JMF & Co. Team

Our team consists of creative and highly motivated entrepreneurs with a strong global network in business and government.

J.Michael Fernandez

Prior to launching JMF & Co., Mike was a Managing Director of mergers and acquisitions with BTI Group, a west coast boutique M & A firm. He has advised CEOs and owners in industries such as food & beverage, media & entertainment, alternative energy, technology, and web 2.0.

Mike began his career in investment banking at JP Morgan. He later worked in strategy consulting at Mars & Company, helping Fortune 500 clients improve their investment returns of international acquisitions. As an entrepreneur, he co-founded both The Coffee Review, introducing the first-ever 100-point rating system for the specialty coffee industry, and Great Coffee, Inc, a leading online coffee retailer twice awarded the Forbes magazine "Best of the Web" award. He completed a post-graduate internship as an equity analyst for Parnassus Investments, a leading socially responsible $2 billion+ investment fund.

He co-founded and is Chairman Emeritus of Little Kids Rock, an innovative non-profit providing free music lessons and instruments to children in public schools. Little Kids Rock has served nearly 100,0000 students at over 1,100 schools across 23 cities nationwide. He served in the US Army Reserves and was the #1 Distinguished Military Graduate of his military class and was selected as the "most outstanding leader" in his Officer Basic Course. Captain Fernandez served with the 411th Civil Affairs battalion, a special operations airborne unit engaging in humanitarian relief and reconstruction missions.

He was selected as one of the top emerging leaders and one of the most influential Latinos in San Francisco by the San Francisco Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the San Francisco Business Times, receiving awards from both the Mayor of San Francisco and the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. He is an American Marshall Memorial Fellow and was selected as a 2009 National Finalist for the White House Fellowship.

He has taught courses on valuation, M & A, negotiation, and sales to undergraduate and graduate students from Berkeley, Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, and Yale. He is a member of the Association for Corporate Growth.

Education:
MPA Harvard
BSE Wharton, Penn: Economics
AA Valley Forge Military: Military Science

James Jarrett

James is a business development executive with operational experience. James has successfully driven revenue in a number of industries including media & entertainment, computer networking, and healthcare.

He began his operating career as a lead engineer and senior product manager for electrical systems in U.S. aircraft carrier nuclear power plants. Under the guidance of a four-star Navy Admiral, he gained critical skills in leadership, product management, and engineering in a high-stress, mission critical environment that would form the foundation for his career. He later became a successful product manager at Intuit, named America's most admired software company by Fortune magazine for its world-class product management and marketing approach.

He helped triple sales at iPath technologies, a networking and security company services company, which lead to a profitable sale of the business. And most recently he helped MedeFinance, a business intelligence SaaS company, attract a $50M investment from Bain Venture by closing the 2nd largest deal in the company's history. James also founded CW Music, LLC, successfully pairing touring bands with Fortune 500 companies.

Education:
MBA Harvard
MS Virginia Tech: Engineering Management
MS U.S. Navy: Nuclear Engineering
BS Vanderbilt: Electrical Engineering

Sector focus: Education-Revolutionizing the value of college education through technology.

Hector Lopez

Hector is a product development, management, and marketing executive. He is an engaging cross-functional team leader and inventor blending 13 years of marketing, operations, and multi-category product management experience for companies with revenues between $300M and $19B.

Most recently, Hector led market research for Rhapsody, the leading online music subscription service. In this role, he championed research initiatives for segmentation, pricing, packaging, negotiations, homepage design, product plans, and company strategy. He worked with internal and external partners functionally spanning product development, marketing, advertising, design, sales, operations, and finance to deliver actionable insights. He is an experienced advisor to CEOs, CMOs, and COOs on key decisions translating into profit increases. He is detail oriented and results driven, and has been awarded for his consensus-building style and informed decision-making.

Hector's background is atypical of traditional product managers in that he began his career in operations. His early successes involved identifying opportunities to extend company resources through technology and leading cross-functional teams to deliver improved margins and sales. After working in supply chain logistics for Nike and Gap, he shifted his focus to product management and marketing. Since then he has worked on products and services in personal finance, small business, media and entertainment, healthcare, and consumer electronics for companies such as Intuit, Monster Cable, Ubisoft, and Rhapsody.

He enjoys building great products and seeks to apply his operations experience towards delivering strategies which translate into time and money saving execution. Hector has worked on numerous new products and services developing and applying flexible, rigorous approaches tailored to the needs of the market. His work has resulted in patent applications and has improved the lives of countless customers.

Education:
MBA Harvard
BA Yale: Economics

Sector focus: Education-Revolutionizing the value of college education through technology.

Brian Lamka

Brian is a marketing and product development professional. He has over 14 years of hands-on operational experience in industries including social media, gaming, consumer software and services, and business consulting. He is a creative, action-oriented leader with a passion for innovation, a special focus on delivering exceptional user experience, and a consistent track record for identifying and exploiting new market opportunities.

