Justin Dye comes with 25+ years of experience in high-level strategic management, mergers and acquisitions, operations, private equity and corporate finance. Prior to joining Schwazze, he played a critical role in the private equity consortium that acquired national grocery chain Albertsons, Inc., where he led company expansion with more than $40 billion in acquisitions, divestitures and real estate transactions. During Mr. Dye’s tenure at Albertsons, sales grew approximately $10 billion to more than $60 billion. Previously, he held senior management and corporate development roles at Cerberus Capital Management, General Electric and Arthur Andersen LLP. He earned his bachelor’s in political science from DePauw University, graduating with academic honors.
Nirup Krishnamurthy brings more than 25 years of leadership experience at Fortune 500 companies, with a focus on technology innovation, restructuring and integration. As Chief Information Officer for United Airlines, he helped oversee one of the largest turnaround restructurings in corporate American history, spearheading initiatives to drive major cost reductions and revenue enhancement. Mr. Krishnamurthy also held C-level roles with Northern Trust Bank and former grocery retailer The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P). He earned a bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering and a doctorate in Industrial Engineering from State University of New York, Buffalo.
Jonathan Berger is the retired CEO of Great Lakes Dredge & Dock, Inc. (GLDD nasdaq). In addition to having been a director of GLDD he was also a director of Boise Paper, Inc. a New York Stock Exchange listed company where he previously served as both chair of the audit and compensation committees. Berger is currently a director of Alloy - a privately held specialty environmental contractor and Partner with Genesis Business Humanity, a boutique advisory firm helping bring Israeli tech companies to the US. He is a former partner in KPMG, the international accounting and consulting firm where he ran their corporate finance practice unit on a national level. Previously, Berger held a CPA license and securities licenses 7, 24, 63. He received a BS in Human Development from Cornell University and an MBA from Emory University.
Jeff Cozad is the co-founder of CRW Cann Holdings, LLC – a special purpose vehicle created to support Schwazze’s vision of becoming the dominant, vertically integrated player in the Colorado cannabis market. He is also the Managing Partner of his family office, Cozad Investments, LP, which has completed more than 20 investments across a disparate set of industries over the past 13 years. Mr. Cozad holds an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and received a BA in Economics and Management from DePauw University, where he served on the Board of Trustees for 10 years and chaired the University’s endowment fund investment committee during his tenure.
Jeff Garwood is the founder and is currently the managing member of Liberation Capital, LLC, a private equity fund that is focused on providing modular, repeatable waste to value project finance where he has been active with its investments for 10 years. He is also the co-owner of Zysense, an entity providing high precision measurement instruments for research. Prior to Liberation Capital, Mr. Garwood held a variety of senior leadership positions with General Electric including President and CEO of GE Water and Process Technologies, President and CEO of GE Fanuc, and President of Garrett Aviation and worked for numerous years at the strategic consulting firm, McKinsey and Company. He received a BS of Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University and an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Paul J. Montalbano, MD is a private practicing neurosurgeon in Boise, Idaho with over 30 years in healthcare. Montalbano has been instrumental in developing two highly successful multidisciplinary programs in the nonprofit and for-profit medical sectors. He has also served on multiple governing and financial boards in the medical sector. For 22 years, Montalbano has led the most profitable neurosurgical program at Neuroscience Associates. He received his bachelor's degree in biology from Loyola University of Chicago, earned his medical degree from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and he completed his neurosurgical training in complex spinal reconstruction and brain surgery at the University of South Florida.
Pratap Mukharji is a retired consultant working over 30 years in management consulting, the majority with Bain & Company leading its Supply Chain and Service Operations practices. With a concentration in Industrials and Retail, Mukharji has led strategy; M&A; transformation and turnaround; operations improvement; due diligence, omnichannel; and e-commerce efforts across multiple industries. Prior to Bain, he was at Kearney and Booz-Allen & Hamilton. Mukharji received a BA in Economics from Haverford College at which he was Phi Beta Kappa, and a MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University at which he was a Fuqua Scholar.
With 25 years of experience investing in and helping to grow companies, Marc Rubin is the Managing Partner of Revity Capital Partners, LLC, a private equity firm focused on lower- to middle-market partnership-oriented transactions. Prior to launching Revity Capital Partners, he was a Partner in several investment partnerships that took a private equity-like approach to investing in public companies. Mr. Rubin also previously spent time as a senior deal professional at Parthenon Capital, a strategy consultant at Parthenon Group, and an Economist at a business unit of Standard and Poor’s. He holds a MBA from Stanford Business School and received a BA in Economics from Colby College where he graduated with honors and distinction.
Bradley Stewart is a Private Equity-backed CEO, board member and advisor, where he specializes in building technology and services companies with a focus on strategic transformation, balance sheet restructuring and M&A. He currently, serves as Senior Advisor at Sixth Street, as Chairman at Perch and as an independent board member at Private Medical and Semper Paratus (Nasdaq: LGSTU). Previously, Mr. Stewart was CEO at Fair Technologies, a fintech / marketplace backed by SoftBank Group. Prior to Fair, he was Chairman and CEO at XOJet, the largest on-demand private jet services company in North America, backed by TPG and Mubadala, where he led the company's turnaround. In concurrence with XOJet, he was a Senior Advisor at TPG, a leading private equity firm, where he served on the board of directors for multiple TPG portfolio companies. Prior to his tenure at XOJet and TPG, he was a Vice President at Parthenon Capital, a leading mid-market private equity firm, and formerly an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company. Mr. Stewart received a MBA from Columbia Business School, a BSB in Corporate Finance from the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, and a Lower Division Completion Certificate from the University of Minnesota's College of Science & Engineering.
