Nia Stefany, Chairman of the Board

Ms. Stefany advises and assists clients in going public transactions, acquisitions and sales of businesses, in obtaining private equity and venture capital, and in corporate structuring, planning and transactions. She also provides business and financial advisory services, including evaluating investment opportunities, developing business models, and improving business operations. She also manages the Xnergy Capital Fund I bridge fund.

Ms. Stefany has completed a wide variety of investment banking transactions for clients over a broad range of industries. She has managed or participated in over 50 acquisition, merger and disposition transactions valued at more than $200 million.

Throughout her career, Ms. Stefany has successfully formed, acquired, managed, developed and sold several companies in the consumer products, technology, and specialty services industries and a national franchise business. As chief executive officer and director of these companies, she has been responsible for management of all aspects of businesses, including strategic planning, structuring, finance, operations, product development, and marketing.

Ms. Stefany has held several senior management and board of director positions in both public and private companies and was a senior executive in the mergers and acquisitions department of a New York Stock Exchange listed company.

Prior to forming Xnergy, Ms. Stefany was a mergers and acquisitions, securities, and corporate attorney with a major Beverly Hills, California law firm, where she was responsible for negotiating, structuring, documenting, and closing mergers, acquisitions, restructurings, dispositions, public and private equity and debt financings, and franchising. She also worked on numerous public and private offerings.

Ms. Stefany has been an adjunct professor at Santa Monica College and at Loyola University, where she taught classes on business and legal subjects.

Education:

Nia Stefany attended Loyola University School of Law where she received a J.D. degree in 1994. Subsequently, she attended the University Of San Diego School Of Law where she received a Masters of Laws in Taxation, with a specialty in complex corporate transactions.

Organized Affiliations:

Ms. Stefany is a member of the California State Bar, and the Beverly Hills and Los Angeles County Bar Associations. She is a member and sponsor of the National Investment Bankers Association, the Association for Corporate Growth, the Los Angeles Venture Association. She is also a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Pasadena Angels, the Tech Coast Venture Group, the Small Cap Investors Association, the Keiretsu Forum and many other professional, charitable and civic organizations.

Panels and Speaking Engagements:

Ms. Stefany is a panelist and speaker at the Annual Harvard Business School Conferences, the Entrepreneur Conference, the Growth Capital Conferences, the Continuing Education of the Bar and she is a popular speaker at many other professional conferences, conventions and seminars on investment banking, IPOs, angel investing and venture capital.

Community Service:

Through her involvement with the Pasadena Angels and the Keiretsu Forum, Ms. Stefany mentors many entrepreneurs and start-up businesses. She also has invested in several promising early-stage companies, and she provides business and financial guidance to them at no cost. She serves on the boards of directors of several private companies and nonprofit organizations.

Awards and Honors:

Ms. Stefany was recognized nationally for her contribution to the American economy and to small and medium size businesses and awarded the prestigious “Keeping America Strong” Award by Rear Admiral Kevin Delanney and featured on the show “Heatbeat of America” , hosted by William Shatner. Her firm, Xnergy, has been named one of the top 10 investment banking firms by the San Fernando Valley Business Journal. Ms. Stefany is also a published tax-planning author.

Paul Bloom, CEO

In his early career years, Paul became well versed in the communications, software, computer services, and general technology industries (and related small cap companies) working as a sell-side/buy-side analyst at Goldman Sachs and Citicorp/J.P. Morgan in New York City. From 1984-1989, he facilitated vertical market coverage of the nascent transaction services industry while helping to build an institutional brokerage business from start-up at Johnson Lane.

Migrating out West, Paul joined Volpe Brown Whelan & Company, LLC in San Francisco in 1989. While helping grow Volpe’s investment banking/research business from near start-up of 25 employees to over 150, over the space of nine years, Paul partnered with its investment bankers on 38 small-cap transactions in computer services, vertical market applications, infrastructure software, software development tools and special situations, focusing exclusively on funding small capitalization companies. As a result of these deals, Paul developed an impressive knowledge base in vertical market application software, application integration and advanced software technologies. Subsequently, Paul participated in seven financing transactions for a range of software/related technology small cap companies at Roth Capital Partners.