Most recently, Brian led product innovation and marketing at FanIQ.com, a leading social gaming company. In this role, he was responsible for product strategy and managed a cross-functional team to build, design, launch, and optimize Quick Fantasy, the company’s primary revenue-generating product. He also developed and executed best-in-class marketing campaigns that significantly increased game playing engagement and grew overall website traffic.

Prior to FanIQ.com, Brian founded and ran Lifeline Attorneys, an online marketing and lead-generation company, where he helped consumer-oriented attorneys dramatically reduce their client acquisition and marketing costs. Brian also was a senior product manger at Intuit, where he managed strategic planning and product releases for the market’s leading payroll software. There, his innovative solution to simplify payroll for small business owners resulted in a business process patent application.

Brian began his career as a consultant for Tucker Alan, a national business consulting firm. In this role, he developed and honed his analytical and managerial skills by leading teams on client projects involving complex financial and economic litigation disputes.

Education:
MBA Stanford
BA Stanford: Economics

Sector focus: Education-Revolutionizing the value of college education through technology.

Dennis is a client-focused business development professional currently working as a business development specialist at Pentaho, the market-leader in open-source business intelligence software with funding from Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures, and New Enterprise Associates. Prior to JMF & Co., Dennis was with BTI Group, a mergers & acquisition advisory firm where he developed and managed a leading deal origination process. His creativity and persistence secured sell-side engagements in the wine, media and entertainment, consumer products and technology sectors. He is a co-founder of Strive For, a San Francisco based non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring youth in foster care receive high quality mentorship. His commitment to public service and leadership has won him numerous awards, including a Leadership Award from the California Alumni Association.

Education:
BA: University of California at Berkeley (top 1% of class)

Sector focus: Education-Revolutionizing the value of college education through technology.

With over 15 years of high-level real estate experience, Leo Ma has an extensive background in real estate investment and development. Most recently, he has been engaged as an independent real estate consultant providing consulting services to real estate firms such as MacFarlane Partners, Stockbridge Real Estate Funds, and Wilson Meany Sullivan. Previously, Leo was Executive Vice President, Investments with Kenwood Investments where his responsibilities included the implementation of investment strategies including sourcing and underwriting investment opportunities, structuring and executing transactions, managing investments, implementing financing strategies, and maintaining lender, investor, and joint venture partner relationships. While at Kenwood Investments, he was involved in projects such as the master-planned redevelopment of the former naval base on Treasure Island in San Francisco, California.

Prior to Kenwood Investments, Leo was Vice President, Investments in the urban real estate group of MacFarlane Partners, a leading real estate investment management firm in the United States. While at MacFarlane Partners, he was responsible for underwriting, structuring, closing, and managing investments in development projects totaling over $3 billion in development costs. In addition to investments in development projects, he led acquisition of and investment in real estate operating companies. Previously, Leo was Associate Vice President, Finance with Catellus Urban Development Corporation where he worked on the horizontal land and vertical building development of large-scale, master planned, urban infill projects such as the 303-acre Mission Bay project in San Francisco, California.

Leo also served as Project Director for Classic Residence by Hyatt, a nationwide developer, owner, and manager of luxury senior living communities. In addition, his experience includes work in real estate market assessment and analysis with Robert Charles Lesser & Co. and work as an architect with several architecture and planning firms. Leo is a licensed architect in California.

Education:
MBA Yale
MA: University of California at Berkeley: Architecture
BA: University of California at Berkeley: Architecture

Sector focus: Hotels and Hospitality: Reinventing the design of hotels and spas.

Todd Shaiman is a digital media and entertainment professional. He is the Production Strategy & Finance Lead at Pixar Animation Studios, the Academy-award winning computer animation studio.

Before joining Pixar, Todd worked with Linden Lab, an interactive media company and creator of the collaborative 3D online virtual environment, Second Life. Prior to Linden Lab, Todd was Director of Product Strategy at Atomshockwave Corporation, a leading digital entertainment company, and Product Manager at Microsoft, where he led a cross-functional team in the development of its UltimateTV service.

Education:
MBA Stanford
MA Stanford: Education
M.Sc. Oxford
BA Harvard

Sector focus: Education

Angelo Torres

Angelo Torres, is a Managing Partner at WKA LLC where he focuses on private equity and M&A transactions in highly regulated industries and with value equal or greater to $1B. Prior to WKA, Angelo worked as a management consultant for Oliver Wyman and Deloitte and as a Corporate M&A associate for Philips Semiconductors. He began his career as an electrical engineer at Motorola.

Education:
MBA Wharton
EE Univ. of Florida: Electrical Engineering

Sector focus: Telecom