Breaking Barriers to Capital Access: Connecting Minority- and Women-Owned Businesses with Investment Banks and Private Equity Firms

Ramsey Jay Jr. is the Founding Principal of Ramsey Jay, Jr. and Associates, a strategic consulting company specializing in corporate finance, commercial sales and marketing, business communications, human capital, enterprise team leadership, and diversity, equity, and inclusion programming. Ramsey is a seasoned executive, strategic thinker, and former Division 1 Track athlete with 20+ years of successful experience partnering with corporations across a myriad of industries, pension funds, professional trade organizations, and senior executives to solve multifaceted and complex business challenges.

Prior to founding his consulting company, Ramsey was a global investment management executive with a keen focus on both investing, and raising capital, in alternative assets (bank loans, high yield bonds, private debt, and private equity). His financial responsibilities required in-depth technical and fundamental analysis by constructing multi-scenario financial models involving recapitalizations, acquisitions, syndications, and re-financings to identify $25 - $200M high-yield debt investments, and simultaneously identified potential private equity buyout candidates. He raised more than $650 million in new client assets by marketing alternative investments in various fund vehicles directly to public and corporate plan sponsors, and nonprofits.

An MBA graduate of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, Ramsey is a trusted voice of guidance and proficient communicator, having delivered more than 600 keynotes, seminars, and corporate trainings on financial engineering, strategy execution, and organizational leadership.

Cornelia Cheng runs the firm’s Western Region and is responsible for originating, underwriting and managing investments across the MGG platform. She is also a member of the MGG ESG Committee. Her move to MGG was highlighted in the Summer 2022 edition of Middle Market DealMaker Magazine.

Prior to joining MGG, Ms. Cheng was Managing Director, Western Region Investments with direct lending fund Brightwood Capital Advisors, LLC. Ms. Cheng was formerly regional head of the greater Los Angeles Investment Team for Prudential Private Capital, where she spent 15 years sourcing, executing and managing a portfolio of private placement senior debt, mezzanine debt and minority equity investments in middle-market companies across a range of industries. She previously held positions at investment bank CIBC World Markets, and at First Interstate Bank.  

Ms. Cheng received her BA, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of California, Riverside and her MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Oz brings over 25 years of global tech executive experience to Bitvore. He was an early pioneer in the wireless data services market, including consumer mobilized internet services and machine-2-machine (now IoT). Oz has extensive cross-border transaction and business management experience in the telecom, media, hospitality, banking and fintech sectors. He has served as a senior executive at publicly listed companies in the US (DIRECTV) and UK (LogicaCMG plc). A native of Curaçao with deal experience in over 30 countries, he is also fluent in English, Spanish, Dutch and Papiamentu.

Hilda Kennedy is the President and Founder of AmPac Tri State CDC; a nonprofit economic development corporation certified by the United States Small Business Administration to provide SBA guaranteed 504 loans for new and growing small businesses.

Hilda spent twelve years working in local government and community lending. As the Director of Economic and Business Development for the City of Inglewood, where she established and implemented a $45 million loan fund with funds from the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and matching funds from Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco member banks. During her tenure in Inglewood, she also served as Chief of Staff to the Mayor of Inglewood and the City Administrator; and as the City’s Public Information Officer where she was involved in coordinating citywide events.

 Ms. Kennedy graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in Psychology and completed a post-graduate fellowship with the Coro Foundation in New York City, New York. Kennedy and her Coro Foundation completed a study for D. C. staffers on how the U. S. can provide quality, affordable health care to all Americans.