2026 ACG NY Family Office & Limited Partner Series | Fall Edition

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MODERATOR
Corey Massella
Partner
UHY 

Corey Massella has over 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur, tax and business advisor, and as a specialist in SEC accounting and audit services. Additionally, Corey has experience serving as a Private Equity and Technology Industry Group Practice Leader for a top 20 accounting firm. Corey has successfully guided his clients through all facets of the mergers and acquisitions transaction cycle to help them make critical decisions while ensuring transactions are strategic and seamless.

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PANELIST
Sean Lee 
Vice President, M&A 
Fairfield 

Sean Lee is the Vice President, M&A of Fairfield. He is responsible for overseeing investments and acquisitions, including structuring optimal capital solutions for portfolio companies. Prior to joining Fairfield Maxwell, Sean helped advise on M&A transactions and arranged acquisition financing with various investment banks, including Piper Sandler, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Rabobank. Mr. Lee is on the Board of SpeedPro Imaging, Southern Stone & Timber, and serves on the investment committee for Autism Impact Fund. Sean has a Bachelor’s degree from New York University and an M.B.A. from Cornell University.

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PANELIST
Jeff Sands 
CTP, Managing Director
Dorset Partners

After 10 years leading of operational turnarounds, Jeff partnered with a family office in 2013 to begin buying and fixing distressed industrial businesses.  Since then he has earned the Turnaround Management Association’s prestigious Turnaround of the Year Awards a record three times for each of the following businesses; Vermont Aerospace (2017), Canadian Kraft Paper (2018) and Union Metal Industries (2019). Since 2002, Jeff has transformed scores of businesses in dozens of industries.  Jeff authored ‘Corporate Turnaround Artistry, Fix Any Business in 100 Days’ which was published by J. Wiley & Sons in 2020 and has since been translated into Mandarin and become required reading for several private equity firms and MBA courses. 

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PANELIST
Jonathan Goeringer
Partner
Foley & Lardner

His practice features a unique combination of transactional and regulatory work within the insurance space. Understanding and having extensive experience in both realms creates efficiencies for insurance-related clients looking to achieve a diverse range of business goals in a heavily regulated industry.

Jonathan regularly operates in the M&A world, where he assists clients — from the well-established and highly acquisitive, to the startup just entering the space — in acquiring or selling the equity or assets of insurance-related entities (e.g., insurers, agencies, managing general agencies, third-party administrators, reinsurers, etc.). This includes drafting, negotiating, and structuring acquisition agreements on their behalf, while also guiding them through pre- and post-acquisition regulatory issues and requirements. In the last five years alone, Jonathan has been involved in over US$2 billion of insurance-related acquisitions.

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HOST
Marcia Nelson
Executive Director
Texas Capital
Family Office Committee Co-Chair and Host

Marcia Nelson is an Executive Director at Texas Capital. Marcia has spent a large portion of her career working in and for family offices and private dealmakers. Prior to FCM, Marcia was a Managing Director and head of business development for ShareNett, a members-only global network of professional investors, and she was previously at Alberleen Family Office Solutions, an independent investment advisory firm backed by family offices. She formerly worked for an ultra-high-net-worth philanthropic family and a sports and entertainment family. Over the last 20 years, she has developed a strong network of private families, institutional investors, and advisers who are increasingly seeking access to quality direct deal flow from trusted, experienced partners.

​Marcia is also a Founding Partner of Triple C Advisory, a business life cycle consulting firm that works with early-stage companies as an advisor and board member to prepare them to receive institutional-grade investments.

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HOST
Sasha Bernier
Senior Vice President and Investment Committee Member
Cheltenham Enterprises
Family Office Committee Co-Chair and Host

Cheltenham Enterprises a single-family office seeking to invest opportunistically. Mr. Bernier is an active real estate and venture capital investor with a focus in finding technology opportunities that can scale in Southeast Asia.

Previously, he served as the vice president of Revere Capital, a real estate debt fund with the responsibility for underwriting and structuring new investment opportunities in the real estate debt space. He started his career as a banker at Evercore Partners. Mr. Bernier holds a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a B.S. in business administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.