Mergers & Acquisitions names the 2022 Most Influential Women in Mid-Market M&A, including Mizzen Capital’s Marilyn Adler.

How are you a champion of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)?

I co-founded Mizzen Capital as a women-owned and led investment firm and strive to support companies that champion DEI. Mizzen Capital’s team is extremely diverse, representing several different nationalities, ethnic groups and genders. Mizzen Capital closed its first loan to a woman-owned company in 2021 and partnered with another minority-owned credit fund to maintain a company’s minority status. Most recently, Mizzen Capital brought in another woman-owned credit fund to partner on a deal with it that closed in December 2021.

Describe a recent dealmaking accomplishment.

Through the end of November 2021, Mizzen closed financings into 10 companies in manufacturing, alternative energy, healthcare, business services and IT. Helping save companies that were badly impacted by Covid was one of Mizzen’s greatest dealmaking accomplishments.

Mizzen Capital’s first financing was an investment of $14.5 million into four sleepaway camps that were shut during the pandemic. The banks put the camps into restricted operations and would not provide any additional capital. Mizzen Capital provided the debt financing so that the camps could keep staff on and reopen in a Covid-friendly manner. During the summer of 2021, attendance at the camps was a record high.

How did you further your firm’s ESG goals?

Mizzen Capital invests strictly in companies that are socially responsible: no guns, alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes, or oil and gas. We invest in companies that make products or provide services that are “must haves” not “nice to have.”