Anna has a passion for delivering high-caliber programs from leading global experts in various fields of business, M&A, finance, restructuring and private equity.

With a deep understanding of the industry trends, insights and best practices, and how to communicate them effectively to the most qualified audience, Anna leads the business, strategy and direction of the platform.

Anna also oversees the production, distribution and promotion of video content that showcases the expertise and profile of professionals and firms.

Anna also partners with leading media outlets and organizations to expand the reach and impact of the platform, and to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing among the industry peers and stakeholders.

Alex Kasdan is a founding partner and a moderator of Expert Webcast. He ensures our speakers’ expertise is highlighted through high-caliber content, and our audiences get answers to their most pressing questions.

Alex is also a managing partner of Convergence, an advisory firm focused on M&A, Restructuring and Corporate Finance.

With extensive experience in investment banking, corporate law and restructuring, domestically and internationally, with firms such as Credit Suisse First Boston, O’Sullivan Graev & Karabell, LLP, Battle Fowler LLP, and Schlumberger, Alex brings more than twenty-five years of senior-level Wall Street advice to middle market companies and entrepreneurs.

Alex holds a J.D. from Columbia University Law School, and a B.A. from Middlebury College, Magna Cum Laude.

Rich Phillips is Vice President, Partnership Development, focused on developing strategic relationships with companies and brands worldwide. For more than 25 years, he has helped companies, non-profits, and government leaders build leadership momentum for products, services, and ideas. Rich is the Founder and President of Bold Narratives, a global strategic messaging and communication consulting firm helping companies, non-profits, and governments establish their leadership identity by crafting and communicating a bold and courageous story.

Previously, Rich founded Phillips & Company, a public relations firm focused on creating, defending, and sustaining leadership positions. He also served as Chief Communications Officer of Simplified Development Corp., an Austin-based provider of telecommunications software, where he led marketing and communications strategy for North America, Asia, and Europe. Rich has served in numerous leadership roles as both a founding entrepreneur and chief executive, including Minerva AI, a global leader in artificial intelligence for aviation and urban air mobility; Lantern Messaging, a global marketplace for SMS messaging; and, Telepoint Global Hosting Services, a leader in wholesale voice communications.

Rich is a 1997-98 Graduate of Leadership Austin. He earned a B.A. in economics from Boston University and a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University.

Igor Kirman provides guidance to Expert Webcast on corporate law, mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance content.

Igor is a partner in the Corporate Department at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, where he focuses primarily on mergers and acquisitions, activism and takeover defense, corporate governance and general corporate matters.

Igor has advised public and private companies, as well as private equity funds, in connection with mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, leveraged buyouts, joint ventures, cross-border deals, shareholder activism, takeover defenses and corporate governance matters.

Igor received a B.A. magna cum laude from Yale University and his J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was notes editor of the Columbia Law Review.

Neal J. Reenan is Global Co-Head of Private Capital, Freshfields.

Drawing on more than two decades of experience, Neal advises private equity firms and their portfolio companies on their most complex domestic and cross-border transactions, including mergers and acquisitions (including acquisitions of distressed companies and take-privates), divestitures, leveraged buyouts, joint ventures, recapitalizations and restructuring transactions.

A former accountant, strategy consultant and manufacturing executive, as well as the co-founder of a significant, private equity-focused office of a leading global law firm, Neal brings a pragmatic operator’s perspective to delivering legal counsel.

As a leading corporate lawyer, Lina will provide guidance on topics such as shareholder and hedge fund activism defense and preparedness, proxy fights, takeover defense, corporate governance, and mergers and acquisitions.

Lina Tetelbaum is a Corporate Partner at Wachtell Lipton, where she focuses on shareholder and hedge fund activism defense and preparedness, proxy fights, takeover defense, corporate governance, and mergers and acquisitions. 

Lina received an A.B. magna cum laude in Economics from Harvard University and completed a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Yale Journal on Regulation and editor of the Yale Law Journal. After law school, Ms. Tetelbaum served as a law clerk to the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Mark is a partner at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP.   has almost 30 years of experience restructuring companies inside and outside of bankruptcy in numerous industries, directing bankruptcy-related litigation, and handling the purchase of assets out of bankruptcy.

Mark holds a J.D. from Harvard University and a B.S.B.A. from Georgetown University.  He helps guide restructuring and turnaround focused programs on Expert Webcast.

Alison provides guidance on private equity, private credit and M&A related content. She is based in New York, joined Warburg Pincus in 2019, and focuses on legal matters relating to the firm’s investing activities.

Prior to joining Warburg Pincus, she was a Vice President in legal and compliance at GSO Capital Partners, the credit-focused business of The Blackstone Group.

Previously, she was an Associate in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group of Sullivan & Cromwell.

She received a BA in Economics from the University of Notre Dame and a JD from Harvard Law School. Alison is a member of the New York Bar.

Donald M. Ephraim Professor of Law and Economics, Faculty Director, The Center on Law and Finance, Tony Casey is an expert on business law, finance, and corporate bankruptcy. His research—which has been published in the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the Supreme Court Review, and the University of Chicago Law Review—examines the intersection of finance and law.

He has also written about the role of intellectual property law in the organization and financing of creative projects and about how technological innovation is changing the foundations of our legal system more generally.

Before entering academics, Professor Casey was a partner at Kirkland and Ellis, LLP. Before joining Kirkland & Ellis, he was an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

Agnieszka Rafalska is a Senior Transaction Counsel, Private Equity at Apollo Global Management.  In her role, she is integrally involved in all aspects of transactions across the firm’s Private Equity segment.

Prior to joining Apollo, Agnieszka was associated with the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, where she maintained a broad practice, advising corporate and sponsor clients on a wide range of transactions.

