Ropart Asset Management Funds

A classic entrepreneurial success story, Robert B. Goergen created an entire industry when he expanded his regional candle business into a global operation and guided Blyth, Inc. to a position as industry leader in candles and home fragrance products, ultimately selling the firm in 2015 to Carlyle Group.

Mr. Goergen is also Founder and Chairman of The Ropart Group, a private equity firm that has invested over $100 million in more than 25 companies since 2001, ranging from startups to buyouts, across an array of industries.

Previously, Mr. Goergen was a Partner with McKinsey & Company and was Managing General Partner of The Sprout Group at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.  Prior to that, he worked with McCann-Erickson and Proctor & Gamble.

Since 1997, Mr. Goergen has served on the Wharton School Board of Overseers of The University of Pennsylvania. He initiated the Goergen Entrepreneurial Management Program with a path-breaking gift of $10 million gift in 1998. This program is one of the largest and most diverse academic programs of its kind in the world.  More than 2,000 students and entrepreneurs each year participate in courses that combine theory with practice, allowing students to gain access and insight from the entrepreneurial business community.

Mr. Goergen has served the University of Rochester as a member of the Board of Trustees since 1982 and as chairman from 1990 to 2003.  In 2008, he was awarded the university’s highest alumni honor, presented in recognition of his outstanding career achievement and service.  Mr. Goergen and his wife, Pamela, have gifted more than $40 million to the university, including grants to support its undergraduate programs and annual awards for excellence in undergraduate teaching, and lead gifts to the Robert B. Goergen Athletic Center, the Robert B. Goergen Hall for Biomedical Engineering & Optics and the Goergen Institute for Data Science.

Mr. Goergen is currently a member of the National Gallery of Art Collectors Committee in Washington, D.C., and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Whitney Museum in New York City. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. until 2010.

Mr. Goergen received his undergraduate degree in physics, graduating cum laude from the University of Rochester, and received his MBA in Finance from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School.

Mr. Goergen is the founder and Chairman of G5 Capital LLC, a growth equity firm focused on early stage investing and providing advisory services to high growth, powerfully branded, fast moving consumer products, services and technology companies. He also serves as the Chairman of Silver Star Brands, a Wisconsin-based internet retail and catalog company, which is a majority owned company within the portfolio.

Prior to his leadership of G5 Capital, Mr. Goergen served for 15 years as a member of the management team of Blyth, Inc. (NYSE:BTH), ultimately as the Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board of Directors. From 1994 to 2016, Blyth was a leading, publicly-traded, multinational holding company which at its peak achieved revenue of over $1.5 billion. Blyth specialized in the management and growth of direct selling, internet retail and direct marketing companies. In 2015, Mr. Goergen led the successful sale and privatization of Blyth to the Carlyle Group.

Before joining Blyth, Mr. Goergen served as Account & New Media Director for McCann-Erickson, where he oversaw E-commerce development and Internet marketing efforts for consumer products and services accounts. Prior to that, he competed on the ATP / ITF professional tennis tours from 1993 to 1994.

Mr. Goergen graduated in 2000 with an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1993 with a B.A. from the University of Richmond. He currently serves on the Wharton Entrepreneurship Advisory Board as well as the Board of the American Catalog Mailers Association.

Mr. Warren is the founder of Sage Venture Partners and co-founder and former General Partner of Brentwood Associates, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm with over $1.2 billion under management. He has over 45 years of experience in venture capital and leveraged buyout investing, with experience ranging from consolidating fragmented industries with growth-through-acquisition strategies to funding and providing board leadership to start-up companies. He serves on the boards of numerous private and public companies.

Mr. Kelly is CEO of MAKE Technology LLC.  He is a senior strategist and product executive who builds companies on the front edge of innovation in blockchain, big data, multimodal distribution, content, and adtech.

He has worked in both advisory and operational roles with startups and Fortune 100 companies. Positions include  Founder/ CEO of Make LLC, Casper Labs, Playsino Inc, and Veeker Inc, as well as leadership roles at International Game Technology, Pinnacle Systems, 20th Century Fox, Booz, Allen & Hamilton,  A&E Networks, and Billboard Magazine.

Mr. Kelly has been investing in and advising blockchain companies since 2013.  He has led over $1 billion in M&A transactions over his career and held numerous board positions for public and private companies.  He holds an MBA from Columbia University and is a voting member for the Academy Awards through the Producers Guild of America.

Mr. Al Maskari is Executive Chairman of Al Maskari Holding (AMH).  AMH is the privately-owned holding company of the Al Maskari family portfolio. AMH traces its foundation to 1968 with the establishment of the Al Maskaria Group in Abu Dhabi to engage in petroleum trading and oil field services. Over the past 50 years, AMH has expanded to comprise diversified enterprises with international investments and operations.

In addition to chairing AMH, Mr. Al Maskari serves as a board director on select subsidiaries and joint venture partnerships. Prior to joining his family conglomerate as the third generation of leadership, Mr. Al Maskari conducted strategic engagements in the financial, petroleum, and public sectors as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company.

Mr. Al Maskari sponsors philanthropic initiatives across the MEASA region through his family’s non-profit endowment Al Maskari Foundation. He is an Aspen Institute Fellow, serves on the UAE University Leadership Council Advisory Board, and is Chairman of Endeavor UAE.

He received his MBA with Distinction from Yale University’s School of Management, graduated Summa Cum Laude in Economics from Rollins College, and is an alumnus of Choate Rosemary Hall.

Mr. Forni is the Founder & President of Select Oil at CuraLeaf and previously was CEO of Cura Cannabis Solutions. He has become one of the most notable faces in the cannabis industry. A third-generation Portlander, the young CEO and entrepreneur founded Select, the best-selling cannabis brand in the U.S., by pioneering what is now an industry standard vape cartridge, free of silica fiberglass and helping push forward hardware innovation. Mr. Forni is known as the leader behind the largest acquisition in cannabis history; in May 2019 Cura Partners Inc.’s Select brand made headlines for its record-breaking, billion dollar acquisition by Curaleaf, creating the world’s largest legal cannabis company by revenue.

It’s there that Mr. Forni will continue to lead Select’s rapid expansion across the U.S. From creating better hardware, to establishing a better supply chain that is free of pesticides, to building a better company that provides health insurance, benefits, and a higher minimum wage – his influence in the cannabis industry is built around his relentless pursuit of progress. An entrepreneur by trade, Mr. Forni has always had a hand in building companies, but found his calling in cannabis in 2015 when he began pioneering processes and setting standards in one of the fastest-growing industries in the world.

In his role at Cura, Mr. Forni was honored as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Cannabis by High Times Magazine in 2017 and 2018, and as one of the 40 Under 40 to Watch by Marijuana Venture Magazine in 2018. Under his leadership, the company placed 45^th on the Inc 500 in 2018, achieved a top three place in Portland Business Journal’s Fastest Growing Companies in 2019 and The Fastest growing company in the History of Oregon in 2018, and was named as one of Oregon’s Best Companies to Work for by Oregon Business Magazine in 2018 and 2019. Mr. Forni received his BS degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Entrepreneurship from the University of Oregon. He played hockey in college and still loves it to this day.