Ballard Spahr –The U.S. law firm with 14 offices has added Louis Dienes, an attorney with more than two decades of experience handling mergers and acquisitions in technology and other growth industries. Dienes will be a member of the firm’s business and finance department and its mergers and acquisitions/private equity group, working in San Diego and Los Angeles. His experience includes representing clients in more than $10 billion of concluded mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, including domestic and cross-border stock and asset transactions, and buyers and sellers of assets in foreclosures, bankruptcies and receiverships. He has also served as U.S. co-counsel in similar foreign deals. Dienes has also advised private investor groups and angel investors, and has represented businesses, investment banks and investors in more than 150 private offerings of securities, including preferred stock and convertible debt offerings, and offerings of partnership and limited liability company interests.


 

Bonwick Capital Partners – The New York-based broker dealer for institutional clients has appointed Rashaun Williams (pictured, above) as partner and head of corporate finance. Williams, 35, will lead the firm's Los Angeles office. Before joining Bonwick, he was founding partner at M&A boutique firm VCap Investment Group and at QueensBridge Venture Fund, which he helped launch in 2013 and managed with other partners, including rapper and hip-hop icon Nasir “Nas” Jones, investing in startups such as Dropbox, Lyft, Seatgeek, Meerkat and General Assembly. Bonwick has also hired several new employees from VCap, all based in Los Angeles: Deshon Owens as a managing director, Chad Thomas as an associate, Leyandra Pagan as a senior analyst and Kavaneet Dhami as an analyst. Williams has held institutional sales and trading roles at Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo, and has invested in and raised capital for companies in West Africa. He founded Kemet Institute, a nonprofit organization, in 2001 to provide workshops in financial literacy and entrepreneurship to children, teens and adults in low income communities. Earlier this year, Williams was appointed to the board of trustees at Fisk University.


 

The Carlyle Group—The Washington, D.C.-based global alternative asset manager with $193 billion under management has added Jill Wight as a principal on the firm’s U.S. middle-market team in a newly created operations role. Wight, who comes to Carlyle (NASDAQ: CG) from Goldman Sachs, where she was a director in the special situations group, is based in New York. Wight will help develop and implement strategic and 100-day plans that address key risks and capture value creation opportunities, build out and harness the team’s stable of operating executives, and help ensure the Carlyle funds are focused and accountable around key portfolio company priorities over the holding period. The firm’s middle-market team is currently investing two funds: Carlyle U.S. Equity Opportunity Fund, LP I and II. Wight joined Goldman Sachs’ special situations group in 2008, heading the portfolio operations group. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, she was a vice president in the equity and distressed investing group at GSC Group, where she led portfolio operations. She previously held leadership positions in strategic management consulting at Bain & Company and Marakon Associates. She is currently a director of the New York Private Equity Network and serves on the board of the Yale Alumni Fund.


 

Hall & Company – The Irvine, California –based tax and accounting firm is expanding its Southern 



California tax practice with the hire of Michael Silvio (right) as director of tax services. Silvio, a certified public accountant, has more than 25 years of experience in public accounting, serving businesses in the technology, consumer product, software, biotech, health care, manufacturing, construction, professional service and nonprofit sectors. Hall & Co. reports that Silvio is nationally recognized for his expertise with tax credits and incentives, having conducted more than 450 research credit studies, defending state and federal research credit claims for taxpayers and saving clients’ taxes through incentive programs related to domestic production, accounting methods, federal and state grants, and renewable energy and sustainability practices. For individuals, he has assisted with income and estate tax planning, wealth transfer strategies, tax compliance, contract negotiations, M&A assimilation and due diligence for buyers and sellers. Prior to joining Hall & Company, Silvio was managing director of CBIZ MHM, LLC in Irvine for seven years, leading the firm’s national federal credits and incentives practice. He was previously a tax partner at McGladrey for 18 years in the Irvine and Pasadena, California, offices.


 

Harris Williams & Co.—The Richmond, Virginia, middle-market investment bank promoted four senior professionals in its Richmond and San Francisco offices. Corey Benjamin, Whit Knier and Erik Szyndlar have been promoted to director and Nick Owens has been promoted to vice president. Benjamin and Kneir, directors in the firm’s consumer and health care/life sciences groups, respectively, have advised publicly traded and privately held companies on mergers and acquisitions, capital raising and strategic advisory assignments. Benjamin advised businesses in the consumer products, consumer services, retail, building, business services and health care services industries, among others, while Knier focused on the healthcare industry. Szyndlar, a director in the technology, media and telecommunications group, has advised software and Internet businesses on mergers and acquisitions, recapitalization and growth capital transactions, and businesses in application, enterprise and security software, data and analytics, Internet and e-commerce sectors. Owens, a vice president in the health care and life sciences group, has advised companies on M&A, divestitures, joint ventures and debt and equity capital raises.


