The Private equity Program at Columbia Business School

Advisory Board

Gary Appel `77
Executive in Residence, Columbia Business School

Gary Appel has spent 35 years in the financial services industry.  Currently he serves as Executive in Residence at Columbia Business School and on the Advisory Board of the Private Equity Program at Columbia Business School.
 
Mr. Appel retired in 2012 as Vice Chairman of Castle Harlan, Inc., a global middle market private equity funds manager.  Prior to joining Castle Harlan, he was Vice Chairman of Glencoe Capital, Ltd., a Chicago-based middle market private equity funds manager, and a member of its Investment Committee.  While at Glencoe he co-founded and managed one of the first independent co-investment funds created for a state retirement system.
 
In the late 1990’s Mr. Appel was a Senior Managing Director of Bear Stearns, Inc.  Prior to that for 17 years, he was with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Inc. serving as a Managing Director and a founding partner of DLJ Merchant Banking.  He was a member of DLJ Merchant Banking’s Board of Directors and its Investment Committee and has served on the boards of directors of numerous corporations across a variety of industries, as well as several not-for-profit institutions.  He earned his BA with honors from Vassar College and his MBA from Columbia University.

Jeffrey Barber '01
Managing Director, TA Associates, Inc.

At TA Associates, Jeff Barber focuses on growth capital investments, leveraged recapitalizations, and management-led buyouts of business services, consumer products, financial services, and other growth services companies. Mr. Barber has a BA from Johns Hopkins University (1995), with all university and departmental honors. He earned his MBA from Columbia Business School with honors and was a Beta Gamma Sigma Scholar.

Kenneth A. Buckfire `87
President and Managing Director, Miller Buckfire

Kenneth A. Buckfire is President, Managing Director and co-founder of Miller Buckfire.  He is also a vice chairman of Stifel, which acquired Miller Buckfire in December of 2012. Over the course of his career he has advised clients in a broad range of industries (including energy, food products, building products, broadcasting and information services) and has also managed principal investments in distressed companies and in the utility industry.  Prior to founding Miller Buckfire, Mr. Buckfire was a Managing Director at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and served as Co-Head of the firm's financial restructuring group specializing in the restructuring and refinancing of highly leveraged companies. Before joining DrKW, Mr. Buckfire was a Senior Vice President at Lehman Brothers Inc. Mr. Buckfire is on the board of advisors of the Zell-Lurie Institute at The University of Michigan, and on the Board of Directors of the Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York. He is a trustee of Orpheus Orchestra, a member of the Weil Cornell Medical College Dean's Council, and has been a director and co-founder of several public and private corporations.  Mr. Buckfire serves on the Advisory Board for Columbia Business School's Private Equity Program and received his M.B.A. from Columbia University and his B.A. in Economics and Philosophy from The University of Michigan.

Jeff Bunder
Global Private Equity Leader, Ernst & Young LLP

Jeff Bunder has served private equity clients for the majority of his 22 years at Ernst & Young. Through a comprehensive service model, Private Equity Services provides transaction advisory services to private equity professionals as well as audit, tax and advisory services to private equity funds and their portfolios. Mr. Bunder has extensive experience leading due diligence engagements for both private equity and corporate acquirors. He has also been a member of the On-Call Advisory Practice, focused on transaction-related technical accounting matters. Mr. Bunder received an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Margaret Butler ’01 

Of Counsel, Greenberg Traurig

Margaret Isa Butler is a veteran deal advisor who helps investment funds respond to the institutionalization of private equity on an outsourced, flexible basis and in proportion to their scale.  Margaret’s personal mission is to apply life hacking principles to the markets for legal and operational services, so that she can meet her clients’ needs in the most cost effective way possible.  A key step she takes is to identify and prioritize each potential client’s particular issues and propose the right person for each action item. Margaret fills gaps for private equity clients that include running deals and managing back office functions and corporate compliance at both the fund and the portfolio company levels. Currently Of Counsel at Greenberg Traurig LLP, Margaret brings to each engagement her up-to-date knowledge of private equity industry best practices, A-list relationships, sound business judgment and a keen execution focus.  Margaret cut her teeth at Wachtell Lipton, where she spent five years doing public company mergers and acquisitions and fund formation.  More recently she served as an investment banker at Jefferies and as a business transactions lawyer at Schulte Roth & Zabel, where she led the execution of complicated deals, including cross-border, distressed and other high-stakes M&A and joint ventures. Margaret is a member of the Advisory Board of the Private Equity Program at Columbia Business School and recently completed a three-year term on the M&A Committee of the New York City Bar Association.  She also leads the Harvard Club of New York’s M&A interest group and has taught at a City Bar CLE program on securities law.  In addition, she has spoken at a distressed investing conference and has been published in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Margaret has an MBA from Columbia Business School, where she was inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma, and a JD from Columbia Law School, where she served as Senior Editor of Columbia Law Review and was designated a James Kent Scholar.  Her undergraduate degree is from Harvard College.  Margaret also has native fluency in oral and written Spanish.

