Michael A. Maccia
Founder
President/Managing Director
Mike Maccia has worked in a variety of industries. Currently, he is the Vice-President of Business Development for Sionix Corporation a publicly traded company that designs innovative, advanced and mobile water treatment systems. Michael remains a Partner and General Counsel of Brogan Capital Ventures, LLC. He ran Irie Music, Inc. an entertainment company in Miami for DJ Irie, the DJ for the Miami Heat, where he oversaw all aspects of the business and put together a wide array of marketing partnerships with various brands across the country. A criminal attorney originally, Mike has also consulted Sentinel, the leading security firm in children’s online safety. After he graduated New York Law School in 2003, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable John S. Triarsi, Superior Court of New Jersey, Criminal Part. Following his clerkship he established his own law practice focusing on criminal litigation. While running his own firm he handled criminal cases, civil cases, and administrative hearings representing police officers on behalf of the PBA and FOP in various correctional facilities across New Jersey.
Eric Cohen
Founder
Treasurer/Managing Director
Eric Cohen has 15 years of branding and management experience. He has been involved in the careers of major musical artists such as Maxwell, Linkin Park, and Herbie Hancock amongst others. He has worked with a wide array of Fortune 500 brands (X-Box, Pringles, Coca Cola, and Sauza Tequila to name a few) on their entertainment marketing strategies and programs. Mr. Cohen ran the day to day operations of the non-profit Heineken Music Initiative overseeing the joint ventures with Sony Music and Universal Records.
Scott Hunter Smith
Founder
Vice President
Scott Hunter Smith has over 20 year’s domestic and international experience in brand Marketing and Strategy. He has been responsible for establishing marketing objectives, strategies and marketing plans for brands like Heineken and the Coca-Cola family of brands (as Dir. of Global Strategy). Scott was a key architect in repositioning the Heineken brand in the US and globally, and developed an award winning ad campaign were the brand grew from a $600 Million brand to a $2 Billion brand in the US. Scott has also played a key role in the development of the current Coca-Cola on-line strategy, were they have secured a $100 Million budget to rebuild the Coca-Cola website worldwide. He was also the founder and president of The Heineken Music Initiative Foundation (freestanding entity), a joint venture with Sony Records and Universal Records for music education. Scott was also the founder and president of the Mentor Foundation (A PSA campaign to encourage kids to get an education) and the Vice President of the International Amateur Athletic Association (Presenting organization for the Jesse Owens Award/Humanitarian Award).
John J. Cardillo
Secretary
John J. Cardillo began his career with the New York City Police Department, and founded Sentinel in 2004.
In December 2006, Sentinel introduced SentinelSAFE with initial partner MySpace.com, a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corporation. SentinelSAFE is the first true national sex offender registry, fully searchable on over 100 offender identifiers. Sentinel’s SAFE and ADAPT products are now the standard in internet predator detection applications.
Cardillo and his team work closely with law enforcement and non governmental organizations such as The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), to ensure safer and more secure online experiences. In 2008 Cardillo received a tribute from the Florida House of Representatives for his work in, and expertise of, cyber crime, predator detection, online child safety, and for protecting over 300,000,000 internet end users from criminals and sexual predators.
Cardillo sits on the boards of directors of The Family Online Safety Institute and is both a board member and Secretary/Treasurer of nPlay, a charity focused on children’s health and obesity issues. He is a Young Founder of Mt. Sinai Medical Center on Miami Beach, and a Fellow with the Lloyd Society, a Washington DC based think-tank focused on juvenile justice. He is a member of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center’s Internet Safety Technical Task Force, the FBI’s Infragard program, and is a board member and consultant to SATGIN (South American Theft Group Intelligence Network). Cardillo is also a creator, executive producer, and consulting producer on film, network and cable television projects.
Jennie Finch
The most well known member in the world of Softball, Jennie Finch has served as a role model for young women throughout the world not only for her on field performance and sportsmanship but how she conducts herself off of it. A Gold Medal pitcher from the 2004 Olympic team, Jennie was a 3 time All-American and Player of the Year winner while playing in college for the Arizona Wildcats. Once offered a lucrative contract to appear nude for Playboy magazine, she commented that she would “rather be a role model for young girls.” She spends a lot of time teaching clinics to young girls, and working with the Cal Ripken Sr. Organization and The National Child Safety Education Program.
