MANAGEMENT its HUGEEE
Directors and Executive Officers
Our current directors and executive officers are as follows:
Name
Age
Position
Lawrence E. Mock, Jr.
74
Chairman of the Board
Darrell J. Mays
56
Chief Executive Officer and Director
Thomas H. King
65
Chief Financial Officer
Graham McGonigal
62
Chief Operating Officer
Sam Haffar
56
Director
Mark Downs
57
Director
U. Bertram Ellis, Jr.
66
Director
Suzanne Shank
58
Director
Karl Krapek
71
Director
Dennis Lockhart
73
Director
Dr. Klaas Baks
47
Director
Lawrence E. Mock, Jr., our Chairman of the Board and a former director of Computex, is currently Managing Partner of Navigation Capital Partners, Inc., an Atlanta-based private equity firm which he founded in partnership with Goldman Sachs in 2006, and serves as a director of Holdings. From 1995 to 2006, Mr. Mock served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Mellon Ventures, Inc., which he founded in partnership with Mellon Financial Corporation, to make private equity and venture capital investments in operating companies. From 1983 to 1995, he was founder and Chief Executive Officer of River Capital, Inc. Mr. Mock holds a Master of Science degree from Florida State University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College.
Darrell Mays, our Chief Executive Officer and member of our board of directors, was the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of nsoro, a turnkey wireless installation services provider, from 2003 to 2008, which was acquired by MasTec in August 2008. Mr. Mays has served as an executive of MasTec since 2008, during which period the revenues and EBITDA of MasTec’s communications division, of which nsoro is a component, increased to approximately $2.3 billion and $245.0 million in 2016, respectively. Mr. Mays holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business from Georgia State University.
Thomas H. King has served on our board of directors and as a director of Computex since April 2020 and was the Chief Financial Officer of Tier One Holding Corp. and its subsidiaries from January 2017 to June 2019, after serving as its interim Chief Financial Officer from January 2016 to December 2017. Prior to January 2016, Mr. King served as Chief Financial Officer to numerous private equity sponsored companies primarily as an engagement partner with Tatum, a Randstad Company. Also while at Tatum, he was Chief Financial Officer at Allied Systems Holdings, Inc. from August 2004 until September 2008 and served as Vice President-Finance at Rock-Tenn Company (currently known as WestRock Company) from November 2000 to July 2004. Mr. King was also an Assurance Manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Mr. King received a MS Industrial Administration from Carnegie-Mellon University and a BS in Business Administration from Pennsylvania State University.
Graham McGonigal, our Chief Operating Officer and, since April 2020, a director of Computex, has served as a technology consultant since March 2018. Prior to that, Mr. McGonigal served as Chief Network Officer at Vonage Holdings (NYSE: VG) from December 2015 to February 2018, and as Senior Vice President of Network Operations at Vonage from February 2012 to December 2015. Mr. McGonigal has more than 30 years of technical experience and has held senior leadership roles within AT&T (NYSE: T), Cingular Wireless and Bellsouth. From September 2007 to January 2012, Mr. McGonigal was the Chief Operating Officer at MasTec Network Solutions, a division of MasTec Inc. (NYSE: MTZ). At AT&T Mobility, Mr. McGonigal led the national data and service delivery networks and created highly competitive wireless data networks. Mr. McGonigal holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Mercer University.
Sam Haffar has served on our board of directors since April 2020 and currently serves as Computex’s Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Haffar has served as Computex, Inc.’s Chief Executive Officer and President at different times over 30 years, and currently serves as a director of Holdings. Mr. Haffar, along with his brother, founded Computex in 1987 and has helped grow Computex to be an industry leading solution provider that has been recognized by industry publications such as CRN. Mr. Haffar also serves on the Cisco and Hewlett Packard Enterprise advisory boards and provides strategic direction and feedback to some of Computex’s OEM partners. Mr. Haffar is a graduate of the University of Houston and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science.
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Mark Downs has served on our board of directors since April 2020 and is the founder of Navigation Capital Partners, a private equity firm where he has served as a partner since January 2007. Mr. Downs has in excess of 20 years of experience serving on for profit boards of directors as a control investor. Mr. Downs has served as a director of Computex, Inc. from January 2017 to April 2020; a director of Stratos from January 2017 to April 2020; a director of Holdings from January 2017 to April 2020; a director of Michon, Inc. (d/b/a Definition6) from July 2015 to the present; a director of Brown Integrated Logistics, Inc. from January 2017 to the present; a director of Brightwell Payments, Inc. from May 2015 to Present; and a director of Five Star Food Service, Inc. from October 2016 to March 2019. Mr. Downs holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Pittsburgh and a Master’s of Management degree from Northwestern University.