As Executive Vice-President of Corporate Development at AremisSoft-Softbrands in Minneapolis from 2000-2003, Paul helped execute a consolidation strategy of vertical market software companies and managed two acquisitions for $70M, adding $70M of revenue for the company. In addition, Paul supervised all corporate communications to Wall Street and served as its President and Board Member during a transition period. Returning to Roth Capital Partners as a Managing Director of Investment Banking in 2004, Paul participated in a range of technology, advanced materials, and energy relatd transactions.

Paul has been an independent financial advisor in New York City since 2007 working with Jesteda Partners, consulting on financial transactions for public and private companies in nano materials, oil/gas drilling services, bio-renewable feed, advanced video processing, and industrial materials.

Paul holds Series 24, 7 and 63 licenses and is a licensed broker in New York State and California. He holds a B.S. in Physics from CUNY and a Master’s/Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the Belfer Graduate School of Science at Yeshiva University. He currently resides in New York City.

Don Johnson, Director

Mr. Johnson focuses primarily on mergers and acquisitions and finance transactions. He advises and assists clients in structuring, negotiating, documenting, and closing acquisitions, mergers and dispositions, including regulatory compliance. He also assists clients in structuring, negotiating, documenting and executing finance transactions, including private equity, angel and venture capital, public transactions and debt financing. Mr. Johnson also assists public-company clients in continuing regulatory, reporting and qualification requirements. He is also available to assist clients in business and financial planning, evaluation of investment opportunities, preparation of business plans, and general business and corporate matters.

Prior to joining Xnergy, Mr. Johnson was a member of Richman, Mann, Chizever, Philips and Duboff, Beverly Hills, California, Loeb and Loeb, Los Angeles, California, and Mulvaney, Kahan and Barry, San Diego, California.

Mr. Johnson is a member of the State Bar of California and the bars of the U. S. Supreme Court, U. S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, U. S. District Court, Southern District of California, and U. S. Tax Court. He is active in a number of professional, charitable and civic organizations.
Education:
Mr. Johnson earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Iowa.

Mr. Timmerman’s professional experience includes more than 25 years in leadership roles, as CEO, CFO, and investment banker with entrepreneurial, small and middle market companies, both private and public, in the US, Europe, and the Third World.

He has advised on hundreds of transactions and completed over two dozen small and middle market M&A deals in a myriad of industries including aerospace & defense, manufacturing, high tech, software, IT, engineering, construction, Clean Tech, and leisure. In addition he has completed joint ventures with US and European companies.

For small and middle market companies he has raised over $350 million in equity and all forms of debt from the public markets via IPOs and secondary financings, institutional investors, banks, private equity funds, venture capitalists, and private high net worth individuals.

He has turned three businesses around through sound operational management and restructuring debt. He successfully guided one company in and out of Chapter XI in less than 90 days, culminating in a “363 asset purchase” by the management group.

He began his career with JP Morgan Chase where he held various positions including Vice President and County Manager of the Ivory Coast, Vice President Commercial Banking in Paris, France.

Mr. Timmerman is on the Board of Directors of Pointivity, an IT services (Software as a Service) company. He is a member of the Association for Corporate Growth, San Diego CommNexus Clean Tech Special Interest Group, and a past member of the Executive Committee of the San Diego MIT Enterprise Forum. His past Board memberships include a European construction company, an engineering company, a manufacturing company, and an oil importer & distributor.

Mr. Timmerman received his BA in Philosophy & European History from Washington & Lee University and his MBA in International Economics from New York University. He holds a Certificate d’賵des from L’Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris, France. He is fluent in French.

