Our Team

M&A professional with multiple years of experience in leading acquisition integration teams in Corporate Development, Integration Management Office, IT, Sales and Marketing Corporate Functions. Led dozens of Acquisitions/JV’s/Divestitures E2E from Due Diligence, Go to Market Strategy, Integration Planning, Execution, Customer/Partner Migration, and Operational Transition. Managed large IT/Operations transformational initiatives in support of changing business models and processes. Co-founded Spanatix Inc., Sport Social Networking and Gaming startup.

Bernd advises corporate and financial sponsor clients on, in particular:
– Mergers & acquisitions (M&A) and carve-out preparation and execution, including due diligence and post-merger integration (PMI)
– Strategy and business case development
– Performance improvement / value creation, including restructuring / turnaround
Bernd’s track record features, among others:
– Investment banking transaction execution totalling in excess of €140 billion in M&A, debt, equity (including IPO) and financial derivatives
– Private equity new investment sourcing and execution, and portfolio company optimisation as to strategy, operating model, organisation, controlling, HR, etc.
– Management consulting advice on M&A and carve-out preparation and execution (including due diligence and PMI), strategy and business case development, as well as performance improvement / value creation (including restructuring / turnaround)

Chirag Shah is currently seconded to PwC UAE from PwC London – to be part of the Private Equity and M&A tax team at PwC Dubai, providing services in relation to M&A transactions and international tax to a variety of clients – advising on all aspects of a deal from initial due diligence and structuring, tax modelling and SPA implications, through to post deal integration. He has managed a wide range of global, domestic and crossborder transactions (both buy-side and sell-side) including acquisitions, divestments, reorganisations, refinancing and management buy-outs and has extensive experience involving a wide range of analytical, organisational, technical, problem-solving, presentational and communication skills.

Chris Mellen is a Senior Managing Director with Valuation Research Corporation (VRC), leading its Boston office. Previously, he was president of Delphi Valuation Advisors, Inc., which he founded in 2000 and sold to VRC in 2015. His experience includes involvement in over 3,500 business and intangible asset valuations since 1989. He has served on several valuation committees, led over 100 seminars, published over 40 articles, and provided expert testimony in court. Chris is author of the third edition of a 480-page text book, Valuation for M&A: Building and Measuring Private Company Value, published by Wiley in 2018.

Darryl is EY Asean Private Equity Tax Leader and Partner, International Tax and Transaction Services at Ernst & Young Solutions LLP in Singapore. He has extensive experience in international tax and the tax aspects of M&A and infrastructure funding.

Darryl handles tax structuring and due diligence relating to M&As for businesses locally and internationally. His clients include listed Singapore companies and multinationals from sectors such as precision engineering, travel, private equity funds, and food and beverage.

He is a Chartered Tax Adviser of The Tax Institute, Australia, and member of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand. Darryl holds a Bachelor of Commerce from University of Queensland, Australia.

David Cummings has been a co-founding Managing Partner of Agile Equity since 1998. Mr. Cummings is responsible for the strategic development and continued expansion of the firm’s investment banking business, including sourcing and executing both domestic and International transactions in IT services, software and healthcare industries.
Mr. Cummings has over eighteen years of corporate finance experience through a diverse background in mergers and acquisitions, equity and debt financing activities. Mr. Cummings has successfully completed over one-hundred M&A transaction with several billion dollars of enterprise value for both privately held and large multinational public companies. In addition, he has authored numerous corporate finance articles for various professional journals, magazines and periodicals.

Donald H Noble has a proven track record in finance and technology at high growth and start-up companies. He has extensive experience in
growth hacking in companies by integrating all components of finance accounting and technology into the strategic and tactical plans of the company.

People and results-oriented professional combining both strategy consulting experience (strategy development, M&A, reorganization) and software consulting experience (custom software development, digital service development, digital transformation) with a proven sales record. Offering 10 years of industry experience mainly in the LifeSciences and Software industries and being delivery responsible for multiple consulting and software development projects at any point in time. A leader who empowers, motivates and trains others to achieve exceptional results. Consistently surpassing clients’ expectations by building on strong team skills, analytical skills, an ownership mindset, and unique intercultural skills.

Jad Barakat has extensive experience in due diligence and has managed a wide range of cross-border as well as domestic transactions. He has expert knowledge in I FRS, financial analysis, transaction processing and business strategy.

Kelvin has 15 years of experience, predominantly across global asset management, buy-side equity research and investment banking platforms. He also has experience in a climate technology startup leading the Series B fundraising round with global and corporate VC investors. His journey within financial services has taken him across highly matrixed MNC banks and Chinese asset management platforms as an investment banker within the former and a DM Equities Portfolio Manager/Analyst for the latter.

