Harriman House) and ‘The Retreat of Globalisation’ published in December 2016 (Harriman House).

Hunter Wells has over a decade of Investor Relations experience creating and executing best-in-class IR programs for numerous companies across industry sectors. Hunter joined Century Communities, the 9th largest national homebuilder, in December 2019 as the Vice President, Investor Relations. From 2017 to 2019, Hunter was the Manager, Investor Relations at Zayo Group Holdings, a communications infrastructure company, where her team was awarded the “Best IR Program – Telecom” in 2017 and 2018 by Institutional Investor. Prior to her role at Zayo, Hunter was a Vice President at ICR, an integrated communications firm, where she handled IR operations for clients ranging in market cap of $500 million to $15 billion in the Consumer and Retail sectors. She presently serves on the board of directors for the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) – Rocky Mountain Chapter and was named a “40 Under 40” honoree in 2020. Hunter graduated from Northeastern University, Magna Cum Laude, with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism in 2011.

Greg Costa has served as Director of Investor Relations at Hersha Hospitality Trust (NYSE: HT) for the past four years, responsible for communicating with current and prospective shareholders and the equity research community strategic and financial information regarding the Company. Prior to joining Hersha, he worked for Ipreo, LLC as an associate on the Global Markets Intelligence team providing investor relations clients information regarding trading activity of both common and preferred equity, options activity, and investor targeting. Previously, Greg served as an institutional sales representative on the equity trading desk of Global Hunter Securities focused on the Natural Resources sector including Oil and Gas, Metals and Mining, and Shipping. In 2019 and 2020, Greg was a finalist for IR Magazine’s Best Investor Relations among Small-Cap Equities and Best Investor Relations in Real Estate. Mr. Costa holds a B.S. degree in Finance from Fairfield University.

Thierry Elmaleh is an IR Partner at Q4 and brings two decades of experience connecting companies of all types and sizes to the capital markets.  Most recently, he built and ran an IR program for a Canadian listed mid cap cannabis company where he deployed Q4 for his technology needs and experienced first hand as a customer the value the Q4 platform delivers.

Prior to practicing IR, Thierry spent in excess of 15 years on the sell side leading and growing US institutional equity businesses in Canada.  Thierry has advised hundreds of management teams from mega to micro cap and across multiple industries on investor outreach and capital raising strategies.  He has helped asset managers of all sizes and style types uncover investment opportunities through multiple market cycles. Most recently Thierry was a Managing Director in the Trading Products Division of one of the largest Canadian Banks and has worked at some of the most well known global investment banks.  He began his career as an investment banker. Thierry holds an MBA from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and an undergraduate degree in Economics from McGill University.

Joseph Oltmanns joined OTC Markets Group in 2009. Joe leads the Domestic Corporate Services group focused on business development in the U.S. In this role, he works with public and private companies to better understand their needs and objectives so that they maximize investor engagement. Prior to joining OTC Markets Group, Joe was Director of Listing & Client Services at NYSE Amex where he consulted with various private and public companies seeking to list on a national exchange while conducting due diligence reviews on their management teams, business plans, and corporate structure. Joe holds a BS from Villanova University and an MBA from Fordham University.

Iris is a founder of EffectiveIR, Investor relations – Impact Related End-to-End Consultancy firm. Three fields of activities: 1. Advise public companies and start-ups on how to become “Investor-Friendly” 2. Corporate storytelling 3. Bridging the Israeli Capital market for European companies. Iris has multidisciplinary knowledge and experience from the world of law, finance and impact Investment. (LL.B, LL.M, MBA). She is a guest lecturer and mentor at the Adelson School of Entrepreneurship (IDC). She brings with her a refreshing, uplifting, and growth-driven attitude!

• 20+ years of Wall Street experience
• Has provided investor relations and investment banking services to more than 100 public companies
• Head of Investor Relations for diagnostics company VolitionRx Limited (NYSE American: VNRX)
• Previously worked for the world’s largest independent investor relations agency
• Previously U.S. Investor Relations Representative for Himax Technologies (NASDAQ: HIMX), Director of Investor Relations for ANADIGICS, Inc. (formerly NASDAQ: ANAD), and Director of Investor Relations for China Hydroelectric Corporation (formerly NYSE: CHC)
• Previously an investment banker with Brean Capital, LLC and Westminster Securities in New York City
• Currently Advisor and Venture Partner with Waterman Ventures Fund in New York City
• Former Adjunct Assistant Professor at Fordham University’s Gabelli Graduate School of Business in New York City
• Business Certificate from Columbia University; Ph.D. from Brown University; B.S. in Business Administration, with honors, from Bryant University

Seth R. Frank is a strategic financial communications professional with over 25 years’ experience in equity research, capital markets and investor relations. He specializes in the healthcare industry, specifically healthcare services, medical technology, distribution and information technology.
Seth is Vice President of Investor Relations at Hanger, Inc., the leading provider of orthotic and prosthetic healthcare services, based in Austin, Texas. Prior to joining Hanger in January 2018, he was Vice President of Investor Relations at Allscripts, a Chicago-based global leader in healthcare information technology, from 2009 through 2017.

