2010 Financial Strategies Seminar

September 9, 2010 - Renaissance Chicago O’Hare Suites Hotel

Speakers

Steve Baer, is Senior Manager and Practice Leader of Blackman Kallick's Risk and Compliance Services Practice. Steve helps companies identify and manage risk and implement effective and reliable compliance and governance practices. Steve's clients include those engaged in manufacturing and distribution, retail, consulting and services. His international experience includes Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and internal audit assignments for U.S.-based companies with a foreign presence and foreign companies that trade on U.S. stock exchanges. Steve spent over eight years at a national accounting firm before joining Blackman Kallick. Throughout his career, he has conducted a variety of internal and external audits as well as operational improvement and business process consulting projects. Steve has also worked closely with companies to develop their internal audit functions by leveraging financial and operational control documentation required for SOX compliance. As a result, clients have reduced risk and identified opportunities for improving efficiency. Steve is a graduate of Michigan State University and is a member of the Institute of Internal Auditors.

Lynn Durning is a senior vice president and regional manager of the Chicago office for Wells Fargo International Banking & Trade Solutions (IBTS). Based in Chicago, Lynn manages a team of banking professionals who deliver a full range of international and commercial services to large corporate and middle market companies located in the Midwest.  Prior to her current role, Lynn served as vice president and head of the international finance division of a major super-regional bank in Chicago. This group specialized in providing financial solutions for domestic companies conducting trade and international transactions for U.S. subsidiaries of foreign-headquartered companies. With more than 22 years experience in banking, Lynn has managed relationships in the automotive, food and beverage, forest products, and diversified sectors of several large multinational financial institutions. She earned a bachelor’s degree in commerce with a concentration in marketing and management policy from McGill University in Montreal, and an M.B.A. from the University of Western Ontario. Lynn serves on the board of the British American Business Council of Chicago, the International Trade Association of Greater Chicago, and the Japan America Society of Chicago.

Patrick McNally is the lead Partner of the Corporate Finance Consulting Group at Blackman Kallick.  He is a specialist in buying and selling businesses, valuation, raising capital and financing, strategic business planning, operational improvements and turnaround management. Patrick has given presentations and written papers on mergers, acquisitions and turnaround strategies at leading business organizations such as the University of Chicago Booth School of Business CEO Roundtable, The Presidents Forum of The Entrepreneurship Institute and the Alliance of Mergers and Acquisition Advisors (AMAA). He and his team have coordinated the sale of businesses up to $100 million in annual revenues. Patrick is a CPA, accredited in business valuations (ABV) and certified in financial forensics by the AICPA. He is a member of the Illinois CPA Society and serves on the Society's Consulting Services Executive Committee. He is also a member of the AICPA, the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts, the Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors, the Turnaround Management Association and the American Bankruptcy Institute. A native Chicagoan, Patrick obtained his MBA with a Business Economics concentration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and his BBA in Accounting from the University of Notre Dame.

Robert G. Seeds is the founder and President of International Financial Services Corporation (IFS).  The company was founded in 1981.  It originates approximately $40-60MM in new equipment financing or leases annually.  The average size transaction is between US$150,000 and US$5,000,000.  The company leases/finances industrial production equipment, packaging, and food processing, dairy and medical equipment and avoids the hi-tech/fast depreciating equipment. Seeds was one of seven individuals who purchased controlling interest in Simmons Airlines in 1981.  He served on the Simmons Board of Directors from 1981 until the Airline was sold in 1988 to AMR Corporation, the parent of American Airlines.  He has also served on the Board of Directors of Glenview Bank Shares, Inc., a bank holding company from 1986, until the sale of the bank in 1988.  Bob has been an active member for the Equipment Leasing & Financing Association and has served on several legal committees. Bob is a lawyer and alumnae of Chicago's Kent College of Law.  He is currently a member of the Illinois Bar Association.

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