Members Newly Elected to the ABI Board of Directors
Members Newly Elected to the ABI Board of Directors
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As director of Advanced Risk Solutions with Visa USA Inc. in San Francisco, Melyssa R. Barrett is dedicated to
the development and management of risk-management solutions to support Visa member profitability. Her
responsibilities include loss prevention, loss mitigation, and member and cardholder education. She is responsible
for managing and publishing bankruptcy research and statistics while managing notification services and advising
on best practices. She has 20 years of experience in the field. Ms. Barrett began her Visa career in 1989 as a
point-of-sale representative, where she provided support to members and merchants through the Visa help desk. She
also has held positions in retail banking at Wells Fargo and a variety of management positions in collections,
bankruptcy and specialty programs at Citibank. Ms. Barrett holds a B.S. in business with an emphasis on
marketing. She is a member of the National Association of Chapter Thirteen Trustees and the Board of Directors for
the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of San Francisco. She also is an Advisory Board member for the National
Data Center, a nonprofit chapter 13 trustee organization. She is active in ABI's Consumer Bankruptcy Committee.
Elizabeth M. Bobenmoyer of Dearborn, Mich., has been a member of Ford Motor Credit Company's Global Legal Department since April 1993 and has been responsible for consumer bankruptcy issues since November 2000. Her areas of expertise include litigation, class actions, commercial lending, commercial bankruptcy, consumer bankruptcy, dealer matters and appellate procedure. She received her B.A. from Michigan State University in 1981 and her J.D. from Wayne State University in 1984. Ms. Bobenmoyer is a member of the State Bar of Michigan and Virginia State Bar. She has been a speaker on consumer bankruptcy at ABI programs.
Matthew Bordwin is a principal and executive vice president of Keen Consultants LLC in Great Neck, N.Y., and a regular exhibitor at ABI conferences. He has been employed with Keen since 1996 with responsibilities in the areas of business development, project management and corporate finance. Clients include Arthur Andersen, Spiegel/Eddie Bauer, Tommy Hilfiger, Fruit of the Loom Liquidation Trust, Edison Brothers, Penthouse/General Media, Coda/Jeans West, Stage Stores, Pic 'N Pay, Service Merchandise and Family Golf Centers. Prior to joining Keen, Mr. Bordwin worked in the marketing department for the New York Mets and the New Jersey Nets. A graduate of Tufts University with a B.A. in political science and a graduate of Fordham University School of Law, Mr. Bordwin is licensed in both New York and New Jersey. His professional affiliations include the New York State Bar Association, New Jersey State Bar Association, Nassau County Bar Association, American Bar Association, International Council of Shopping Centers, Turnaround Management Association and the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees. He is active in ABI's Asset Sales Committee.
Sam Cirelli, a senior vice president of Wells Fargo Foothill Inc. in New York, has a broad background spanning more than 24 years in originating, structuring and financing middle-market companies on a national and international basis. He is a seasoned marketing executive who specializes in acquisition, growth, debtor-in-possession, confirmation, leveraged buyouts, management buyouts, cash flow, working capital and turnaround financings. His primary areas of concentration are structuring senior debt financings for manufacturers, distributors, service companies, retailers, financial institutions, broadcast media, restaurants, entertainment, gaming and software companies. During his career, Mr. Cirelli completed more than 600 transactions in various industries, committing more than $6.5 billion in bank debt. Prior to joining Wells Fargo Foothill, he served as the global marketing director for GMAC Commercial Finance and spent 14 years with CIT Business Credit, serving in different expanding capacities from auditing and underwriting to portfolio management. Mr. Cirelli also served as an adjunct professor at New York University, teaching Harvard case studies in corporate finance. He holds a B.S. in finance and an M.B.A. from St. John's University. Mr. Cirelli is on the Board of Directors for the New York Chapter of the Turnaround Management Association (TMA) and is a committee chairperson and director of the New York Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG).
