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Ian is a full-time microcap investor, founder of MicroCapClub, the MicroCap Leadership Summit, and co-founder of the Intelligent Fanatics Project. Ian founded MicroCapClub in 2011 with the goal of providing a place for investors focused on small-cap stocks to discuss their research in depth. It has since grown into the largest online forum for sub-$300m stocks with over 500 members and subscribers.
Adam J. Epstein is a former institutional investor, and, now, an advisor to CEOs and boards of pre-IPO and small-cap companies through his firm, Third Creek Advisors, LLC. Prior to Third Creek, he co-founded Enable Capital Management, LLC; Enable’s special situation hedge funds invested in more than 500 small-cap financings. Mr. Epstein is the author of The Perfect Corporate Board (McGraw Hill, 2012). In June 2017, The Perfect Corporate Board was the #1 ranked corporate governance book on Amazon.com. He earned a Juris Doctor from Boston University School of Law, and a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, from Vassar College.
Amanda Gerut is an associate editor with Agenda, a corporate governance publication, published by Financial Times. Amanda writes about board structure, CEO succession planning, executive talent development, director recruitment, board evaluations and director compensation. Currently, Amanda also serves as an advisor on journalism and reporting issues and as a senior editor for environmental, social and governance issues at CleanTechIQ, a publication focused on renewable energy and venture capital financing.
During a 15-year tenure investing his family’s capital in small-cap companies, David has met with hundreds of small-cap officers and directors. He has occupied a front row seat to the unique challenges that routinely vex small public companies, and seen how otherwise smart, well-intentioned CEOs and boards make similar, repetitive, value-destructive decisions. A natural problem solver, he realized through years-long observation that the problem was an educative one. More specifically, the capital markets, corporate finance, and corporate governance issues that small-cap CEOs and boards face lack intuitive answers. In place of those intuitive answers is often the highly variable advice from service providers who are simply guessing how investors think. Consequently, in 2017, David founded Small-Cap Institute, and began to work on assembling that missing, comprehensive, educative resource. Previously, David joined LD Micro in 2014 to help manage the construction of the first true micro-cap index – the LD Micro Index – and oversee the rebuild of the ldmicro.com website. At LD Micro, now owned by SRAX, Inc., David was responsible for planning and executing LD Micro’s industry leading conferences each year, wherein over 5,000 one-on-one meetings between investors and micro-cap companies are facilitated. As a result of his work with LD Micro/SRAX, David occupies a unique vantage point from which to understand at a granular level which issues are most troubling to small-cap CEOs and boards.
Brian Balbirnie serves as the Chief Executive Officer and strategist of Issuer Direct. Brian established Issuer Direct in 2006 with a vision of creating a technology driven back-office compliance platform that would reduce costs as well as increase the efficiencies of the most complex tasks. Brian is responsible for the strategic leadership of the company and oversees day-to-day operations. Under Brian’s direction, the Company has grown to serve over 2,000 companies since 2006. Brian is an entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in emerging industries. Prior to Issuer Direct, Brian was the founder and managing partner of Catapult Company, a compliance and consulting practice focused on the Sarbanes Oxley Act. Prior to Catapult, Brian also advised several companies on their public market strategies, Merger & Acquisitions as well as their financial reporting requirements.
Sharon Gabrielson is a public and private company Board Director, and C-suite executive with over 30 years of experience across the product and services industry, delivering a successful record in management of highly regulated businesses domestically and internationally. Sharon serves as Chairman of the Board, and on the Compensation Committee for Sharps Compliance (NASDAQ: SMED), a medical waste company. Sharon was most recently Corporate Chair, Global Business Solutions for the Mayo Clinic, the $13B, not-for-profit medical group practice worldwide. Sharon also serves as an Independent Director for Ethos Veterinary Health, a private PE backed, national veterinary health company. Sharon earned an MA in Health Administration and an MA in Management from Saint Mary’s University and a BS in Nursing from Winona State University. She has published numerous publications and presented internationally.
Rollie Carlson is CEO of Immunexpress, Inc. He has over 25 years of global commercial, business development experience in the biotechnology space including fund raising in both public and private capital markets. Prior to Immunexpress, he was President and CEO of WaferGen Biosystems (NASDAQ:WGBS) a life science genomic company; President and CEO of Asuragen Inc., a molecular diagnostic company; and, he held several leadership positions at Abbott Laboratories NYSE:ABT). He has a Ph.D., in Biology/Botany from Southern Illinois Iniversity.