David E. De Leeuw  ‘69

Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Lion Chemical Capital LLC

Co-Founder & Chairman, Lion Cao Asset Management LLC


David E. De Leeuw is a founding partner of Lion Chemical Capital LLC, a private equity firm focused on investing in premier businesses operating in the chemical and materials industries.  Mr. De Leeuw founded Lion Chemical with his brother Pete De Leeuw in 2002 to acquire, manage and eventually monetize chemicals and materials businesses. Since the Firm’s founding, Lion Chemical has invested and/or advised on transactions in the chemical industry valued at over $4 billion and have earned net returns in excess of 10x invested capital.

Mr. De Leeuw has more than 10 years of investment experience in the chemical and materials industries and more than 40 years of investment experience in various sectors including, consumer goods and services and financial services.  

Mr. De Leeuw also co-founded Lion Cao Asset Management in 2005, which provides institutional quality investment management services to family offices and wealthy individuals with a focus on private equity, direct investments, co-investments, and funds.  Lion Cao principals have led investments into more than 40 funds, managers, direct investments and co-investments.

Prior to establishing Lion Chemical and Lion Cao, Mr. De Leeuw, was a founding partner at McCown De Leeuw & Co., which raised more than $1.2 billion in four funds and invested over $1 billion in 40 leveraged platform acquisitions and over 100 add-ons. Mr. De Leeuw led or played a key role in numerous financings for McCown De Leeuw including IPOs, mezzanine debt, bonds, and private financings, as well as acquisitions, divestitures, and secondary offerings over a 20 year period. Prior to founding MDC in 1984, Mr. De Leeuw led the leveraged acquisitions group at Citibank, and was previously at W.R. Grace & Co., and Paine Webber in New York and Tokyo.

Mr. De Leeuw has served on more than 25 Boards (with several listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ) since 1984, often as Chairman or Vice Chairman. Mr. De Leeuw is currently serving on the boards of Lion Copolymer, a manufacturer and distributor of EPDM and SBR rubbers, and specialty polymers and Columbia Business School's Private Equity Program Advisory Board. Mr. De Leeuw received an MBA from Columbia University, and a BA in History from Lafayette.

Stewart K.P. Gross `87
Managing Director, Lightyear Capital

Stewart Gross is a Managing Director of Lightyear Capital and a member of the Investment Committee. Prior to joining Lightyear Capital in May 2005, Mr. Gross spent 17 years at Warburg Pincus, where he was a Partner and member of the Operating Committee.  Mr. Gross began his career as a Financial Analyst in mergers and acquisitions at Morgan Stanley. Mr. Gross serves on the Board of Directors of Lightyear Capital portfolio companies Cetera Financial Group, Flagstone Reinsurance Holdings Limited, and Higher One Holdings, Inc. Mr. Gross received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Rebecca John '01
Partner, Lexington Partners
Rebecca John joined Lexington Partners in July 2001 as a member of the secondary investment team evaluating U.S. middle market buyout funds. Since 2001, she has also been engaged in the firm's fundraising efforts and closely involved in the firm's relationships with investors. In January 2006, she assumed full-time responsibility for Lexington's global fundraising and investor relations functions encompassing more than $20 billion in capital under management from over 240 leading global institutional investors. Prior to joining Lexington Partners, she worked for Merrill Lynch Investment Management in Singapore and Ernst & Young in both Singapore and Australia. She graduated from the University of Melbourne with a BCom, is an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia (CA), and obtained her MBA from Columbia Business School.

Adam Reinmann '04
Principal, Onex
Adam Reinmann is responsible for Onex' origination and due diligence efforts in the chemicals and specialty materials industries.  Since joining Onex, Mr. Reinmann has worked on several private equity transactions, including the acquisitions of The Warranty Group, Skilled Healthcare, Cypress Insurance Group, RSI Home Products and JELD-WEN Holding, inc.  During 2009, he served as a member of the executive management team at Celestica, Inc., where he was actively involved in developing Celestica`s growth and operational improvement strategy. 

Before joining Onex, Mr. Reinmann was with JPMorgan’s Leveraged Finance Group for eight years, where he led financings for financial sponsors and corporate clients, principally in the chemical and healthcare industries. He currently serves on the board of Cypress Insurance. Mr. Reinmann holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a B.S. from Binghamton University. 

Alisa A. Wood `08
Managing Director, KKR
Alisa A. Wood joined KKR in 2003 and is a member of CPG. She has been actively involved in the Firm’s global capital raising activities along with the creation of KKR Private Equity Investors. Currently, she heads the product specialist area globally for all private market activities and leads our capital raising efforts in Latin America. Prior to joining KKR, Ms. Wood was with Deutsche Bank’s Private Equity Group where she worked on the institutional placement and structuring of private equity, venture capital, real estate and securitized debt products. Ms. Wood currently sits on the Columbia Business School Private Equity Board as well as the Convent of the Sacred Heart Alumnae Board and chairs its Development Committee.  She holds a B.A. from Columbia College and an MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business.