Team

Sam is the President & CEO of Mission Markets™ and is leading its impact and sustainability focused human talent, systems and regulatory platforms for delivering best-in-class solutions to research organizations, corporations and market intermediaries, including broker-dealers, funds and banks, as well as direct to market issuers and investors.

As founder, Chairman & CEO of New Reality Solutions Sam leads several game-changing initiatives which directly and positively impact human health and the environment. These include leadership of Errant Gene Therapeutics, a leading bio-discovery and development company focused on saving the lives of those with incurable chronic hereditary blood diseases as well as refractory cancers. He has also led companies, funds and financial firms, both public and private, as part of NRS’s strategic advisory practice.

Throughout his adult life, Sam has been focused on identifying and empowering scientific innovations and best practice solutions which result in the scalable improvement of life, the environment and the efficacy of economic and financial systems. He has traveled extensively around the world and spent meaningful time with people in all walks of life, including his time with Mother Teresa in her tuberculosis clinics in Calcutta, and meeting the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala.

His deep immersion and focus on Mission Markets™ is the natural extension of his life’s work and passion.

Sam is a citizen of the United Kingdom, married with a young daughter and two adult children. He writes poetry, plays racquet sports and martial arts, and lives in New York City.

Michael is the Founder and Chairman of Mission Markets Inc. and leads strategic and business development efforts. He is responsible for guiding Mission Markets’ financial and technological innovation and applying it to the impact and sustainability sectors.

Michael has over 20 years of experience on Wall Street and has been integrally involved in the design and implementation of private placement and illiquid security transactions platforms for several companies including co-founding NYPPEX. Michael has been a featured speaker at several environmental and social markets conferences and has written several articles regarding environmental capital markets innovation and financial structure. Michael is also involved in several regional and national working groups that are developing standard metrics to measure biodiversity and habitat function and apply them to financial transactions. Michael holds FINRA Series 7, 63, 24, and 55 licenses.

Michael is a father of four children, an avid surfer, rock climber and has completed over 50 triathlons.

Steve is the co-founder of Mission Markets™ and brings over 15 years of experience in finance across a broad range of sectors including microfinance, non-profit investment funds and investment banking. Steve started his career with FINCA in Washington DC, Nicaragua and Ecuador and continues to this day to connect with a multitude of people who lack access to capital around the world. In South Central Los Angeles, Steve worked for an innovative community development finance institution (CDFI) managing several small business loan funds. He later was a Vice President at Bank of America Securities in capital markets working in both equity and debt markets. Prior to launching Mission Markets™, Steve was an investment analyst responsible for analyzing and underwriting investments for MDLF, a mission driven, non-profit investment fund closely affiliated with Open Society Foundations focused on independent news organization in emerging markets.

Steve graduated from The School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and holds a BA in International Political Economy from the University of California at Berkeley. Steve is married and a father of a little boy and an avid surfer and skier.

Peter brings more than 12 years of experience providing project finance, due diligence, financial analysis, asset management, capital raising, asset aggregation, and structuring services to a variety of counterparties across numerous industries and markets. Peter has a comprehensive range of expertise in legal, financial, and tax structuring across all sectors and an intimate understanding of the private equity markets and their relevant investment criteria. Prior to joining Mission Markets™ Peter founded and was Managing Director of an innovative, boutique renewable energy project development firm. Prior to founding his firm, Peter was Vice President of Macquarie Capital’s renewable energy and climate change group, and started Macquarie’s U.S. solar business. While at Macquarie Peter was responsible for growing the firm’s North American renewable energy business, with a focus on the wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass industries, including leading and structuring the firm’s first global distributed solar energy generation transaction to a successful close on a portfolio of assets, and developing the firm’s first ever renewable energy asset management framework.

Peter was a leading professional of PricewaterhouseCooper’s global M&A and structuring group where he advised on, structured, and executed more than US$10 billion of transactions involving diversified project and operating level assets for many of the PEI 50 including Apollo Management, Carlyle Group, Apax Partners, and Cerberus Capital Management. Peter earned a BA in Economics and Philosophy from Boston College, an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the Lender School of Business at Quinnipiac University, and a JD from the Quinnipiac University School of Law. Peter holds his Series 7 and 63 FINRA licenses.

Peter lives in Connecticut with his wife and two young sons. He is an avid musician, catch-&-release fisherman, aquatic sportsman, and culinary enthusiast.

Rob Thomas works as a Relationship Manager within our Impact Capital Markets division. Rob focuses on working with accredited investors looking for impact investments and issuers seeking capital. Rob has worked with businesses and organizations focusing on social and environmental issues and services for over fifteen years, and as founder and current President of Social(k) for the last five, Rob is uniquely positioned to introduce Mission Markets™ to innovative organizations who are learning how to leverage financial instruments for social or environmental benefit.

Rob comes from Springfield MA where he grew two businesses to the national stage and worked out of Springfield’s Gasoline Alley ‘Incubator’. Prior to Mission Markets™ Rob spent 11 years at UBS Financial Services where he worked as a Retirement Plan Consultant. While at UBS he was given the chance to build Social(k) as the nation’s first retirement plan platform offering more than one or two Environmental, Social or Governance, ESG, screened funds..