Robert Kucharski, Director

Robert Kucharski is Director of the Xnergy Financial Asia practice. He is responsible for business development in China, identifying and working with small to mid-cap Chinese companies seeking access to the US capital markets. Through many trips to the country, he has developed productive relationships with Chinese provincial government officials and financial advisors active in the China space. Bob’s responsibilities include: managing the process of preparing a Chinese company for a capital raise in the US; helping to obtain China government approvals; providing assistance in identifying and working with accounting and audit firms; and recommending legal representation in China and the US. Bob has extensive experience in analyzing businesses and has an understanding of the Chinese people and their culture. For 26 years Bob was the owner of a shopping center development company that focused on community-sized shopping centers. His diverse experience includes development, retail and construction management, and leasing. One project, a brownfield redevelopment site, was the first of its kind in Oklahoma. For this enterprise he was awarded the prestigious Phoenix Award at the National Brownfields Conference (referred to as the brownfields’ equivalent of Hollywood’s Oscar) and the EPA’s Regional Administrator’s Environmental Excellence Award for taking the initiative to create cooperative relationships with private industry, city, state, and federal governments in order to redevelop during remediation, previously unused commercial property. By virtue of his extensive successful experience with numerous local government and business groups, all seeking a common goal, in complex situations, Bob has developed tremendous expertise that can be of substantial value to Chinese companies seeking a trusted advisor.

Jay Bartelstone , Investment Banker

Mr.Bartelstone is currently the Managing Director of The Private Financing Group, an Investment Banking Advisory Company. The Private Financing Group, assists their clients in the strategic assessment of their business, and engages in strategic planning, capital strategy and formulation, transmittal document and preliminary due diligence activities and operating capital attainment Mr. Bartelstone has a broad and diverse operating management background having held a number of Senior Executive positions in the financial services industry.

Included in these Senior Executive capacities was the supervision of domestic and international banking operations at Citicorp, New York. While at Citicorp, Mr. Bartelstone was responsible for the Bank’s national expansion efforts through his project oversight for major acquisitions, involving many of the Bank’s diverse financial service offerings. While stationed in New York, Jay was responsible for the overall operating management of the large branch offices in New York City as well as the Bank’s check processing clearing operations with the Federal Reserve of New York. In his last position at Citibank, Jay was project manager for the Bank’s acquisition and consolidation of Diners Club and Carte Blanche which resulted in the Bank’s acquisition of these two companies. After the acquisition of these two companies, Jay was involved in the on going international marketing and operations for the Carte Blanche and Diners Club franchises.

At Union Bank, in Los Angeles, Ca. as Group Sector Executive, Mr. Bartelstone was responsible for strategic planning, the management of the investment management, trust, real estate, private banking and small business lending operations. Upon leaving Union Bank, upon the sale of Union Bank to the Bank of Tokyo, Jay went on to hold the Senior Executive positions of President/CEO and Vice Chairman/Chief Operating Officer of Columbia Bank and the Bank of Los Angeles respectively.

He holds a Bachelors degree from the University of Connecticut and a Masters Degree in Finance from Fordham University, in New York. Jay is  a licensed Mortgage Broker. Jay also holds a Series 63 and 65 Securities License. Mr. Bartelstone is a member of North Ranch Country Club.Jay currently lives in Westlake Village, Ca. with his family. 

Stephen W. Fillet

Mr. Fillet an Investment Banker at Xnergy Financial LLC. Mr. Fillet served as a senior Managing Director of Investment Banking at Roth Capital Partners, the United States' #1 full-service investment bank focusing on small and micro-cap companies, in the firm's headquarters office. Prior to this, Mr. Fillet was Executive Director and Head of CIBC's Technology Investment Banking practice in Los Angeles. Prior to joining CIBC, Mr. Fillet was a senior banker at Roth Capital Partners (formerly Cruttenden Roth), where he served as a Vice President and, later, as a Principal in the firm's technology investment banking practice.

Prior to this, Mr. Fillet spent over six years as Vice President of a West Coast-based boutique investment banking firm specializing in initial and follow-on public offerings, buy- and sell-side merger and acquisition advisory assignments, private placements of both debt and equity and strategic financial feasibility studies.Prior to this, Mr. Fillet was a member of Oppenheimer's West Coast Investment Banking Group and an analyst at Banque Paribas, in the firm's New York office, in both the large corporate and leveraged capital groups.

Mr. Fillet entered the field of investment banking with experience gained as a corporate banking officer and management associate at Bank of America as well as a marketing professional and systems engineering assistant at IBM. Mr. Fillet earned his B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Southern California and his MBA, Summa Cum Laude, from the Stern School of Business at New York University. While in business school, Mr. Fillet was the first place winner of the Charles Lazarus National Entrepreneurship Award for a technology business that he founded.