 

KPMG Corporate Finance LLC –The Chicago-based subsidiary of KPMG Internationalhas named Mark Belford (right) and Robert Glowniak (left) co-heads of its U.S. consumer and retail investment banking group. Belford has nearly 25 years of investment banking experience, coming to KPMG CF in New York from Janney Montgomery Scott LLC. At Janney, he was a managing director and group co-head for consumer and retail
investment banking since 2009. Previously, Belford was an executive director for middle market consumer and retail investment banking at J.P. Morgan & Co., and was a vice president in the global retail and consumer investment banking group at Lehman Brothers. Glowniak has more than 20 years of experience in food and consumer products investment banking.  Prior to joining KPMG CF in Chicago, Glowniak was a principal at J.H. Chapman Group LLC, where he was a leader on the food and consumer products industry team. Previously, he was a managing director in the middle market investment banking group at J.P. Morgan and held senior positions at Bear Stearns & Co. and Citigroup Global Markets Inc.


 

Lincoln International—The Chicago-based mid-market investment bank has appointed Dominic Rispoli as a managing director and head of retail in North America, expanding the firm’s consumer group. Rispoli, who
will be based in Lincoln’s New York office, has more than 22 years of M&A transaction, advisory and capital
raising experience. He will focus on all areas of retail, particularly specialty softline and hardline retailers, discount retailers, apparel, footwear and luxury areas. Before joining Lincoln, Rispoli was the consumer and retail group head and a managing director in Canaccord Genuity's investment banking division. Previously, Rispoli co-founded Catalyst Brands LLC, a retail and consumer products advisory firm; was the retail group head for Barclays Capital, the investment banking division of Barclays (NYSE: BCS); a managing director in Lehman Brothers' global retail and consumer group; and member of the middle market structured finance group at JP Morgan Chase.


 

Moss Adams LLP—The Seattle-based accounting and business consulting firm has added David Terry as a partner and Chad Gumm as a director in the firm’s transaction services practice. Terry, a former partner at Grant Thornton and Deloitte, has more than 20 years of M&A experience with private equity and corporate acquirers, as well as sell-side due diligence experience. He will oversee client transactions across the United States, as well as focus on further developing private equity relationships for Moss Adams throughout the Midwest and on the East Coast. Gumm joins from PwC and has more than 14 years of M&A tax experience, including buy- and sell-side tax due diligence, tax structuring, Section 382 net operating loss issues and tax opinion letter writing. Based in San Francisco, Gumm’s clients include large Bay Area technology companies and private equity funds. Moss Adams reports that its hiring of Terry and Gumm were in response to a tremendous growth in demand for transaction support over the last two years.


 

Outcome Capital—The Reston, Virginia-based investment bank has hired Craig Steger (right) as a senior adviser for its Boston area-based life sciences practice. Steger, who has been part of several successful molecular diagnostic start-ups through their eventual acquisitions, joins Outcome-- which focuses on middle-market growth companies in the life sciences, health care services and technology markets-- from Forge 4ward. At that company, a life science and diagnostic consulting firm, he worked with clients to develop their commercial strategies.  


 

Pamlico Capital—The Charlotte, North Carolina-based private equity firm, which primarily invests in lower middle-market companies in the U.S., has added Brian Chambers as a principal. He will be a member of the firm's health care team, responsible for developing and executing health care investment themes and working with the portfolio management teams. Chambers was a principal at Beecken Petty O'Keefe & Co., a Chicago-based private equity firm that invests in middle-market buyout transactions, recapitalizations and growth platforms in the health care industry. Previously, he was an associate at Piper Jaffray, where he focused exclusively on health care opportunities.


 

Perella Weinberg Partners—The New York –based firm has hired Jason Forschler as a managing director in its advisory business. Based in San Francisco, Forschler will focus on providing strategic and financial advice to clients in the health care sector, which is one of the firm’s most active sectors. Forschler has more than a decade of health care investment banking experience, most recently as an executive director in the health care investment banking group at J.P. Morgan (NYSE: JPM). Before that, he was an associate on the healthcare team at Piper Jaffray (NYSE: PJC) and he started his career at Deloitte & Touche. 


 

Water Street Healthcare Partners—The Chicago-based health-care-focused strategic investor has appointed Paul Cottey as chief information officer. A former executive partner with Accenture, Cottey will collaborate with the firm’s group of health care companies to engage and align their IT strategy and infrastructure to support their growth objectives. Cottey worked nearly 20 years with Accenture (NYSE: ANC), consulting with corporations on their IT strategy. He oversaw IT initiatives for companies as vice president of IT and systems at The Gores Group, and prior to Water Street, he was CIO and member of the executive leadership team of Patient Matters LLC. At Water Street, Cottey augments the firm’s corporate resources group, which has specialists who work with the firm’s companies, offering expertise in corporate communications, corporate development, IT and talent management. Since its founding in 2005, Water Street has completed more than 50 strategic acquisitions and mergers to build 22 market-leading health care companies. Its target investments range from $50 million to $500 million in value.