2:30 – 3:30 - Corporate Governance / Board Control Strategies to Enhance Returns

Jeffrey Allred

Partner

Nelson Mullins

Jeffrey A. Allred is a partner in the Atlanta office of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, concentrating in corporate strategy, governance, acquisitions, and finance. From January 2007 to April 2008, he served as president and CEO of Griffeon Group LLC, a strategic advisory firm. From July 1997 through December 2006, Mr. Allred served as an executive officer, including seven years as president and COO and a member of the Board of Directors of Premiere Global Services, Inc. (NYSE: PGI), a $500M+ global provider of on-demand communications technologies. At Premiere, he was responsible, among other matters, for the execution of over 20 strategic business acquisitions and over 15 strategic venture capital investments. Prior to Premiere, Mr. Allred practiced corporate law as a partner in several nationally recognized firms, including Nelson Mullins.

During his 27-year legal, business and strategic advisory career, Mr. Allred has gained extensive experience in strategic corporate development, including the interrelationship among strategic planning, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate organization and governance. As a business leader and as a legal and strategic counselor, Mr. Allred has led or advised businesses in a wide variety of industries on numerous matters, including public and private debt and equity financings, acquisitions, dispositions, venture investments, control contests, regulatory compliance, and corporate governance.

Mr. Allred is a member of the State Bar of Georgia and is a former member of the Executive Committee of its Business Law section. Mr. Allred is a former member of the Executive Committee of Nelson Mullins and a founding partner of the Firm’s Atlanta office. In addition to Premiere Global Services, he has served on the Boards of Directors of several private technology companies and a private equity firm. Mr. Allred is a member of the Board of Visitors of the Kenan-Flagler Business School, is the current Chairman of the Board of Visitors of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and serves or has served on boards of trustees, advisors, and capital committees of several other educational institutions in Georgia and North Carolina. Throughout his career, Mr. Allred has been an active speaker at numerous legal, business, and educational symposiums.

A native of North Carolina, Mr. Allred received a BA, with highest honors (1976), a JD with honors (1980), and an MBA (1980), all from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In law school, he was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as a member of the North Carolina Law Review.

Braxton Glasgow, III

Executive Vice President, Kenmar Group

Chairman and CEO, Kenmar Securities, Inc.

Mr. Braxton Glasgow joined Kenmar in 2001 as a partner.  He is responsible for business and new product development.  Mr. Glasgow is a member of the Investment Committee.

Previously, he served as Executive Vice President, Director of Client Services and a Principal at Chesapeake Capital Corp., a commodities trading firm, and as Senior Managing Director at Signet Investment Banking Co.  Mr. Glasgow began his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he specialized in merger and acquisition taxation and, since then, has amassed more than 20 years of experience in mergers and acquisitions and private equity, including extensive work in Europe and the Far East. 

Mr. Glasgow received a B.S. in Accounting from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Jay Jester

Managing Director

Audax Group

Mr. Jester is a Managing Director and Director of Business Development at Audax Group. Previously, Mr. Jester was a General Partner with Florida Capital Partners, a middle market private equity firm. Mr. Jester also worked at Bowles Hollowell Conner & Company.  Mr. Jester received a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Robert Reid

Managing Director

The Blackstone Group

Robert Reid is a Managing Director in Blackstone’s Corporate Private Equity group based in New York.  Since joining Blackstone in 1998, Mr. Reid has been involved in the execution of Blackstone’s investments in Centennial, Hilton Hotels, The Nielsen Company (formerly VNU), Extended Stay America, Adelphia, Charter, FiberNet and PaeTec.

Prior to joining Blackstone, Mr. Reid worked in the Investment Banking Division of Morgan Stanley & Co.  Mr. Reid received an AB in Economics from Princeton University where he graduated magna cum laude.

Moderated By: 

Michael Jacobs

President & CEO

Jacobs Capital

Michael Jacobs is the founder and CEO of Jacobs Capital, LLC, an RTP (NC)-based investment banking firm established to provide merger and acquisition and business valuation services to middle market companies.  In addition to running Jacobs Capital, Mr. Jacobs is a part-time Professor in the Kenan-Flagler Graduate School of Business at the University of North Carolina and in the Executive MBA Program at Kennesaw State University in Atlanta.

Mr. Jacobs served as Director of Corporate Finance at the U.S. Treasury Department during the Bush (Sr.) Administration (1989-1991), where he was responsible for national policy in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, corporate governance, and certain banking matters.  He is the author of Short Term AmericaLos Angeles Times and received favorable reviews from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Business Week, Economist  He later published Break the Wall Street Rule: Outperform the Stock Market by Investing as an Owner (Addison Wesley), which was the main selection of the Fortune Book Club in spring 1993.  Mr. Jacobs has written articles on corporate finance and corporate governance that were published in the New York Times, Nikkei Business, Directors and Boards, and CFO Magazine among others.  He was the featured guest on CNBC’s Smart Money, and he has appeared on CNN and PBS. (Harvard Business School Press), which was named one of the ten best business books in 1991 by the and numerous other publications.

In 1993, the nation’s largest public pension fund and leading corporate governance activist, the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), named Mr. Jacobs as one of the seven individuals who had made the greatest contribution to corporate governance reform.  He has served on the boards of several companies and now serves on the board of Southern Software.  Mr. Jacobs is a graduate of Harvard Business School and the University of North Carolina.  He is the past president and chairman of the 400-member Harvard Business School Club of Atlanta.   He resides in Wilmington and Raleigh, North Carolina.

Mr. Jacobs started his career as a consultant with Ernst & Young and as an investment banker with Robinson Humphrey, the largest M&A firm in the southeast at the time.  Mr. Jacobs subsequently started and ran the corporate finance practice for largest bank based in Atlanta (Citizens and Southern, now part of Bank of America); held a similar position for one of the largest consulting firms in the country (Kurt Salmon Associates); and served as Managing Director and head of the Southeast Region of Houlihan, Lokey, the largest middle market merger and acquisition advisor in the country and the nation’s premier business valuation firm.