Mr. Fillet has a strong educational background, having received degrees from two of America's top academic institutions. His hard work and achievement in this regard has been critically recognized with lifetime memberships to the California Scholarship Federation and Beta Gamma Sigma, the national honor society for Business School students.

Applying his education and drive, Mr. Fillet has a history of working in major corporations, including IBM, Bank of America, Banque Paribas and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, where he worked closely with both the senior decision-makers of these institutions as well as the corporations to which they catered.

Mr. Fillet also has a history of working in various entrepreneurial environments, a key attribute to any client or organization. In connection with this, Mr. Fillet's history includes winning a national business plan competition, starting a business upon which this plan was based, and providing high value-added advice and services to entrepreneurial corporations and their principals, Boards of Directors and stakeholders.

Eric Swain has over 30 years of financial services experience in sales and trading activities for fixed income market makers, including Glickenhaus, Bear Stearns, Citigroup Capital Markets and Morgan Stanley. His executive-level responsibilities have included: maintaining an institutional book of business with annual transactions in excess of $1 billion; working the offerings of debt, treasury as well as the private placement of securities.

In early 2000, while at Citigroup Capital Markets, Mr. Swain began building a Private Wealth Management business and successfully grew and managed Individual and Institutional Assets in excess of $800 million, spanning fixed income, equities, alternative investments, hedging strategies and real estate. The need to develop two types of business models to handle two very different types of clients, led Mr. Swain to start a team approach to sales and trading for the institutional clients, as well as a full team for the Global Wealth Management Programs. After six years, he brought this strategy to Morgan Stanley where he continued to focus on the middle markets for Institutional Fixed Income clients, and manage Individual assets through the very tough market environment of 2007 and 2008. Mr. Swain reached almost$1 billion in assets either advised directly or indirectly.

In late 2008, Mr. Swain was recruited as the CEO to lead the turnaround of a publicly-traded technology company. He replaced the founder/CEO, re-established credibility with S.E.C. and other regulatory authorities, and stabilized the shareholder-base. There was further activity installing a new accounting firm, new legal representation, cleaned-up accounting issues, worked with chief engineers to produce a prototype for effective public demonstrations and signed a joint development agreement with Schlumberger (world’s largest oil services co.). Commenced expense reduction plan and effort to raise new capital. Initiated final phase for patent issuance.

Through the years Mr. Swain has developed the skills and contacts necessary to address the operating and growth needs of small, micro-cap companies in fast-paced, competitive environments. Services for these clients include performing advisory work, financial/business modeling, capital formation, debt and equity financing, talent acquisition, public, and investor relations.

Eric Swain attended Syracuse University and received a BA in Psychology

Yaakov G. Vanek, Managing Director

Yaakov G. Vanek is a Managing Director of Xnergy Financial LLC. He brings to Xnergy a distinguished career in finance, law and investment banking. His financing expertise extends from venture companies to companies listed on the NASDAQ, with specialties in technology, financial services, alternative finance companies, media, healthcare and real estate. He also has strong and varied experience in corporate mergers and acquisitions.

Yaakov has also over 17 years of experience working with private equity firms as both a principal investor in, and advisor for, a wide array of investments in technology, media, healthcare and retail.
Yaakov was most recently associated as General Counsel of a joint venture of the Nogales Private Equity firm involving the successful acquisition of a chain of retail stores in the Southern California area. Prior to this firm, Yaakov served as Director of Business Development and General Counsel for the private equity division of a Latin American group. Under his leadership, the firm closed a number of highly successful transactions, including the acquisition of Continental Airlines with the Texas Pacific Group, the purchase of Westin Hotels, and the development of the Blockbuster Video chain in both Mexico and Brazil.

Yaakov also founded his own investment banking firm which raised over $500 million in private placement financing for both NASDAQ and private companies, primarily in the area of technology. This included such notable companies as EarthLink, Inc. and Sonic Foundry, Inc. The firm's specialty also extended to healthcare and pharmaceutical companies.

Yaakov is a graduate of the UC Berkeley Business School and the UC Berkeley Law School (Boalt Hall). Yaakov is a California attorney and California Certified Public Accountant. He is a licensed real estate broker with the California Department of Real Estate, and holds Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) licenses Series 7, 79, 66, 24 and 27.