Seth was a Vice President of Sard Verbinnen & Co, a global leader in strategic communications and a Director of Investor Relations with Kanbay International, an India-based information technology services firm from 2006 through 2008.

Before investor relations, Seth was Vice President and Manager of Institutional Equity Sales at A.G. Edwards and Sons in St. Louis and prior to that was health care research group leader and a senior analyst covering the healthcare IT industry. Prior to A.G. Edwards, he was a Vice President and Senior Analyst at Suntrust Equitable Securities. Seth began his equity research career at Morgan Stanley global headquarters in New York City in 1994.

Seth attended the Masters of Public Health program at Yale University, holds a Master of Science from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Emory University.

Eliza Riego, Head Product and Service Innovation, studied Environmental Studies and Geographic Information Systems prior to joining TMX Group.  Having worked in multiple departments at TMX, over the last 12 years, Eliza has been focused on developing products, services and professional development opportunities for publicly listed companies on Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange.  Recently, Eliza created ESG 101, a hub for ESG resources for issuers, and co-produced the updated Primer for Environmental & Social Disclosure.

James Siccardi is Vice President of Investor Relations at Energy Recovery, where he is responsible for ensuring that management’s strategy is understood by the investment community. He serves as a liaison between Company management and Wall Street analysts, and between Company management and Main Street institutional investors. He is responsible for ensuring that Energy Recovery’s Executive management team and its Board of Directors understands, and adequately responds to, the needs of its external stakeholders.

Mr. Siccardi brings extensive equity investment experience, having spent over 20 years on the energy equity research teams of Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, in institutional equity sales at Societe Generale, as portfolio manager and Global Head of Energy for HSBC Asset Management, and in Investor Relations at Occidental Petroleum. Additionally, Mr. Siccardi launched and managed a Natural Resource Hedge Fund at PAW Capital Partner in Greenwich, CT.

Mr. Siccardi’s sell-side, buy-side and corporate background provides him a unique perspective to understand the various needs of the diverse group of ERII stakeholders with whom he regularly interacts. He takes great pride in initiating and building the relationships that have helped ERI surge to record levels, and positioning Energy Recovery’s Investor Relations Department to be recognized as Runner-up in Investor Relation Magazine’s Top Small Cap Investor Relations Department (2020).

Mr. Siccardi earned an MBA in Finance, with a focus in Investments, from the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, and a BA in Finance, with a minor in Accounting, from Villanova University.

Ben Ashwell is the editor at IR Magazine and Corporate Secretary, covering investor relations, governance, risk and compliance. Prior to this, he was the founder and editor of Executive Talent, the global quarterly magazine from the Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants. Before moving to the US, Ben was the vice president and editor at Executive Grapevine, overseeing a daily news website, ten annual supplements and HR Grapevine, the UK’s leading HR and talent management magazine. In his spare time, Ben writes fiction, poetry and arts and culture reviews. Eyewear Publishing recently named him in their list of the Best New British and Irish Poets.

Steve Wade is a content researcher and conference producer at IR Magazine where he is responsible for crowd-sourcing intelligence on the big global issues facing investor relations. Steve also creates events where the IROs and the wider financial community can discuss, debate and learn about ways to develop the IR function.

Prior to IR Magazine, Steven’s background has been in corporate social responsibility and responsible investment. During his time at Ethical Corporation (now Reuters Events), Steve launched the ESG symposium, an event focused on connecting the socially responsible investment community with corporate sustainability leaders at listed companies. Steve was a judge for the Deloitte Green Frog Awards, celebrating the best corporate reporting in Eastern Europe. Steve also presented research at the Global Sustainable Event Summit in London and has spoken about extra-financial reporting with the United Nations Global Compact, the World Bank and the Polish Ministry of Finance.

Steve has a degree in Event Management and enjoys playing rugby in his spare time.

Tim Human is senior reporter at IR Magazine. He rejoined the publication in 2019 after two years working as a freelance writer for a range of international clients. Previously, he was editor of IR Magazine between 2013-2017. He has also written for Corporate Secretary, IR Magazine’s sister publication, and CorpComms, the UK-based magazine for corporate communications professionals.