Managing Director; Berkeley Research Group

Mark Laber has two decades of experience providing restructuring advisory services to constituents across several industries. He helps steering committees, lender groups, and official creditor committees of distressed companies develop solutions to their most critical problems with the goal of maximizing recoveries.

Before joining BRG, Mr. Laber spent thirteen years at FTI Consulting in various roles, most recently as a senior managing director in the Turnaround & Restructuring practice, where he led high-profile restructuring assignments across industries. He also served for a year as the chief operating officer of FTI’s North American Corporate Finance and Restructuring practice (~850 professionals).  Mark also serves as a relationship lead to private capital institutions helping to “deliver the firm’s resources.”

Mr. Laber helped lead engagements that received “turnaround of the year” honors from the M&A Advisor and won the “emerging leaders” award from the same publication.  Mark has published commentaries including: “Covenant-Lite Leveraged Loans: Time-Tested or Time Bomb?” (October 2017);  “Default Surge on Hold as Leveraged Credit Markets Refuse to Buckle” (January 2019);  “2019 and 2020 U.S. Loan Market Survey” (Spring 2019 & 2020).

Mark is a founding board member of Geeks Rule, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established to eliminate racial, gender and socioeconomic gaps that exist in STEM through programming at underserved secondary schools.

Previously, Mr. Laber spent five years at PricewaterhouseCoopers, serving in its Audit practice as well as its Transaction Services Valuation and Accounting Advisory group.

Google, Senior Programmatic Account Manager

Sophie is a passionate digital marketer, with over 8 years experience in digital advertising working at eBay and Google. A born and bred Londoner, Sophie moved to New York in 2017 to manage Media & Entertainment advertisers. She launched the non-profit funding venture, 10×10, in the US market. 10×10 has the mission of funding and inspiring small non-profits trying to make incremental social change. Sophie earned her MA in Advertising and Marketing at Leeds University Business School after earning her BA there in Management and Marketing.

Lugh Studio

Amy is a managing partner at Lugh Studio, a design boutique studio in Brooklyn, NY. Amy’s career has focused on marketing, sales and product development at companies including Elsevier, where she served as Sr. Director of Integrated Marketing, as well as Donovan Data Systems, Seed Media Group and Gemstar.

Amy also serves as a marketing consultant and an adjunct professor at LaGuardia Community College. She brings to Geeks Rule her expertise in marketing and fundraising.

Pan African Chamber of Commerce

Camilla is the Chief Creative Officer of the Pan African Chamber of Commerce. A passionate advisor to organizations looking to improve the lives of underserved peoples, particularly of African descent, Camilla co-founded the Alliance 4 Development (A4D), a global advisory incubator that leverages innovation and cultural bridges to foster job creation and growth. She orchestrates stakeholder forums and tours all over the world to accelerate Africa’s innovation ecosystem.

She organized The Future of Work in NYC in September 2019 during the 74th UN General Assembly. Camilla also devotes her time and donates her strategic advisory services for philanthropies that drive diversity and inclusion for underserved communities.

Vice Presidet, PGIM Investments; Prudential Financial

Stan is a versatile leader with a proven track record of success in leveraging technology and data to deliver business value. As Director of Corporate Functions Technology Stan provides leadership to drive innovation and the continued development of a robust and secure information technology environment throughout the middle and back office functions.

In addition to the technical leadership, Stan ensures the appropriately controlled environment thru governance, development of standards and policies, resource allocation, expense optimization, data and application management. Prior to CIT, Stan was in the Advisory Consulting practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) partnering with clients across industries on regulatory response, data management, and process transformation initiatives.

Stan earned a Master of Liberal Arts degree in Information Technology from Harvard University Extension School. He completed his undergraduate at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) graduating with honors with a major in Computer Science and a minor in Marketing. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, Caitlin, their three sons – Andrew, Evan and Owen, and their two dogs, Molly and Hanna.

Mark joined Geeks Rule in 2016 as the Chief Executive Officer.

Mark has been an executive in education technology for over twenty years in both consumer and institutional markets. He created and built successful businesses at companies such as Scholastic, Kaplan, Dorling Kindersley and RM Education. For example, at Scholastic, he created the Scholastic Software Club, a revolutionary distribution business that he built into a $25 million enterprise, while at Kaplan he revived their consumer test prep software business, taking it from 10% market share to 70% within twelve months.

Mark has taken an active leadership role on a pro-bono basis for several nonprofit organizations involved in educational causes, serving as President of the Friends of Anderson, Vice Chair of the English Speaking Union and President of the Oliver Parents Council. Mark earned his BA in English and History and his MBA in Marketing at the State University of New York at Albany.

Mark lives in New York with his wife, Sandra, and two daughters, Brittany (who is pursuing her master’s in public health at Yale) and Cailin (who is attending Williams College to study neuroscience).

US Private Equity Lead; Thomson Reuters

Shareholder; Carlton Fields Jorden Burt

Natalie A. Napierala is a shareholder in her firm’s New York office, which she opened in 2012. She is a member of the firm’s securities, business transactions, and white collar crime and government investigations practice groups. She serves on the Criminal Advocacy Committee of the New York City Bar Association and is a past member of the Securities Litigation Committee.

Natalie earned graduate degrees in both business and law, including a master of laws in securities and financial regulation.

Among her many legal activities and areas of expertise, Natalie has acted for many years as outside general counsel to a publicly-traded company, senior executive officers, boards of directors and committees, among others. She is conversant in D&O policy language and advises companies on how to better tailor their D&O coverage to meet their coverage needs. She advises employers on discharge decisions and earn out disputes, counsels executives in connection with employment and separation agreements, and drafts and negotiates employment, severance, non-competition and non-solicitation covenants.

Additionally, she acts as lead counsel in government civil and criminal investigations, and has represented senior executive officers in high profile securities fraud lawsuits.

Natalie has been selected for inclusion in New York Metro – Top Women Attorneys (2015) and New York Metro Super Lawyers (2014), as well as the National Association of Distinguished Counsel (2015).

Managing General Partner; Education Growth Partners

Andy is a Managing General Partner at Education Growth Partners, a private equity firm focused exclusively on proven, high potential education companies that offer compelling solutions to unmet needs in education. He has spent his entire 30-year career in the education industry, half as an operator of education businesses and half as an investor in quality education companies. Andy began his career developing educational software for Scholastic. Andy then became a senior executive at Kaplan, Inc., (no relation to him!) where he was responsible for leading several technology enabled services businesses, both newly acquired and organically developed. Andy has been investing in education companies since 2000 when he joined Quad Partners. Andy joined Education Growth Partners in 2014 where he leverages his deep industry experience and operating abilities to drive investment returns across a wide range of subsectors within the education industry.

COO/Executive Director; Morgan Stanley

Josh is an Executive Director at Morgan Stanley and serves as the Chief Operating Officer for ISG Product Operations, which performs middle office activities to support the firm’s institutional Sales and Trading businesses globally. Previously he worked in a number of operational line, project, and regulatory roles at both Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital. He has an interest in both technology and education, and served as a board member and Treasurer at Morningside Montessori school.

Prior to joining the financial services industry, Josh worked as a developer and team manager at dot-com startups in New York and Boston. He earned a BS in Psychobiology from Yale University and an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business. He and his wife Beth have two children and live in Manhattan.