Grant Hill
Grant Hill is more than just a professional basketball player. However, it is not only Hill’s on-court play making and talent that impresses people. It’s also his off-court personality that truly makes him transcend beyond the court. Hill’s strong work ethic, humble and gracious attitude, academic achievements, and strong family ties combined with his overwhelming success and good sportsmanship on the court, makes him a perfect choice for a role model. Although many athletes shy away from being labeled as a role model, Hill embraces the idea. Off the court, he tries to lead by setting positive examples. In 2010 Hill was appointed to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition.
He has said that the adulation society showers upon its athletes obliges him to use his influence for good. Hill’s concerns vary in scope. He lends his support not only to a variety of national issues but to local issues as well. Hill was recently awarded a key to the city of Reston, Virginia, where he was raised with the proceeds from that reception going to the Medical Care for Children Partnership, which provides medical services for needy children in the county. Hill also appeared on behalf of Foot Locker and Fila, at a Detroit middle school to kick-off a program designed to replace backboards in 250 area schools. In addition, GMC Trucks sponsored Hill’s visit to the Michigan Special Olympics Women’s basketball team where he spoke, joked, and shot baskets with the players.
At Duke, Hill volunteered for the Read with the Blue Devil’s literacy program. In 1993, he served as the Co-Chairperson of Durham’s Project Graduation, which promoted a drug and alcohol-free graduation party for high school students.
David J. Ferraro, Sr.
Chairman- International Specialty Insurance
www.isinsurance.com
Mr. Ferraro has 25 years of experience in helping affluent high profile clients meet their insurance needs. As one of the industry’s top insurance agents, he has helped meet the unique needs of some of the nation’s most affluent individuals, high profile professional athletes, entertainers, charitable organizations, corporations and business entities on a national basis. His clients include some of the best known professional athletes in the NBA, NFL and MLB.
Mr. Ferraro’s 25 years of experience are in the areas of Risk Management, Advanced Life Underwriting, Advanced Disability Underwriting (Lloyds of London), Business Insurance and Succession Strategies, Charitable Giving, Retirement Funding, and Estate Conservation.
As of recent, he has been active in helping private landowners and families preserve and restore the economic value of their estates and farms through the use of unique land preservation techniques. He has worked closely with various Land Trust Organizations through the use of seminars and client meetings.
Before his career in wealth management, Mr. Ferraro graduated from Wake Forest University. He also played football for WFU and in 1981 qualified for the Athletic Coast Conference (ACC) Athletic Academic Honor Roll.
He and his wife of 29 years, Sandy, have (4) sons and (1) grandson.
Brian Schaeffer
Brian spent over a decade of his career as a top specialist on the NYSE. He handled the trading activities in the top equities in the US such as Disney, Hewlett Packard and Pfizer. Brian was risk manager, managing director and head of floor operations for one of the largest specialist operations on the floor. After selling the specialist firm to Lehman Brothers in 2007, Brian became CEO of a listed global trading and technology company, Van Der Moolen Capital Markets.
Brian was also an exclusive analyst for CNBC. He has appeared on many prime time shows such as Fast Money, Halftime show, Closing Bell, High Net Worth, and Morning Call.
Brian is now the COO and Head of Business Development for WTS a global proprietary trading firm.
Bob Lanza
With his prior experience as Chief Counsel for the National Basketball Players Association, Mr. Lanza has extensive experience with labor law and intellectual property. In this role, he was involved with negotiations of the terms and conditions of all NBA and WNBA players’ employment and participated in the negotiation of a $200,000,000 licensing agreement. His experience includes conducting labor arbitrations, several of which were high profile (e.g., Golden State Warriors v. Latrell Sprewell). He also acted as one of the primary strategists and negotiators for the National Basketball Players Association in collective bargaining. During a lockout his responsibilities included, among other things, filing charges at the NLRB, developing offers and counteroffers, working in conjunction with a team of experts including economists and public relations firms, developing a network for keeping NBA Players informed on the issues and acting as one of the primary spokespersons for the National Basketball Players Association.