Francis J. Conway is a partner with the accounting and consulting firm of Deloitte in New York and serves as the managing partner for the firm's reorganization services group (RSG) for the Northeast region. He has led numerous Deloitte national and global engagements involving financial restructurings, turnaround activities, performance improvement activities and troubled-company merger-and-acquisition assignments for more than 20 years. Mr. Conway's current activities include serving as financial advisor to a bank group in connection with a cross-border, multibillion-dollar troubled-debt restructuring, and assisting one of the largest companies in the airline segment with the evaluation of strategic alternatives. His other activities include managing RSG professionals in connection with troubled debt restructurings, related to the disposition of non-core assets, acquisition of assets of a troubled company by a financial buyer in and out of a bankruptcy proceeding, and the subsequent formulation and execution of the turnaround plan. Prior to joining the firm in May 1998, Mr. Conway served as a managing director and regional practice leader of the Corporate Recovery Group of another "Big Four" firm. From 1986-93, he was associated with Lehman Brothers Inc., attaining the level of first vice president. He was an original member of its Capital Preservation and Restructuring Group, where he specialized in workouts and restructurings involving equity investments made by Lehman clients, as well as the financial restructuring of certain merchant banking investments made by Lehman and predecessor firms. Mr. Conway received his B.S. in accounting and management from New York University in 1980.
Peter S. Kaufman has been managing director of The Gordian Group LLC, New York, since 1990 and is head of Gordian's Restructuring and Distressed M&A practice. Previously, he was at First Boston Corp., where he was a founding member of its Distressed Securities Group. He has more than 20 years of experience in the business of solving complex financial challenges as an investment banker and attorney. Mr. Kaufman has been involved in many of the firm's engagements, including Alert Holdings, Allied Digital Technologies, Ameriserve, Ben & Jerry's, Chiquita Brands, Colfor/ Colmach, Farmland, Federal Communications Commission, LTV Steel, Pentacon, Phar-Mor, Pinnacle Towers, Safety-Kleen, Silicon Gaming, State of Vermont, Sudbury and Waste Systems. Mr. Kaufman is co-chair of ABI's Investment Banking Committee and co-chairs ABI's annual conference on Investment Banking and Restructuring. He also is a contributing editor for the ABI Journal's "Financial Statements" column. Mr. Kaufman received both his B.A.s with honors in history and art history from Yale College and received a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Mr. Kaufman also is co-authoring a major treatise, Distressed Investment Banking: Crafting Viable Solutions for Troubled Companies by Beard Publications.
Melissa Kibler Knoll is a partner in the Corporate Recovery practice of KPMG LLP in its Chicago office. She has more than 13 years of experience providing accounting and financial advisory services in a variety of industries to companies, secured lenders, unsecured creditors and other parties in bankruptcies, restructurings, turnarounds and related litigation. Ms. Knoll recently led engagement teams in large, complex restructurings including Kmart Corp. (unsecured creditors' committee), Bethlehem Steel Corp. (unsecured creditors' committee), The Warnaco Group (pre-petition bank group), Capital Consultants LLC (receiver), The Singer Co. (unsecured creditors' committee), Iridium (debtor) and other companies in the steel, health care, distribution and other industries. She joined KPMG LLP in June 1999 from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Ms. Knoll is co-chair of ABI's Young and New Members Committee and is the ABI liaison to the International Women's Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation (IWIRC). She assisted with the development and instruction of ABI's successful "Nuts and Bolts for Young Practitioners" course, which covers bankruptcy basics for those new to the bankruptcy field of practice. Ms. Knoll also is a member of the Turnaround Management Association (TMA) and a former board member and treasurer of TMA's Northwest Chapter. Other professional and business affiliations include the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Illinois CPA Society. Ms. Knoll earned her B.B.A. summa cum laude from Texas A&M University and her M.B.A. from Southern Methodist University, graduating first in her class.
J. Robert Medlin is a senior managing director and Southwest region leader in FTI Consulting Inc.'s Business Turnaround & Restructuring Services practice in Dallas. He has 30 years of experience specializing in corporate finance, mergers-and-acquisition consulting, business regeneration, turnaround consulting and crisis management, restructuring and bankruptcy consulting. Mr. Medlin has served as an expert witness on a number of issues including cash collateral, DIP financing, collateral valuation, enterprise valuation, plan feasibility, preference and fraudulent-conveyance actions, substantive consolidation and claims estimations. Mr. Medlin has represented both creditors and debtors in bankruptcy and out-of-court restructurings. Some of his notable public engagements include Bag 'n Baggage, Braun's Fashions, CompuAdd, Encompass, Enron, General Wireless, Pillowtex, Rubus Realty, Sun Healthcare, Zale Corp., El Paso Electric Co., Greyhound Corp., Harvest Foods, TecNet, TWA, I.G. Services and LHH Partnerships. Prior to joining FTI in 2002, Mr. Medlin was a partner and Southwest regional leader of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC's Business Recovery Services practice. He has given presentations on various topics across the United States, including ABI programs. Mr. Medlin holds a B.B.A. in accounting from the University of Georgia and serves on the Board of Directors of the Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors. He has been an ABI member since 1992.
