Prepping for a Transaction: Here’s the M&A Leadership Roadmap You’ll Need

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Panelists

Kelly Cornelis is a Senior Advisor to LaSalle Capital, a lower middle market private equity firm focused on investing in the food & beverage industry.  She spent 20 years as a Partner and Chief Operating Officer at LaSalle where she led deal sourcing and execution, financial operations, portfolio management and investor relations. Previously she led investment activities at SB Partners and began her career as an analyst at William Blair.

Kelly is an experienced investor and board member known for advising family-owned and PE-backed private companies, having served on over fifteen private boards. She is a Qualified Financial Expert and Audit Chair and is skilled in completing and integrating acquisitions, exit planning, management team build-out, fundraising and marketing strategies. She has deep experience in food and beverage, as well as experience in consumer, business services and manufacturing.

Kelly currently serves on the Board of Directors of Joseph’s Gourmet Pasta and Organic Pantry, where she works closely with the management teams on growth strategies, exit planning, production automation and M&A integration. 

Kelly was a founding member of the Chicago Women in Private Equity and is a former board member of MBBI and ACG Chicago. She is a member of the Private Director’s Association and Extraordinary Women on Boards. 

A Moline, Illinois native, Kelly holds a BBA from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

With over 30 years of experience in the field of compensation and benefits, Dan assists clients in the areas of executive and non-employee director compensation and employee pay, focusing on the development of annual and long-term incentive compensation programs to meet clients’ strategic objectives. He also provides consultation in the areas of employment contracts and change of control provisions, mergers and acquisitions, expert testimony, reasonableness of compensation, salary administration, performance management, and employee and executive benefits. His client engagements cover a variety of industries and company organizational and developmental stages, including startup/pre-IPO, privately held, public, subsidiary, foreign-owned, and non-profit organizations.

Prior to his current role, Dan was Watson Wyatt Worldwide’s Southern California practice leader for executive and incentive pay and before joining Watson Wyatt, he was a consultant at KPMG, specializing in compensation and benefits issues.

Dan is a frequently published author of articles on compensation topics and a sought-after speaker for numerous industry meetings including American College of Corporate Directors, Financial Executives International (FEI), Forum for Corporate Directors, National Association of Corporate Directors, UC Berkeley’s Center for Executive Development, and USC’s Corporate Governance Summit.

Dan received his BA from the University of California, Los Angeles and his MBA from the University of Southern California. He holds the Certified Executive Compensation Professional (CECP) designation through the WorldatWork Society of Certified Professionals and has earned his Professional Director Certification from The American College of Corporate Directors.

Finance, commercial real estate, investment banking and investment management, recognized for innovative financial strategies and leading companies up to $900mm revenue and $14B AUM. Held C-Suite and board roles with public and private companies, family-owned firms, and nonprofits. Qualified Financial Expert (QFE) for Audit Committee purposes. With training at Goldman Sachs and Skadden Arps, has tackled issues like M&A of over $20B, multiple IPOs, risk management and change management.

Currently serves as Lead Independent Director, Chair of Nominating & Governance Committee and Audit Committee member on board of Seritage Growth Properties (NYSE: SRG) and on Advisory Board of Surmount, a commercial real estate platform providing net-lease focused real estate services. Also, currently serves as CEO and Managing Member of Emperus Strategic Advisors, providing advisory services focused primarily on finance, capital markets, commercial real estate and strategy to domestic and international clients.

Previously, CEO of Inland Real Estate Investment Corporation, overseeing transformation of firm into a leading $900mm revenue, $14B AUM commercial real estate investment management company. Led firm through strategic expansions, including diversification from multifamily and retail real estate into self-storage, manufactured housing, student housing and senior living sectors, resulting in over 20% CAGR in sales. Implemented CRM, other technologies, and social media marketing. Concurrently, headed Inland Real Estate Income Trust, Inc., a $1.4B public, non-listed shopping center REIT, executing multiple acquisitions. Also served as Chairperson and CEO of InPoint Commercial Real Estate Income, Inc. (NYSE: ICR-PA), a commercial mortgage REIT; grew business from start-up to IPO and NYSE listing of company’s Series A preferred stock in under four years.

As EVP and COO at Cole Real Estate Investments (now a subsidiary of CIM), expanded assets under management from $6B to $11.2B and played crucial role in $21.5B merger. At Goldman Sachs, founded the commercial mortgage lending business and, prior, held senior investment banking positions at Lehman Brothers.

Robust background as corporate and finance attorney at Skadden Arps in New York. Former chair of Institute for Portfolio Alternatives. Graduate level training in ESOP administration and governance. Member New York bar; New York real estate brokerage and FINRA Series 7 licenses. Avid cyclist, triathlete, marathoner and golfer. Summited Mt. Kilimanjaro September 2024.

Lisa Shall is a Managing Director with Pearl Meyer, Lisa Shall has deep expertise in leadership development, change management, organizational design, CEO succession planning, and talent management. Prior to joining Pearl Meyer, Lisa was an Associate Partner with The River Group. 

In addition, Lisa has experience transforming talent and implementing organizational effectiveness initiatives across a wide range of companies and industries. Her clients have included both public and privately held companies in the retail, financial services, healthcare, nonprofit, and consumer products sectors.

Prior to joining Pearl Meyer and The River Group, Lisa served as a Talent Management leader for Northwell Health, a large tri-state area integrated health system. Previously, Lisa was a consultant at Korn / Ferry International, where she served clients and managed engagements across the areas of executive assessment, onboarding, high potential leadership development, organizational design, and culture transformation. She also served as a management consultant for Accenture in their Talent and Organizational Performance area. Her role encompassed the areas of change management strategy, training strategy, training development, training deployment, organization impact assessment, business readiness, stakeholder analysis, and communications planning.

Lisa earned a master’s degree in Social Organization Psychology from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

MODERATOR

Monal Patel has over 10 years of compensation experience performing broad-based pay benchmarking analysis by adapting multiple market sources to clients’ human capital strategy. She has extensive experience designing global job architectures that have enabled clients to define career progression, offer targeted training and development, and are flexible enough to respond to changes in business conditions. Monal develops financial impact modeling attendant to new/revised salary administration programs. She also has created transition strategy alternatives for program implementation.