Agnieszka graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with an A.B. degree in Social Studies and received her J.D. from Yale Law School.

Eric Waxman provides guidance to Expert Webcast on private equity, corporate governance, M&A and securities litigation and other corporate content.

Eric is a Partner within the Ares Private Equity Group.  He works on both the acquisition and disposition of ACOF portfolio assets and assists portfolio companies in dealing with significant legal issues.

Prior to joining Ares in 2016, he was a Partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates, where he practiced for more than 30 years.

Eric holds a B.A. from the University of California Los Angeles in Economics and a J.D. from The University of California Davis School of Law.

Rita O’Neill provides guidance to Expert Webcast on private equity, mergers and acquisitions and other corporate content, as well as women’s initiatives in law and finance.

Rita is a partner in Sullivan & Cromwell’s Los Angeles office and serves as co-head of the Firm’s Global Private Equity Group.

She has a broad-based practice that includes advising clients on mergers and acquisitions and securities offerings, and providing general corporate advice on disclosure and governance.

She has advised clients in a wide range of industries, including consumer and retail, financial institutions, healthcare and life sciences, industrials, telecommunications and transportation.

Nicholas Rodriguez is a partner at Winston & Strawn.  His experience includes representing strategic and private equity investors on complex and sophisticated business acquisitions and divestitures, strategic investments, corporate restructurings and recapitalizations, asset acquisition and sale transactions, joint ventures and other strategic partnering arrangements.

He also has extensive experience in a wide array of industries, including technology, software, energy, infrastructure, financial services, media, agriculture, and telecommunications.  Nicholas has represented clients in the United States, Latin America and Europe.

Nicholas holds a B.A. from New York University, a J.D. from St. John’s University and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.

Cynthia Romano provides guidance to Expert Webcast on insolvency, restructuring and bankruptcy content.

Cynthia is a Senior Managing Director with FTI Consulting. She has more than 25 years of experience in performance improvement, turnaround management, transaction support, and investment analysis.

EDUCATION

• MBA, International Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

• B.A. with honors, Educational History and Policy, Brown University

  
  

Jason S. Kim is a deal lawyer. His practice focuses on representing domestic and foreign companies, financial institutions, funds, and serial entrepreneurs in acquisitions, mergers, and divestitures and related financing and capital raises with special emphasis on cross-border deals.

Jason also served as an Adjunct Professor at USC Gould School of Law from 2009 through 2018 and taught International Business Transactions covering the legal principles and practices involved in private business transactions and movement of goods, services, capital, knowledge, and technology across the boundaries of different nation-states.

Hon. Melanie L. Cyganowski (ret.) provides guidance to Expert Webcast on insolvency, restructuring and bankruptcy content.

Melanie chairs the bankruptcy practice at Otterbourg P.C. , which she joined in 2008, after serving as the Chief Bankruptcy Judge in the Eastern District of New York. She is also an arbitrator/mediator and has testified as an expert in international cases involving U.S. bankruptcy laws.

Melanie graduated magna cum laude from the School of Law at the SUNY at Buffalo and served as law clerk to the late Hon. Charles L. Brieant (SDNY). Melanie was then a litigator at Sullivan & Cromwell and Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy.

James Hu’s is a partner in Cleary Gottlieb. His practice focuses on public and private merger and acquisition transactions.

He regularly advises investors, boards of directors, senior executives, and founders on strategic, legal, and business matters in all types of M&A transactions, including leveraged buyouts, public company mergers, corporate carve-outs, minority investments, and distressed situations. James advises on transactions across the industry spectrum, with substantial experience in the technology, life science and health care, and consumer space.

A practical and strategic negotiator, James is known to maintain a constructive deal dynamic and deliver efficient execution. Having represented prominent financial sponsors and multiple Fortune 500 companies, James brings experience to both buyers and sellers and is often credited with creatively bridging the gap.

James joined the firm as a partner in 2024 from another international law firm.

Sylvie Gadant provides guidance on private equity, independent sponsor and transaction advisory content. She is a partner with Citrin Cooperman’s Private Equity and Capital Markets Practice and is the Transaction Advisory Services (TAS) practice leader.

She leads buy-side and sell-side due diligence engagements for private equity firms, independent sponsors, family offices, and strategic buyers.

In 2017, Sylvie launched Citrin Cooperman’s Independent Sponsor Survey, which was the first of its kind.

We are pleased to welcome Roy Sexton, Clark Hill’s Director of Marketing and Immediate Past International President of the Legal Marketing Association, to the Expert Webcast Advisory Board.

As a thought leader and marketing expert, Roy, in this volunteer role, will continue to champion inclusion, community building, authentic storytelling, and value creation.

Roy hosts Expert Webcast’s “All the World’s YOUR Stage” series, focusing on how these qualities lead to growth in one’s personal and professional brand.

Roy has 25 years of experience in marketing, communications, business development, and strategic planning across a number of industries, including legal, healthcare, higher education, nonprofits, and consulting.

Elaine Carey is a Managing Director at FTI.  She has served as an advisor and problem solver to senior executives of Fortune 100 corporations and law firms for more than 30 years, overseeing clients’ most complex and sensitive problems around the globe involving integrity, political, security and reputational risks. Ms. Carey co-leads FTI Consulting’s Cannabis practice.

Early in her career, Elaine was an investigative journalist, reporting from more than 30 countries on political, economic, business and social developments. Elaine established an office in Moscow for Cox Newspapers in 1988 and spent five years chronicling the end of the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. Prior to that, she lived in Mexico City covering Latin America and Beirut covering the Middle East. 



Elaine holds a BA from Grinnell College, and was a mid-career fellow at the Harvard University Russian Research Center. She is a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS).