Circle Peak's Advisory Board members are highly accomplished individuals representing a wide variety of disciplines. The Advisory Board provides Circle Peak with valuable expertise and guidance in investment disciplines, deal flow, capital structuring, legal advise, human resource management, entrepreneurship and leadership.

Maureen A. Brille. Ms. Brille is a consultant with Egon Zehnder International, the third largest global executive search firm, where she specializes in private equity, private wealth management and investment banking, and acts as Head of the Private Capital Practice Group in the US.

Prior to joining Egon Zehnder, Ms. Brille spent 13 years on Wall Street in a variety of private equity-related roles. In 1999, as Head of Proprietary Funds at Wit Capital Group (now Soundview Technology), Ms. Brille structured and raised their first $40 million venture capital fund from high net worth individuals to invest in mid-to-later stage Internet companies.

Previously, Ms. Brille acted as Client Advisor in the Private Client Group of JP Morgan, where she advised wealthy individuals on all aspects of their personal finances, including discretionary asset management, securities brokerage, hedging and diversification strategies, private equity investments, and trust and estate planning. Her client base consisted primarily of private equity investors.

Ms. Brille began her career at Chemical Bank where she spent 8 years in the Middle Market Investment Banking Group and Chemical Venture Partners–Northeast, where she acted as both principal and agent on a broad range of mergers and acquisitions, management buyouts and growth capital investments. Ms. Brille has an MBA from the College of William and Mary and a BS in Finance from the University of Illinois, and lives in New York.

Jon A. Gordon. Founder, Managing Director, Palladian Advisors, a financial advisory firm focused on mergers & acquisitions and private market financings. Prior to founding Palladian, Mr. Gordon was a Managing Director in the Financial Sponsors Group at Lehman Brothers (1999-2002), heading the Transaction Development Group and M&A for middle market private equity clients. During his tenure he also executed 12 financing related transactions totaling over $2 billion.

Prior to re-joining Lehman Brothers, from 1997-1999, Mr. Gordon was a Director in the M&A group at Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) with particular involvement transaction development. Mr. Gordon also provided M&A coverage for leading financial sponsors including Bain Capital, KKR, Thomas H. Lee, Odyssey, Texas Pacific Group, and Apollo Investors, as well as a number of middle market firms including Harvest Partners, American Securities, and Caxton-Iseman Capital. His industry focus includes industrial, consumer, business services and retail transactions.

Prior to CSFB, Mr. Gordon was a Vice President at Lehman Brothers in the M&A group focused on private equity transactions, idea generation and execution for the general industrial group. Mr. Gordon executed over $3 billion in M&A transactions in the industrial, food retail, business services, consumer products and health care industry segments.

Prior to Lehman Brothers, Mr. Gordon was an officer in the investment banking group at Furman Selz Inc. (1989-1996), where he led public and private offerings of equity and debt, leveraged buyouts, restructurings and financial advisory assignments in transportation (group co-head), media, health care and general industrial. Before Furman Selz, Mr. Gordon was involved in private equity at Tribeca Holdings Inc. (1987-1989), where he identified and evaluated LBO candidates and participated in transaction structuring and financing. During his tenure he reviewed over 40 companies, and closed a $125 million acquisition of a retailer as principal. He also executed $6 million acquisition, and subsequent $8 million sale, of $140 million revenue children's wear retailer.

Mr. Gordon began his career at Booz-Allen & Hamilton Inc. (1983-1985), and holds an M.B.A. with distinction from Harvard Business School (1987) and an A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard College (1983).

R. Glenn Hubbard. R. Glenn Hubbard is the Russell L. Carson Professor of Economics and Finance in the Department of Economics and Graduate School of Business of Columbia University, where he is also Co-Director of the Program on Entrepreneurship at the Graduate School of Business and incoming dean of the business school (summer 2004).

From February 2001 until March 2003, he was Chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, where his responsibilities included advising the President on economic policy, tax and budget policy, emerging market financial issues, international finance, health care, and environmental policy. While CEA Chairman, he also chaired the Economic Policy Committee of the OECD. Mr. Hubbard, whose research spans tax policy, monetary economics, international finance, and corporate finance, received his Ph.D in Economics from Harvard University in 1983, and has taught at Northwestern, Harvard, and the University of Chicago, as well as Columbia.

In addition to writing more than 90 scholarly articles in economics and finance, he is the author of a best-selling textbook on money and financial markets. He was Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department for Tax Policy from 1991-1993. In addition to his responsibilities at Columbia, he is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and director of the program on tax policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. He has been a consultant to U.S. and non-U.S. government agencies and numerous private corporations. Hubbard, his wife Constance, and their two sons live in New York.

Rakesh Jain. Vice President, Principal, Citigroup Private Equity in New York, an organization with over $10 billion of proprietary, third party and client private equity investment capital. Rick is focused on direct investments of private equity and mezzanine capital across a range of industries with a particular focus on financial and business services.

Previously, Mr. Jain was a Director with IFG Capital Partners, LP, a $300 million private equity partnership formed by General Atlantic Partners, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and The Boston Consulting Group, to invest in buyouts, carve-outs and divestitures of middle market companies in partnership with Global 2000 companies.

Prior to IFG, Mr. Jain was a Vice President at Berenson Minella & Co., a private investment and merchant banking firm and an investment banking professional at Morgan Stanley & Co., where he focused on mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, IPOs and other financing transactions involving insurance, asset management, health care and other financial services companies. Rakesh received a B.Comm degree (Joint Honors) in Economics and Finance from McGill University (Montreal) and is a CFA.