June 6th Breakfast Panel: Prepping Businesses for Sale

Chris is a co-founder of Assay Advisory, where he serves as the Managing Partner for North America and is based in San Francisco.

He draws from nearly 30 years as an entrepreneur that built six businesses – three of which were sold – and from his years working as an executive for well-known American companies. Prior to joining Assay he was founder of Atlas Capital Strategies, Inc., a boutique investment bank. The firm worked exclusively with the owners of privately held companies to support them in selling their businesses and implementing succession and merger plans.

Before founding Atlas, Chris was a General Manager at Harley-Davidson Motorcycles where he built a new division for the American icon, after Harley-Davidson he founded a data analytics company that merged with a larger competitor and restructured a company that became the consumer products division of A&E Television Networks. In his early career he was Vice President of client services for one of the world's largest advertising agencies. Chris has also worked in the financial services industry where he spent time in Operations, Marketing, and Finance.

Chris is a Past-President of the San Francisco chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth, a member of the Board of Directors for Pacific Community Ventures, a founding member of the East Bay Manufacturing Group, an Advisory Board member for SFMade and a former Advisory Board member of the Bank of San Francisco. He is a graduate of the Fox School of Business at Temple University in Philadelphia and holds degrees in Corporate Finance and Marketing. Click here for more information.

Conor Riley is a seasoned finance professional. Over the last ten years he has served as the Managing Partner at White Stable Ventures a boutique private equity fund specializing in transportation and manufacturing. While at White Stable Conor’s focus was utilizing public capital markets to both provide an exit and as a source of growth capital.

Conor currently leads the emerging markets team. With a focus throughout Latin America and a strong presence in Mexico, Global Capital is uniquely positioned to navigate the complex political and economic landscape in these new markets. We understand the opportunity emerging markets offer, and the risks they present.

Global Capital also offers enterprises in these markets a bridge to the US capital markets. Conor and the emerging markets team will guide these companies through the investment process, help develop accounting and legal protocols, and ensure a smooth transaction. Click here for more information.

Marc Lim, Andersen Tax
Marc Lim, a Managing Director with Andersen Tax’s San Francisco office, has over 15 years of experience advising multinational and financial services clients on U.S. and international tax matters and has been based both in Silicon Valley and Tokyo, Japan. 

He has advised clients ranging from start-up businesses and their owners to investment funds to Fortune 500 companies on a wide spectrum of tax and commercial matters, including: International tax planning and consultation; Cross-border corporate M&A; Tax issues associated with introduction of new business models, supply chain optimization, and other internal business reorganizations; Foreign tax credit planning; Transfer pricing; Intellectual property planning including high technology; Assistance with international tax controversy management; Preparation and/or review of the U.S. tax reporting/ compliance/ provision matters for international operations and/ or transactions.

Over his career, Marc has spent significant time working with financial services and private equity clients as well as with clients in e-commerce, software, and other high tech industries. 
Before joining Andersen Tax, Marc was a tax partner at PwC and most recently was based in Japan advising a global base of clients on U.S. and Japanese tax issues. Click here for more information.

John Stiffler is a senior director at West Monroe and leads the West Coast Regional Mergers and Acquisitions practice. John works out of the San Francisco office where he also leads the local M&A team. He specializes in corporate divestitures and operates as a client partner, combining strategy, financial, people, process, and technology disciplines to deliver technology-enabled business change. He has over 30 years of global business and technology consulting experience across multiple industries with heavy emphasis in manufacturing and distribution, healthcare, high tech and professional services.

John focuses exclusively on serving West Monroe Partners’ M&A clients, primarily private equity firms and their portfolio companies. He applies specialties in IT strategy formulation, pre-close IT and operational due diligence, and post-close planning, as well as carve-outs and post-close program management execution, to help clients achieve business goals and realize their investment theses. He has led more than 550 IT due diligence and post-close planning/execution projects since joining West Monroe in early 2008. John brings broad business and IT experience for investigating potential acquisitions as well as post-close integrations, carve-outs and divestitures, or remediation.

John holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Management Information Systems from the University of Tulsa and a Master of Business Administration degree from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. Click here for more information.