Sara Burden

President, CBI, M&AMI, FIBBA, CM&AP
Walden Businesses, Inc.

Sara specializes in owner representation in the small to middle market with light manufacturing, distribution and select service companies primarily in the southeast. She is heavily involved in the firm’s valuation services. Sara’s M&A expertise has led her to be a guest speaker for talk radio shows, M&A Source and IBBA Conference as both speaker and trainer.

Raj Chokshi

CEO & Wealth Manager
Bluerock Wealth Management LLC

Jeff Hawkins

Partner
Carr, Riggs & Ingram

Jeff Hawkins, CPA, is the Transaction Advisory Services Director at Carr, Riggs & Ingram. He has worked in public accounting for 18 years and has worked on over 100 transactions during his career. Jeff helps to guide buyers and sellers through the M&A process.

Michael Hollingsworth

Partner
Nelson Mullins

Michael is co-head of the firm’s Mergers & Acquisitions Group and its Investment Management Group. He focuses on middle-market corporate transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and joint ventures. He also serves on the firm's Executive Committee, the governing body of seven partners who oversee firm standing committees, strategic initiatives, and firm operations.

Lee M. Koury

Managing Partner
Smart Business Network Inc.

Lee is managing partner of Smart Business Network Inc., a national events, media and marketing company founded in 1989, primarily responsible for expanding the company’s Aspire deal-making conference throughout the U.S. He plays a key role in establishing corporate policies and developing long-term strategy and growth plans. Previously, he founded and chaired the Growth Group at national law firm Arter & Hadden LLP (now Tucker, Ellis & West), which focused on working with middle-market and high-growth technology companies. 

Whalen Kuller

Partner
Hartman Simons & Wood LLP

Whalen J. Kuller is a partner at Hartman Simons & Wood LLP. He leads the firm's corporate practice group. He has an earned a reputation as an expert in representation of corporate clients for a wide range of transactions, including acquisitions and divestitures, joint ventures, private equity and venture capital, public offerings and private placements of debt and equity capital. He is also adept at advising clients on a range of corporate issues, such as employment contracts, corporate governance, organization and formation of business entities and licensing and supply and distribution agreements.

John Marsh

Managing Partner
Marsh Creek Advisors

John is a successful cross-functional executive with experience leading and strengthening finance, accounting, and operations organizations. He has held a variety of executive roles including CFO, VP of Supply Chain and Planning, and EVP of Finance and Operations during his 17-year career. In those roles, John served as an integral part of the leadership team that scaled a medical device company and sold it to a private equity firm for 161M. John led integration efforts and was a part of due diligence on all of the companies acquisitions.

John started his career with the accounting firm, Ernst and Young in Atlanta, GA, and has worked with both start-ups and a large private equity-owned medical device manufacturer. He leverages his significant mergers and acquisition experience to help entrepreneurs successfully transition business ownership.

John graduated from the University of Georgia with a BBA in Accounting and holds an MBA from Kennesaw State University. He currently lives in Marietta, with his wife and two daughters.

Chris McDaid

Managing Director
BMO

As the Southeast Region Head for Commercial Banking, my focus is to effectively grow our business, which provides customized lending solutions to mid-sized, public and private companies, primarily in the Southeast.

Leveraging over two decades experience, I’m able to make use of the Bank’s global suite of capabilities for our valued clients, providing for a differentiated experience. Creating brand awareness, my deep-seated commitment, and an ability to foster pertinent connections both internally and externally, are all strategic assets I bring to the table.

I lead by example, using an accessible, hands-on approach to mentor a team of dedicated thought leaders who create unique, value-added ideas in our market. Working with our partners across all of BMO’s specialties allows clients to access a host of services in addition to commercial lending, including treasury management, equipment financing, interest rate protection, foreign exchange, trade finance, wealth management, asset management, cross-border solutions, and the broader Debt Capital Markets and M&A advisory in conjunction with BMO Capital Markets. What distinguishes us most is our dedication to understanding our clients, their industry, and ultimately, providing innovative solutions to finance their vision for growth.

Neil Metzheiser

President
Lockton Companies

Neil is the President of Lockton Atlanta, Partner of Lockton Partners and a member of the Executive Committee for the Southeast Operations of Lockton Companies. As a Partner and Producer of Property & Casualty and People Solutions business for Lockton, Neil focuses on leading Lockton's account teams to deliver the best total cost of risk, program coverage, and service to help achieve sustainable risk management strategies. Prior to joining Lockton in 2004, Neil began his career as an underwriter at AIG.

Steve Morse

Southeast Region, Area Managing Partner
SeatonHill Advisors

Jennifer Moseley

Partner
Burr & Forman LLP

Jennifer Moseley is a corporate and securities partner at Burr & Forman LLP, where she counsels public and private companies on an array of transactional, regulatory, capital raising, financing strategies and corporate governance matters. She enjoys assisting clients in her role as counselor and helping clients navigate the intricacies of securities laws with practical solutions to meet their goals.

Stephen Opler

Partner
Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Stephen Opler concentrates his practice on the distinctive characteristics of liquidity transactions by and with entrepreneurs. Stephen helps private equity funds, strategic acquirers and entrepreneurial buyers and sellers achieve their goals by leveraging his three decades as an M&A lawyer, entrepreneur, business founder, investment banker, in-house lawyer and CPA.

Tom Singh

Managing Director, Senior Resident Director
Merrill Lynch Wealth Management

Tom has spent the last 22 years at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch where he considers himself an “Intra-Preneur”. He is the founder of a 9 person boutique within the company called Singh & Associates.

He and his team specialize in pre-exit planning for business owners looking to sell their company in 12-36 months. By using their Proprietary financial Modeling Process, they run various simulations and prescribe strategies to help owners maximize their desired outcome.

He also oversees the Avalon location of Merrill Lynch managing 9 Billion of client assets and has been named the top 13 “Best in State Wealth Advisors” list by Forbes Magazine – 4 years in a row.

Glenda Waldschmidt

Vice President - National Relationship Manager
National Christian Foundation

Glenda Waldschmidt is a Vice President with the National Christian Foundation, an innovative leader in charitable planning. NCF leads with creative and strategic solutions incorporating the gifting of non-cash assets, including private businesses. In her role, she advises high-net-worth business owners comprehensively on financial and non-financial aspects of charitable giving and the stewardship of family wealth, often multi-generational wealth. Glenda previously worked for Deloitte, specializing in taxation. She then transitioned into a career focused on providing comprehensive wealth management counsel to high capacity and ultra-high capacity families.

Gordon Watt

Managing Director
Ascent Advisory Partners

Gordon Watt is a Managing Director and Co-Founder of Ascent Advisory Partners, which provides M&A advisory services to family and founder-owned companies in the lower middle-market. Gordon has over 30 years of M&A and investment banking experience.

Previously, he worked at SunTrust Robinson-Humphrey, The Robinson-Humphrey Company (a division of Citigroup) and Chemical Bank (now JPMorgan). He has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BS in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Marvin Willis

Partner-in-charge, Accounting & Advisory practice
Smith & Howard