THE TEAM

Brad D. Cherniak

Partner

19 years experience in institutional equity research, corporate banking, investment banking, merchant banking and private equity/venture capital.

Extensive senior-level transaction and private growth company experience. Formerly Partner at Gordon Capital Corporation (now part of HSBC Securities) and Vice-President, Investment Banking at First Marathon Securities (now National Bank Financial). Brad also spent a number of years providing portfolio and investment management services to an Ontario labour-sponsored venture capital fund and a private capital pool. Brad then worked with two proprietary, patented technology startups based in the U.S., in Florida and Alabama, to create and execute commercialization, intellectual property, operational and capital strategies before co-founding Sapient.

Brad was formally trained and gained valuable and broad analytical / transaction experience at some of the leading North American financial institutions such as CIBC World Markets in Toronto; Bank of America in San Francisco; and Chemical Bank / Chemical Venture Partners (now part of JPMorgan Chase & Co.) in New York.

Graduate of University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business, with highest honors in 1995.

Brad has long specialized in small cap, private and early stage companies, both as advisor and principal. He has also served on a number of boards of directors and advisory boards of such companies. He has been involved in numerous financings & buyouts, mergers & acquisitions, divestitures, restructurings and other transactions in a variety of industries including enterprise application & infrastructure software, a wide range of technology & internet, telecom, aerospace, manufacturing, industrial products, consumer products, retail, chemicals, media & entertainment, business process outsourcing (BPO), automotive, resources and financial services. His clients have stretched across Canada and the U.S.

Brad has experience and insight in analyzing and structuring transactions gained from his involvement with unique and ground-breaking transactions such as the first institutional non-recourse financing of a major entertainment act, the world tours of the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd in 1994; the first and largest “bought-deal” IPO ever done in Canada with Sherritt International in 1995, raising $359 million for the expansion of its diverse Cuba-based businesses; and the first Canadian IPO of a successful China-based oil & gas pure play in 1996 with Pendaries Petroleum; in addition to working on major international transactions with Richard Li’s Pacific Century Group.

Brad writes and speaks on a variety of industry topics, interviewed and published in such publications as the National Post, Globe & Mail, CTV.ca and Mergers & Acquisitions, and has appeared on ROBTv. Brad was invited to speak at the Canada-United States Law Institute Conference in Cleveland, Ohio as a panelist discussing cross-border venture capital and entrepreneurs.

Brad lives in Toronto with his wife, Cyndee, and one very short, red-haired child, a Duck-Tolling Retriever named Merlot. Brad and Cyndee, an international trade lawyer, love to travel. Brad is an ancient history buff, and also a frustrated, bitter golfer--but blames that all on his tendonitis. That’s right, it’s the tendonitis.

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Kevin C. O'Neil

Partner

Kevin brings over 15 years of finance and operational experience to Sapient. Kevin has significant senior transaction experience in M&A and Corporate Finance, as well as extensive business valuation experience. Kevin has specific experience in working with SaaS-based software businesses, internet companies, food distribution businesses, auto parts manufacturers, vehicle leasing and rental businesses and retail businesses, as well as a variety of other industries.

From 2000 to 2005, Kevin was the President and CEO of World Vintners Inc., where he oversaw business growth from a small local organization into the largest retailer of consumer-made wine in the world. During his tenure, he also managed the business through a merger with a manufacturing business and a series of tuck-under acquisitions.

Kevin has presented on topics such as Maximizing Shareholder Value, Business Succession Planning, Economic Value Added (EVA), Business Valuations and others.

Kevin currently sits on the Board of Directors of CSDC Systems Inc., a software company focused on delivering solutions to local, county and state/provincial government agencies. Kevin has also been a member of TEC (The Executive Committee) since 2001.

Kevin started his finance career with Ernst & Young LLP and then moved over to Ernst & Young Corporate Finance Inc.

Kevin graduated from the University of Western Ontario, is a Chartered Accountant and a Chartered Business Valuator.

Kevin is an avid hockey player and golfer and coaches rep level hockey in the Markham Waxers organization. Kevin lives in Markham with his three children and his spouse Michelle.

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Valentine Lee

Senior Advisor

18 years of investment experience covering venture capital, portfolio management, equity research (technology analyst), and investment banking.

Through Val’s career, he has developed a global network of relationships with major telecommunications, semiconductor and software companies reaching deep into Canada, Europe, Asia and the U.S.

Formerly top-quartile small cap portfolio manager with Mutual Asset Management’s $500 million Premier Growth Fund.

All-Star Analyst in all 5 years and Ranked #1 in 2 of those years as a Technology Analyst with Richardson Greenshields, Gordon Capital and HSBC Securities.

Formerly Managing Partner of New Millennium Venture Partners, a $95 million technology-focused labour-sponsored venture capital fund. In this role, Val co-founded FirstHand Technologies (formerly SIPQuest), a solutions provider for Unified Communications in the wireless market, transferring key telecommunication intellectual property from Columbia University developed by Professor Henning Schulzrinne to Canada.

Other notable transactions for Val include the privatization of International CMOS Technology; the merger of SoftArc and MC² to create Centrinity, a market leader of Unified Communication, achieving $1 billion of market cap; and lead banker on Tucows and ESI Systems IPOs.

Val has had numerous public speaking engagements as a guest with ROBTV, as a presenter and panelist with major educational conferences and has also presented to the TSX Investor seminars relating to technology investments.

Val graduated from York University with an MBA in 1990, and CFA accredited in 1993.

Notable personal achievements include traveling around the world with his family for 6 months in 2001, helping drive Bay Street Games simulated investment program to a national audience, culminating in the Green Line National Investment Challenge in 1991. Val was also a member of the University of British Columbia Swim Team and participated in a number of juried art exhibitions, with his artwork sold to major corporations such as the Royal Bank.

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BOARD OF ADVISORS

Basile Papaevangelou – Chairman

Former Chairman, AlliedSignal Canada; President & CEO, AlliedSignal Aerospace Canada; and Vice President and General Manager of Allied Signal’s world wide Aircraft Power Managements Business.
Past Vice-Chairman, Officer and Director of the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada.
Past Director of the Canadian Advanced Technology Association.
Undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering and MBA from McGill University, and completed the Program for Senior Executives at IMD in Lausane, Switzerland in 1995.
Basile has been a Chair with T.E.C. (The Executive Committee) Ltd. since 1998.
He also sits on the boards of a number of public and private companies and has participated in a number of technology start-ups acting as Chairman or Director.

Daniel Sandler

Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario.
Counsel, Couzin Taylor LLP, Toronto (allied with Ernst & Young LLP)
Senior Research Fellow of the Taxation Law and Policy Research Institute, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
Formerly Fulbright fellow at the Faculty of Law, University of California Berkeley (1999-2000); and Member of Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge and Research Fellow for the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Chartered Institute of Taxation, both in London, England (1992-1995).
LL.M., Ph.D., University of Cambridge; LL.B., University of Toronto.
Daniel has served as a consultant to the OECD, the Auditor-General of Canada and the Technical Committee on Business Taxation.
He has written numerous articles and several books including Venture Capital and Tax Incentives: A Comparative Study of Canada and the United States, the most comprehensive analysis of venture capital tax expenditure programs in Canada and the U.S., and co-authored Government Venture Capital Incentives: A Multi-Jurisdiction Comparative Analysis.
He has also spoken worldwide on various aspects of tax law and policy such as their relationship to business capital formation and entrepreneurship, the role of governments in venture capital, and lessons from other jurisdictions around the world.