Billy Banks graduated from Northwestern in 1998 with a double major in History and Political Science. Billy started his career in a three-generation $150 million family business in the forest products and steel industries. He launched his first startup in 2003, M-Tec – a steel fabricator serving the RV and bus industries – after earning his MBA at Indiana’s Kelley School of Business. Following the sale of his family’s business in 2006, Billy launched his second startup, Reach360 which provided outsourced HR and accounting services to small and medium-sized businesses. Then life happened. Billy got married, his wife got diagnosed with breast cancer (she’s doing great), and then they had triplets. Billy sold both of his ventures during this time to focus on his wife’s recovery. In 2016, Billy joined The Garage where he mentored student ventures and created and ran their summer accelerator program, Wildfire. Now, Billy is an adjunct professor of Entrepreneurship through the Farley Center, owns a steel fabrication business in Indiana (spun out of the sale of M-Tec in 2011) and is the Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of a new startup in Chicago called ProHabits.
Binoy Bhansali, Vice President, Sandbox Industries. BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners (BCBSVP) is a corporate venture fund program to which thirty-three BCBS entities have committed over $575 million across three Funds. Sandbox Industries is the exclusive provider of investment management services to BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners. Binoy helps manage the Fund’s investments in Healthify, ExactCare, IdealOption, Payfone, Wellspring, and Swipesense. Prior to joining Sandbox, Binoy was a consultant at Accenture advising healthcare organizations on mergers and acquisitions while also working part-time at a social impact investment firm, Impact Investment Partners. Binoy started his career at Citibank in its investment banking group where he worked primarily within the hospital sector. Binoy holds a BA in Economics and a BA in Psychology from Northwestern University. He is a member of the Kauffman Fellows Program, Class 23.
Radu Cret is a Vice President in the Healthcare group at GTCR, a Chicago-based private equity firm. He was previously an Associate at GTCR and an Investment Banking Analyst in the Healthcare group at William Blair. Radu graduated from Northwestern in 2012 and from Harvard Business School in 2019. As a Northwestern student, Radu was a Research Assistant for Professor David Stowell who teaches a Kellogg course in Investment Banking, Hedge Funds and Private Equity.
Emilie Greenberg is a senior analyst in the Healthcare Investment Banking group at William Blair. She primarily works on sell-side mergers and acquisitions transactions with a focus on the healthcare services vertical. Additionally, Emilie serves as one of Blair’s Northwestern Recruiting Captains for the analyst internship program. She joined the firm’s Chicago office in 2017 after graduating from Northwestern as a double major in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences (MMSS) and History.
Blake Heyde is an Associate at Flexpoint Ford. Prior to joining Flexpoint Ford in 2017, Blake was an Investment Banking Analyst in the Services and Industrials Group at William Blair in Chicago where he focused on mergers and acquisitions advisory assignments. Blake received a B.A. in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences (MMSS) and Economics from Northwestern University.
Kee-Won Hong is a Solutions Architect at Slalom. After graduating from Northwestern with a B.S. in Computer Science in 2005, he began his career at Vibes Media where he was a software engineer and product manager. In addition to Kee-Won’s various consulting and software engineering roles he has held during his career, he also founded Iterative Games and worked as a mobile video game designer.
Christy Pedersen is a financial advisor with Whitnell & Co., where she provides ongoing comprehensive wealth management services for high-net-worth individuals. From 1998 to 2012, she was a Managing Director at UBS Global Asset Management where she headed the global consumer equity analyst team and covered a variety of US consumer equity subsectors. Previously Christy spent 2 years in Accenture’s Strategy Consulting practice and 5 years at Harris Associates, L.P., where she headed up the mutual fund administration group for the Oakmark Funds. Christy graduated from Northwestern with a BA in Economics and also earned her Masters in Management from Kellogg. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst as well as a Certified Financial Planner(tm).
Melissa Potdar is the Global VP of Customer Excellence, at MolsonCoors. In her role, Melissa leads the company’s global Commercial Excellence team as it continues to drive the MolsonCoors Advantage across its entire enterprise to become First Choice for Consumers and Customers. Melissa spent the first seven years of her career in the MillerCoors sales organization where she held various leadership roles focused on strategy, sales solutions and category management. Prior to MolsonCoors, Melissa was a consultant with McKinsey and Company. She also worked in Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley. Melissa holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Northwestern University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Melissa lives in Chicago with her husband (Amol) and two children Neel (4) and Dilan (2).
Phil Reitz spent over 34 years as an investment banker, executing over 250 transactions, from multi-billion M&A transactions to sales of family-owned businesses to Initial Public Offerings to complex debt financings. From 1989 to 2017, he was with William Blair & Company, a leading global investment banking boutique, focused on the industrial and services sector. Early in his career, Phil worked for The First Boston Corporation (later merged with Credit Suisse) and The Clorox Co. From 2017 to 2019, he was an Instructor at the Gies College of Business at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Phil earned a Bachelors of Arts degree in Economics from Northwestern University and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Dan Shedivy is the Chief Financial Officer of Medical Solutions, one of the nation’s largest healthcare staffing companies. He leads financial operations and strategic growth planning processes across its current seven locations from the company’s headquarters in Omaha. Previously Dan was he was CFO for Select Rehabilitation, a national physical thereapy company; Managing Director with William Blair’s Healthcare Investment Banking Group, Portfolio Manager for JP Morgan and Engagement Manager with McKinsey. He is a double-purple, having graduated from Northwestern in 1997 with a B.A. in Economics and from Kellogg in 2002. Dan co-founded the Boot Camp with Professor Mark Witte in 2002.
Alayna Soehlke is a Project Leader at The Boston Consulting Group in Chicago. She joined in 2013 and currently focuses on serving a wide array of healthcare clients on strategy, marketing & sales, and organizational topics. She also spent a year working abroad in BCG’s Zurich office, supporting global pharmaceutical clients. Alayna received a B.A. in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences (MMSS) and Economics from Northwestern University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management
Stephanie Weinstein is an investment professional at Prudential Capital, where she invests in middle market companies across industries. Previously, she was a private equity associate at New Harbor Capital, where she invested in business services companies and managed portfolio companies in the healthcare space. Stephanie began her career with FPL Associates, providing management and strategy consulting services to global real estate clients. She earned a BA in Economics from Northwestern University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.
Hye Yu is a Partner at EY where she specializes in cashflow management advisory services. After graduating from Northwestern in 1994 with a BA in Asian Studies and Political Science, Hye Yu began her career as an Associate at Hewitt Associates (now part of Aon). She held a number of consulting roles at various firms before ultimately joining EY as a Senior Manager in 2011.