Mohand is part of the Middle East Deals Tax Practice with over 15 years of experience advising Private Equity houses, Sovereign Wealth Funds, regional and global alternative asset managers and large corporates on transactions within and outside the Middle East region.

Before moving to the Middle East 8 years ago, he worked in the Private Equity and M&A Tax team in PwC London. In the Middle East, he has been driving the expansion of our regional Deals Tax offering and team, and leading the delivery of tax due diligence, tax structuring, SPA, tax modelling and other Deals Tax services to priority clients in the UAE, KSA, Kuwait and Bahrain.

Nikhil currently sits on the board of multiple organizations and provide advise and direction to senior leaders / CXOs apart from helping these firms find product-market-fit, design and develop the GTM and pricing, become investor ready and scale via enterprise sales. Nikhil has ~ 20 years of experience in Private Equity, Entrepreneurship, Management Consulting and Hi-Tech industry.

Tax Director with over two decades of experience in international tax law, finance, and digital transformations, including senior management roles at Big 4 and Fortune 500 in Asia, Europe & North America Region. Experienced in M&A, digital taxation, transfer pricing, and tax-efficient strategies. Proficient in Project Management, O365, Power BI, and Finance Digital Transformations. Actively integrates AI, IoT, and cloud technologies to revamp business processes. Critical thinker and effective communicator skilled in cross-cultural team collaboration.

Andrew Campbell is the Director of Ashridge Strategic Management Centre part of Ashridge Executive Education which is the executive education arm of Hult International Business School. Program Director for courses Advanced Organization Design and Designing Operating Models. Consultant to large and small companies around the world. Director of Sonae, Portugal’s largest privately owned company. Author of more than ten books on business strategy, corporate-level strategy, the role of corporate headquarters, decision making, organization design and, most recently, operating models.

David’s research focuses on pricing of private equity and initial public offerings of common stock and characteristics of the venture capital market. He also was the principal investigator on “Prospects for Small Business and Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century,” a White House Conference on Small Business. He also directs the longest running, university based venture capital market intervention for emerging growth comanies (The Midwest Growth Capital Symposium).

Rick Marchese (Director, Head of Corporate Finance) is an experienced Wall Street and Silicon Valley investment banker having executed over 50 transactions in excess of US$10 billion in aggregate value. His expertise includes capital raising and M&A advisory assignments for a wide range of public and private clients.

Previously, Rick served as a senior banker at Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch. He began his investment banking career at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (subsequently acquired by Credit Suisse).
He is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) and is a member of The Family Firm Institute and The Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors.

Satyaprakash Pandey has approximately 19 years of hands-on management consulting and program delivery experience, leading private equity-backed and corporate carve-out and post-merger integration (PMI) engagements. His expertise spans business and digital transformation and IT due diligence (ITDD) across the deal lifecycle, including pre-sign, sign to close, and post-close phases.

Since 2021, Satyaprakash Pandey has established CIDEK Consulting, providing consulting services either personally or through associates working for CIDEK. He also works as an individual contributor outside or inside IR35 contracts, depending on the client’s needs. In his role, he serves as a Program/Transformation Director/Manager, PMI/Carve-out PMO Lead, IT Integration/Separation Workstream Lead, and Digital Transformation Director on complex and cross-functional engagements involving multi-vendor teams.

Seng Leong is a partner with Ernst & Young in Singapore. He runs the ASEAN Transaction Diligence practice and is also EY’s Global Real Estate, Hospitality and Construction M&A Leader. Seng Leong has been with Ernst & Young Singapore for more than 20 years. He spent 3 years with the Ernst & Young Transaction Advisory Services group in New York where he was involved in various real estate transactions including the merger of Hilton USA and Hilton PLC and the acquisition of a stake in Kerzner by lstithmar JSPC.

Tom Allen is a Chartered Accountant (ACA) and a member of the ICAEW. An alumnus of the Big Four firm PwC, he holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in Economics. He is the former CEO and co-founder of Navima, a SaaS M&A platform, and previously served as the Head of M&A and Corporate Development at Midaxo. With extensive experience leading over 40 M&A transactions end-to-end, including buy and sell side and cross-border deals, Tom has authored M&A playbooks for global companies such as Shell, KPMG, EY, Unilever, Philips, and Cognizant, as well as for numerous highly acquisitive PE-backed companies. Additionally, he contributes as a guest lecturer on M&A topics for Warwick Business School’s EMBA program and is a speaker at global M&A conferences.