Bio from Dec 2003 Sino-US Investment Summit in NY where J ***** was a guest speaker – coinciding with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s state visit with President Bush:

Mr. ***** is Managing Partner of The ***** Group, a private equity investment banking boutique focused on facilitating private equity investment on a global basis, where he is a consultant to private equity investors, hedge funds, and corporate acquirers globally. Previously, he ran the nine-country Asia Pacific region for the ABS Group (the commercial arm of the American Bureau of Shipping) a global engineering consulting company. In this role, Mr. ***** was recruited to turnaround the under-performing Asia Pacific operations of the company, achieving dramatic success within two years, resulting in a private equity-backed acquisition attempt for the global operations of the company. Prior to this, he ran strategic planning / M&A in the Asia Pacific region for Cemex, the world’s second largest cement and construction materials company. His responsibilities included all issues related to M&A and post-merger integration strategy in the region. In 1995, Cemex, a company focused on investment in the global emerging markets, was ranked as the world’s 5th most profitable large cap company at the gross margin by Forbes magazine, higher than Microsoft and Intel. Prior to this, Mr. ***** was a China investment banker with Prudential Securities, responsible for working with a related private equity group in Hong Kong, PruAsia DBS, to start and build a China investment banking practice focused on international exit strategies for China private equity investors.

An American, Mr. ***** has lived and worked the majority of his adult life outside the United States in global M&A and corporate turnarounds - 8 countries, on 4 continents over the past 23 years, with professional investment and, or executive experience in many of the world’s key emerging and developed markets. He received his MBA from Columbia Business School, New York, NY, with an emphasis in finance and economics.