Paul LiCalsi
A partner at Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, Paul LiCalsi specializes in commercial litigation with a focus on copyright, trademark, internet rights, enforcement of personal services contracts, contract and commercial disputes, rights of publicity, and unfair competition. Representing such clients as the Beatles corporate entity Apple Corps Ltd., ASCAP, Taylor Swift, Jay Z and Timbaland, and the estate of George Harrison , LiCalsi was recognized by The Hollywood Reporter as one of the 100 Top Outside Counsel in the Entertainment Industry, July 2007 and 2008.
Brian Donahue
Political Consultant & Media Strategist
Brian Donahue is a partner and executive vice-president with Jamestown Associates, a nationally acclaimed political and public affairs consulting firm, specializing in television media advertising and strategic communications.
Prior to joining Jamestown Associates, Brian managed four federal election campaigns, served on two presidential election staffs and consulted on numerous political and public affairs campaigns.
After serving as a target state Executive Director for Bush-Cheney’04, Brian headed the National 72-Hour Task Force for the Republican National Committee, directing grassroots programs, vote analysis and GOTV operations.
Brian has presented campaign strategy and tactical seminars at numerous campaign schools and is sourced in several national news and political publications.
Brian teaches Political Marketing as an adjunct faculty member at the George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management. He is also a member of GSPM’s Council on American Politics.
Marc Levin
Marc Levin is owner of Sam & Helena, Inc., a New York based manufacturing, branding and merchandising company with offices in New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong. With clients such as Nintendo, Nickelodeon, Wellpoint, Hearst Publications and others, his responsibilities include client relations, overseeing international operations and the formulation of cooperative agreements with related business partners. Levin is currently involved in transforming the company to environmentally sustainable manufacturing and is focused on adding interactive technologies to shape the company into a full-service manufacturing and merchandising company. Levin is also the Managing Member of Toulillian Films, LLC, a New York film company.
During the eight years prior to launching Toulillian Films, he co-Owned and was Head of Production for Platform Entertainment, Inc., a Los Angeles based production company, where he was responsible for overseeing the financing and operations of the company and its films, including day-to-day operations, management of film productions and negotiation of domestic and foreign sales. While at Platform Entertainment, he structured and negotiated output deals with Lions Gate Films, HBO and Blockbuster Video, and was Executive in Charge of Production on six films.
Brian R. Nord
Managing Partner, Co-Founder
International Capital Group
As one of the company’s founders, Brian established ICG’s trading platforms, credit and hedging instruments and transaction partnerships.
Now Brian oversees all origination, structuring, as well as domestic and foreign trading activities.
Brian has facilitated hundreds of stock loan transactions around the globe and is a leading expert on loan structure, finance and share management for domestic small cap issues. His key relationships coupled with his knowledge of innovative hedging strategies are providing powerful managed portfolio risk analysis and broadening the scope of financing and investment decisions available to national clients.
Brian has managed the portfolios of accredited and high net-worth investors as well as structuring investment vehicles for publicly traded domestic corporations. He has broad experience in reverse mergers, secondary private equity funding and structured finance.
Prior to ICG, Brian was a leading investment banker and head of the Chicago branch of ACAP Financial, a boutique investment firm. ACAP specialized in debt and equity financing of small and micro-cap securities, market-making and high net-worth individual asset management with a focus on alternative investments.
In addition to his role at International Capital Group, Brian is on the Board of Advisors for ModusCSR, a software-as-a-service company that provides solutions to enterprises that manage Corporate Social Responsibility.
Brian graduated from Illinois State University with degrees in Finance & Business Administration.
Steve Kravitz
Steven B. Kravitz, General Counsel, is a graduate of the Ohio State University (B.A. cum laude 1982), University of Virginia (J.D. 1985), and New York University (LL.M. Taxation 1990).
Mr. Kravitz has practiced extensively during his legal career in the areas of sports law, taxation, and trusts and estates and provides extensive professional advice to many renowned professional athletes and entertainers.
Lev Parnas
Lev Parnas is the Founder and CEO of Parnas Holdings, a diversified private equity group. Established in late 2010, Parnas Holdings is growing rapidly, particularly within its entertainment and real estate sectors. Both Lev Parnas and Parnas Holdings will be receiving production credits for a highly anticipated Hollywood Blockbuster which will be released at the latter end of 2010. His multi-faceted experience within the financial industry coupled with invaluable established relationships have culminated into the diversity of Parnas Holdings’ undertakings. Prior to launching Parnas Holdings, Mr. Parnas was the CEO and founder of EdgeTech. He simultaneously worked as the lead investment banker and direct advisor of DataWind. Mr. Parnas served as the CEO of Program Trading Corp., a NASD registered broker from 1992 to 2001. In the earlier part of his career, he owned an import and export business and worked as a professional stockbroker and investment banker in New York and Florida at many top-rated firms. His continual philanthropic contributions are always prioritized and have extended from cystic fibrosis to illiteracy.
Program Director
Kymm Ballard
Dr. Kymm Ballard is the Partnership Development Specialist for SPARK/School Specialty. Her role is to seek and maintain partners and funding for SPARK in our efforts to provide research based physical education to schools around the country and world. Most recently, she secured a new celebrity partnership with women’s professional golf icon Annika Sorenstam and the ANNIKA Foundation to help educate America’s youth about the benefits of physical fitness and proper nutrition.
Kymm is the former Physical Education, Athletics and Sports Medicine Consultant with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Her professional experiences include service for more than a decade as a physical education teacher, several years as an administrator and the co-developer of North Carolina’s first high school demonstration school. Kymm’s direct service to children influences her work at the national level today. She wrote, advocated for and promoted the Healthy Active Children Policy of the NC State Board of Education and the state’s Standards for Physical Education. As a result of this, Kymm was awarded with the National 2002 P. E. 4 Life Advocate of the Year award for her work both in North Carolina and in Washington, DC. Other recognizable awards include Kymm as North Carolina’s first and only teacher to receive both the Physical Education Teacher of the Year and Health Education Teacher of the Year Awards in the same year. Kymm has received the highest Honor Awards in North Carolina AAHPERD and in her national professional organizations. Among her most notable awards, Kymm was awarded the Channing Mann, National Administrator of the Year by her colleagues in National Association of Sport and Physical Education (NASPE). Moreover, at the same national conference, she was awarded the highest honor award of the Society of State Directors for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, the Si McNeely award. Kymm has additionally been presented with a lifetime membership to the NC PTA. Just prior to leaving the NC Department of Public Instruction, Kymm partnered with NCAAHPERD to retool her teachers with SPARK statewide training the trainer model reaching 80% of the physical education teachers and 90% of the institutes of higher education. She now shares this philosophy and strategy for SPARK statewide as an intervention for obesity prevention and part of a solution to decreasing health care costs.
A strong advocate for physical education and for providing support to help young people make healthy lifestyle choices, Kymm provides guidance to schools and other national organizations to help them provide resources for quality physical education programs. In addition to being the Past-President of the Society of State Directors for Health, Physical Education and Recreation, she also served as the Chair for the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) Public Relations Committee and on numerous committees representing physical educators through updates, meetings and workshops. Kymm has been successful for helping to initiate and facilitate millions of dollars to schools to address obesity prevention.
Kymm obtained a doctorate in Education through the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a focus on LEP students in Physical Education in 2008. A 1985 graduate of Appalachian State University in Physical Education and Health Education, Kymm also holds a Master’s degree in Physical Education with a focus in Sport Administration from Appalachian.
Brian spent over a decade of his career as a top specialist on the NYSE. He handled the trading activities in the top equities in the US such as Disney, Hewlett Packard and Pfizer. Brian was risk manager, managing director and head of floor operations for one of the largest specialist operations on the floor. After selling the specialist firm to Lehman Brothers in 2007, Brian became CEO of a listed global trading and technology company, Van Der Moolen Capital Markets.
Brian was also an exclusive analyst for CNBC. He has appeared on many prime time shows such as Fast Money, Halftime show, Closing Bell, High Net Worth, and Morning Call.
Brian is now the COO and Head of Business Development for WTS a global
proprietary trading firm.
