A born-and-bred New Yorker, after 17 years on Wall Street, Jesse founded IBS – a boutique investment platform that was sold to Merlin in 2009 (which then sold to Wells Fargo in 2012 for $315M). He then helped launch Haute Hippie, a premium womenswear brand sold globally via owned retail, DTC and wholesale. Jesse became the CEO and Chairman of Haute Hippie in 2012, leading the company to a successful exit to Hilco Brands in 2016. As an early Investor/Advisor, Jesse has worked with and/or invested in Autumn Entertainment, Beach Whiskey, Continuity Logic, Fuck Jerry/Civil, Naked Brands, Pop Up Mob, Something Navy, Stojo, Underalls and Wheels Up.

Stephen is the former President, board member and investor in Bandier, a women’s multi-branded distribution platform selling goods globally via owned retail, DTC and wholesale. After selling a large minority position to Eurazeo in 2019, Stephen continued to invest and then co-founded The Seed Lab. In addition, capitalizing on his more than 10 years of banking experience, Stephen founded Veritus, an advisory firm focused on the consumer goods and services sector. Representative clients include Alterna, Billabong, Chaser, Del Toro, Joe’s Jeans, Tomorrow Showroom, Fender, Frame Denim, Penny Skateboards, Perfumania, Planet Blue, and Roots Canada.

A Co-Founder of Wasserstein Perella, George is a former C-Suite Leader at Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and PineBridge (AIG Investments). An active early-stage investor for over three decades, George was Co-Founder of Office Tiger (sold to Ingram Micro for $45 million in 2013) and Xometry (successful June 2021 IPO with company valued at $3B). George is also Chairman of Xometry and Co-Chairman of Healthwell Acquisition I (SPAC) and a Director of the US Coalition on Sustainability, as well as an early Investor/Advisor in Babiators, Copper, StoryFile, Syntax, Trinity Cyber and VNTANA.

Frederick Tanne is a retired senior corporate partner in the New York office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.  Throughout his 30 year legal career Fred concentrated his practice on structuring and negotiating complex business transactions for private equity clients, including domestic and international mergers, acquisitions, leveraged buyouts and recapitalizations, going private transactions, spinoffs, formation of private equity funds, venture and growth capital investments, debt and equity financings, and restructurings and workouts, handling transactions which range in size from several hundred million dollars to over $1 billion. He regularly represented portfolio companies of private equity clients with respect to all their corporate needs including acquisitions and financings. Mr. Tanne was a co founder of the  firms’ New York office and was instrumental in growing the office from 12 lawyers to over 500 lawyers. For 6 years he also served on the firms’ 15 member management committee and helped grow the firm into a multi-billion dollar revenue business.  Since retirement Fred has acted as an advisor to private equity firms and venture backed companies and he serves on the board of directors of some of these companies including Nikola Labs (a predictive maintenance company) and Terra Kaffe (a manufacturer of a fully automatic espresso machine).  Fred has also served on the board of the ASPCA (the nations largest animal welfare charity) for over 16 years and acted as chairman of the board of the ASPCA for 4 years during which time the organization grew to become the nations’s largest animal welfare organization.

Over 35 years of experience in the finance industry. Top producer and Chairman club member of Dean Witter. Director of Capital Introductions for Societe General Corporate and Investment Banking. Advised hedge fund clients on key features of asset-raising strategies, fund and fee structure offerings, IR staffing, seed opportunities, and market trends.