Aaron is responsible for fielding issuer, investor and client queries and works to quickly resolve all client concerns. Prior to this position, Aaron founded SOM Importing LLC to import, bottle, brand, retail, and wholesale Turkish olive oil in the United States. He has also worked as a navigation manager at the seismic start-up company Wavefield-Inseis ASA where he managed navigation client relations and helped grow the company from a single flagship to a mid-size fleet that was successfully sold in 2008 for $310 Million. Aaron holds a Master of Public Administration from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Geosciences from the University of Notre Dame.

Olivia is an Associate on the Business Development team focusing on building our issuer and accredited investor base. Prior to Mission Markets™, Olivia completed her BA in international relations at Columbia College, Columbia University. Olivia interned in Sao Paulo at Itaú Unibanco / Itaú BBA, the leading bank of Latin America, and in Portugal at MNF Capital, a boutique private equity firm. She has worked at the New York State Division of Human Rights and at WITNESS. Olivia wrote her thesis on stakeholder accountability of Brazil’s Amazon Fund, and completed a field research project on environmental and economic issues in rural Brazil. She spent a semester studying international development at Universita’ di Bologna, Italy. Olivia is fluent in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian, and is proficient in French. Olivia possesses FINRA Series 7 registration.

Miriam is an entrepreneurial executive with extensive experience in cleantech, financial information and media. Her areas of expertise include new business development, consultative sales, strategic alliances and new market launches.

Miriam also serves as Managing Director of Cargile Group, a consultancy which advises C-level executives of early stage cleantech and renewable energy companies on growth strategies.

Miriam has worked as a senior Business Development executive for two portfolio companies of Cody Gate Ventures, where she developed and implemented US go-to-market strategies for two portfolio firms. Previously, she held senior Business Development and Marketing roles at Consumer Financial Network, Center for Financial Research and Analysis and Wit Capital.

In her early career, Ms. Eaves was General Manager of TV2000 at Reuters PLC where she managed the development and successful launch of Reuters’ first interactive product offering.

Ms. Eaves earned her MBA from the Colgate Darden School at the University of Virginia and has a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Charles brings to Mission Markets™ a long career in structured and corporate finance. His expertise includes an ability to lead, manage and develop new ventures. He has successfully developed co- venture and private equity fund businesses. At HSBC, as Head of Real Estate Investment Banking, he was responsible for the launch of the HSBC Amanah Global Properties Income Fund (GPIF), the first open-end, Shariah-compliant fund with over $2 billion in real estate portfolio assets. As Managing Director of WestLB’s NY Structured Finance Department, he formed and managed the bank’s successful entry into project and aircraft financing, asset securitization, and leveraged finance. Prior to his decade at WestLB, he was a Managing Director of Chase Manhattan Bank, where he helped launch the bank’s investment banking effort over his 20 year career. Charles was responsible for the bank’s private placement business and was a senior member of the team advancing its investment banking product introductions, including, euro-bond and domestic underwriting, securization, derivatives and its general corporate advisory businesses. He started his career at Equitable Life as a Senior Investment Analyst.

Charles holds a BS degree from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from NYU Graduate School of Business and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. Mr. Columbus is an Adjunct Professor – International Finance and Capital Markets, Brooklyn College.

Robert E. Woods is an experienced capital markets executive with a 40 year career across a wide variety of key positions at banks, investment companies and as a director for public companies. Immediately prior to Bob’s coming aboard at NRS, he was with fund manager GarMark since 2007 as an advisor/ consultant building a senior debt platform and making mezzanine and equity investments in the paper, technology, consumer products and CLO sectors. Previously, he was Head of Leveraged Finance at Natixis Capital Markets and from 1997 thru 2006 he was Head of Loan and Securitization Capital Markets at Societe Generale. At both institutions Bob focused on building the banks leveraged finance platforms and executing leveraged buyouts across a number of industries and geographies. Mr. Woods began his career at Citigroup where he worked for 27 years. He was a Managing Director and Head of Leveraged Corporate Finance, Head of Real Estate Investment Banking and Head of Corporate/Investment Bank Portfolio Management. During that period, Mr. Woods had extensive transaction experience across the capital markets at this leading provider of leveraged loans, private placements and securitizations. He was a senior credit officer, senior securities officer and member of the Citigroup Asset and Liability Committee. From 1998 until the sale of the company in 2006, he was a Director of CRIIMI MAE, Inc, a NYSE real estate investment trust. While on CRIIMI’s board, Mr. Woods served as lead director, on the executive committee, the finance and the personnel committees. He serves and has served on several not for profit boards as well. Mr. Woods received an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from Wesleyan University.

Ram Salman more than 15 years of expertise in design, implementation and operation of complex, mission-critical informatics and technology systems. He has focused on both startup and established corporations whose IT technology and management systems required compliance with regulatory guidelines and adherence to best practices via regular benchmarking. Ram has also served as an executive liaison between IT operations, executive management and key external constituents, including regulators, security consultants and institutional investors. Recent activities include leading a New York City capital markets company’s risk management, counterparty and information management systems, and in the aviation industry, creating and heading of all aspects of mission- critical IT systems for an operating airline. Ram currently specializes in solutions for entities seeking to centralize data in next generation, cost effective web-enabled platforms.