Nancy A. Peterman is the chair of Greenberg Traurig's Chicago Reorganization, Bankruptcy and Restructuring Practice. She concentrates her practice on bankruptcy, creditors' rights and health law and has a wide range of experience representing secured creditors, committees, debtors and purchasers of assets. Some of Ms. Peterman's significant representations include representing Midas Inc. in a $172.5 million refinancing, as well as serving as counsel to the unsecured creditors' committee appointed in the Conseco Finance cases, the unsecured creditors' committee in FPA Medical Management—which involved 7,900 physicians and 1.4 million HMO enrollees in 29 states—and Goodwill Industries of Metropolitan Chicago on a pro bono basis. She is the chair of ABI's Technology and Telecommunications Committee, former co-chair of ABI's Health Care Committee, vice chair and incoming chair of the Chicago Bar Association's Bankruptcy & Reorganization Committee, and former president and board member of the Woman's Health Executive Network. Ms. Peterman is a contributing editor for the ABI Journal's "Intensive Care" column on health care bankruptcy issues. In addition, she was an assistant editor and a contributing author for ABI's Health Care Insolvency Manual and contributing author to the Handbook on Professional Fees in Bankruptcy for the Turnaround Management Association. Ms. Peterman received her B.A. from the University of Michigan and J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School, and she has been an ABI member since 1995.
Susan Rinebold is a director of bankruptcy product development and marketing at Thomson West in Rochester, N.Y. For the last 15 years, Ms. Rinebold has been leading the product development, marketing efforts and strategic plan of West's bankruptcy-related print, CD-ROM and Westlaw publications.
Chester B. Salomon is a founding member of Salomon Green & Ostrow P.C. in New York, which specializes in creditors' rights, bankruptcy and corporate reorganizations. He has represented debtors, creditors and litigants in hundreds of bankruptcy cases, has served as chapter 11 trustee, chapter 7 trustee and examiner in the New York metropolitan area, and has a well-deserved reputation for investigating and uncovering fraud in bankruptcy cases. Mr. Salomon served as program co-chair for the 1999-2002 ABI New York City Bankruptcy Conferences. He also serves as a member of the panel of mediators for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Salomon graduated from Columbia College in 1964 and New York University School of Law in 1967.
Joseph Samet is a head of the creditors' rights/bankruptcy practice in the New York office of Baker & McKenzie. Since 1975, Mr. Samet has been immersed in national and international workouts, chapter 11 reorganizations and bankruptcy litigation practice. He has represented secured and unsecured bank, trade, bondholder and other institutional creditors, creditors' committees, indenture trustees, debtors, trustees, purchasers of stock, assets or claims of distressed companies, landlords, tenants, officers and directors, and other parties in interest in many chapter 11 cases throughout the country and abroad, including Air Canada, Allegiance Telecom Inc., A.M. International, American Architecture, AT&T Canada, Avianca, Enron, Federated Department Stores, Global Crossing, PSINet Consulting Solutions, Rothschild, United Airlines and WorldCom. Mr. Samet is a contributing author of Collier on Bankruptcy, 15th Edition, and the Collier Bankruptcy Practice Guide treatises. He is co-author of the two-volume Herzog's Bankruptcy Forms and Practice, published by Thomson West. He also has written numerous articles in the insolvency field, including on arbitration and intellectual property, break-up fees in sales of assets, partners and partnerships, and research tools. Mr. Samet has been an associate conferee of the National Bankruptcy Conference and a member of its Bankruptcy Code Review project. Since 1981, he has either moderated or lectured at more than 150 programs in the United States and other countries on bankruptcy-related issues, including programs sponsored by ABI, the National Bankruptcy Judges' Conference and INSOL. He has been an adjunct professor of law at Brooklyn Law School and has served as a member of the bankruptcy committees of various national and local bar associations. Mr. Samet earned his bachelor's degree with honors from Queens College in New York and his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School.
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Journal Date: Tuesday, June 1, 2004 |