Karen Ard, Managing Director

Karen Ard is Managing Director at Xnergy Financial. She brings to Xnergy over 25 years of experience in Investment Banking, including structuring, managing and placing private equity, venture capital, and institutional investments in emerging growth public and private companies. Ms. Ard has participated in hundreds of Regulation D offerings and specializes in private placements of securities.

Ms. Ard provides consulting services for Direct Participation Programs and assists building selling groups from the retail Broker/Dealer community.

Ms. Ard also assists publicly trading companies in obtaining DTC eligibility.

Ms. Ard is an active member of the Financial Services Exchange (FSX) and the National Due Diligence Alliance (TNDDA.com).
Ms. Ard enjoys fly fishing, skiing, hiking, new technologies, real estate and gourmet cooking.

Greg Reitman, Managing Director

Greg Reitman, Managing Director, Xnergy, Media & Entertainment Finance. Greg is an international entrepreneur who combines an impressive background in entertainment finance, alternative energy, marketing, business, technology and film production and distribution.

In 2000, Greg founded Blue Water Entertainment, Inc., an independent production company focusing on environmentally conscious entertainment. Widely regarded as Hollywood's "Green Producer," Greg produced the 2008 Sundance Audience Choice award feature documentary film "FUEL."

Prior to Blue Water Entertainment, Greg worked in the high tech arena for five years.
From 2000-2002, he managed the Global Business Development, Media & Entertainment division for Fortune 500 company LSI Logic, Inc. a leading manufacturer of semiconductors, silicon chips, and fiber channel storage. At LSI, he was responsible for the creation and implementation of the entertainment strategic business plan as well as running the vertical entertainment business. In addition, he produced the brand identity package for the company's division.

In 1994 Greg moved to Sydney, Australia, where he co-founded the Meta Group subsidiary operation in Australia and New Zealand. During this time, he was the top sales executive, attaining sales up to $1 million in the first 10 months. He later relocated to Los Angeles operating as senior sales director, where he achieved top revenues for the company. Greg was a leading industry technology spokesman in the areas of multimedia, electronic publishing, and e-commerce.

Greg began his career in 1993, working in the marketing and sales department for Oxford University Press in New York City. In 1994 he moved to London, where he worked for Simon & Schuster International in Hemel Hempstead, England. At Simon & Schuster (formerly Viacom), he was responsible for the packaging and launch of Viacom's first educational multimedia product in the global marketplace.

Greg is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with international studies at Florence University in Florence, Italy; Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan; Tel-Aviv University in Tel-Aviv, Israel. He is an alumnus and member of the Hollywood Film Institute, the IDA, and an active member of the DGA.

Greg's speaking engagements include: SMPTE 2000, SMPTE 2001, PBS Technology Forum, Streaming Media West, Digital Hollywood, Electronic Document Management Conference, and the E-commerce Conference.

Greg writes as a freelance journalist for the online publication, The Environmentalist covering the climate change and alternative energy global marketplace.

He currently resides in Los Angeles, living a "green lifestyle."

Robert E. Sperlinga, Managing Director

Robert is a Managing Director at Xnergy Financial. He brings to Xnergy over 20 years of experience in the fields of finance, real estate, media, management and entrepreneurship. In early 2000, Robert worked on Wall Street with Citigroup in the Smith Barney division. He provided Private Wealth Management consulting services in which he developed and implemented investment, liability, and risk management strategies to Top-Level Executives.

He has founded, developed, managed, purchased and sold businesses in the fields of computer technology, entertainment, transportation, construction, business & commercial real estate finance, private placements, business/corporate structuring and real estate. He has raised millions of dollars in capital for businesses and corporations nationwide.

Robert is involved in a full range of investment banking activities which include public and private equity and debt financing and mergers & acquisitions. He prides himself on focusing on the client's needs and seeing a project all the way through despite the many obstacles in the way. He is a master networker and works intelligently and creatively to bring the necessary principals together to achieve the objective expeditiously.

Robert was born and raised a Bostonian, has lived in New York City and currently resides in Los Angeles. He attended Boston College where he studied Business, Finance & Philosophy. He is forever a student of life, has strong values and will become your best friend while getting the corporate financing that will be good for your business, America and the world economy.