U. Bertram Ellis, Jr. has served on our board of directors as an independent director since July 2017. He has served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ellis Capital, a diversified investment firm, since 1984. In addition, Mr. Ellis was the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ACT III Broadcasting from 1986 to 1991, which sold for $530 million and Ellis Communication from 1993 to 1996, which sold for $840 million. Mr. Ellis holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Virginia Darden Business School and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia.
Suzanne Shank has served on our board of directors as an independent director since July 2017. She has served as Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and majority owner of Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., a full-service investment bank that has managed or co-managed over $2 trillion in transactions, since 1996. Mrs. Shank holds a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Karl Krapek has served on our board of directors as an independent director since July 2017. He has served as the Lead Director at Prudential Financial, Inc. since 2014, and a Director since 2004, and Director of Northrop Grumman Corporation since 2008. From 2002 to 2009, he was the President and Chief Operations Officer of United Technologies Corporation, or UTC, which has a market capitalization of approximately $90 billion. Mr. Krapek has served as an Executive Vice President of UTC since 1997 and as a Director of UTC from 1997 to 2007. Mr. Krapek holds a Master of Science from Purdue University and Bachelor of Science from Kettering University.
Dennis Lockhart has served on our board of directors as an independent director since July 2017. He recently retired from his position as president and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, a position he held from 2007 to 2017. Earlier, he was a professor at Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service, from 2003 to 2007. Prior to this, he held senior positions at Heller Financial Inc. and Citicorp (now Citigroup). Mr. Lockhart holds a Master of Arts from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University.
Dr. Klaas Baks has served on our board of directors as an independent director since July 2017. He is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Emory Center for Alternative Investments, which was formed in 2008. He also serves as the Atlanta Chair of TIGER 21, which is a peer-to-peer network of high net worth wealth creators, since 2014. In addition, he has been an Associate Professor in the Practice of Finance at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School since 2002. Dr. Baks has a Doctoral degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters of Arts degree from Brown University.
Special Advisors
Rayford Wilkins, Jr., our Special Advisor, served as Chief Executive Officer of AT&T Diversified Businesses and Chairman and President of AT&T International. Prior to these positions, he served as Group President Marketing and Sales. In addition, he occupied various positions associated with the wireless industry at SBC Group and has held several leadership roles in his more than 30-year career at AT&T and its predecessor companies. Mr. Wilkins is currently a director at Morgan Stanley, Valero Energy and Caterpillar.
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Dr. David Panton, our Special Advisor, has served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Panton Equity Partners, a private equity firm, since founding it in 2012. Prior to that, he was a partner of Navigation Capital Partners, an Atlanta-based private equity firm which he founded in partnership with Goldman Sachs in 2006. He has 20 years of investment banking and private equity experience and has sourced and led over 20 control transactions in various industries (including the telecom, media and technology industry) with an aggregate enterprise value of over $5 billion, including successful sales of portfolio companies to buyers such as Dell Inc., the Blackstone Group, and One Equity Partners.
Michael Pietropola, our Special Advisor, has served as President of Pietropola Consulting, a telecommunications consulting firm, since October 2015. Previously, he served as Vice President of Construction & Engineering for AT&T from January 2012 to October 2015, and as Vice President of Network Services for AT&T (and Cingular prior to its acquisition by AT&T) from June 2007 to January 2012.
Dr. Robert Willis, our President until April 2020 and now our Special Advisor, became the President of nsoro in 2007. In such capacity, he negotiated the acquisition of the business by MasTec and, following its acquisition, served in an advisory role from 2010 through July 2016. From December 2013 until December 2015, Dr. Willis served as Chairman of U.S. Shale Solutions, Inc., a shale services company which he founded in 2013. Prior to nsoro, Dr. Willis served as Chief Executive Officer of Foxcode Inc., a merchant-banking firm, from 2004 until November 2015, in which capacity he was principal on multiple debt and equity transactions. In July 2004, Dr. Willis founded Gaming VC, S.A., an online gaming enterprise which completed a GBP 81 million initial public offering in London in 2004, and served as a member of its board and as its Finance Director until 2007. Prior to that, Dr. Willis was the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Alpine Computer Systems, Inc., a systems integration engineering company established in the 1980s that grew rapidly and was acquired by Delphi Group plc. in 1996, at which time he became Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of the parent company. Dr. Willis was a member of a three-man North American roll-up M&A team which ultimately acquired approximately 25 businesses. After an ADR NASDAQ offering, the company was acquired by Adecco Group AG. Dr. Willis subsequently reacquired the company and then merged it into Aimnet Solutions Inc., backed by Mellon Ventures and William E. Simon & Sons. The business was ultimately acquired by Cognizant Inc., a large public IT services company. Dr. Willis was awarded a Doctorate in Humane Letters (Hon.) from Newbury College in Boston, MA, in May 2001.
