Haiyan Li, Managing Director
haiyan@asiacap.net
Ms. Haiyan Li is a corporate finance professional with over ten years of broad experience in the US capital markets. Ms. Li's experience includes corporate finance advisory, Eurobond issuance, asset securitization, leverage buyout transactions, workouts, "debtor-in-possession" financing, and Export Credit Agency (US Eximbank) guaranteed aircraft and power project financing in the emerging Asian market.
Ms. Li was a head of the Chinese business development team at Societe Generale, USA ("SG") a major French bank in the US. Ms. Li had wide ranging responsibilities in all aspects of SG-USA's business development in China, including aircraft, and power plant financing and advisory work regarding the establishment of joint ventures in China. While at SG, Ms. Li also worked in the Specialized Structured Finance Group between 1991 and 1994. Ms. Li's responsibilities included corporate finance, structured finance and restructuring transactions, including syndication of exit bankruptcy financing.
Prior to joining SG, Ms. Li started her banking career in 1986 with the Corporate Finance Advisory Group at Chase Investment Bank in New York, where her responsibilities included developing advisory opportunities, valuation analysis, evaluating and structuring acquisition and divestiture transactions.
A native born Chinese, Ms. Li received a Masters of Business Administration (M.B.A.) degree from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University in 1986, and a BA from the University of Beijing Second Foreign Language Institute in 1982. Ms. Li is also a co-founder of US-China Financial Forum, a not for profit organization in the United States, and a member of China Charity Foundation, a non-government Chinese charity organization.
William Powderly, Senior Advisor
bpowderly@asiacap.net
Mr. Powderly is a graduate of St. Francis College (Cum Laude) with highest honors in philosophy, ethics, and religion. He has done graduate studies at Fordham University, New York University and the Stonier School of Banking at Rutgers. After serving in the U.S. Navy as a Lieutenant (j. g.), he began a thirty-one years career at Bankers Trust Company where he served as Vice President in charge of Division Loans and as the head of the Metropolitan Banking Special Loan Department. After retirement he joined Societe General - USA where he w as in charge of the Special Loan Group as a First Vice President and subsequently, as a consultant who helped introduce the Bank to Debtor-in-Possession Financing and Leveraged Acquisition Financing.
Mr. Powderly has been active in civic and political affairs and appeared on the ballot as a Candidate for comptroller of the City of New York.
Jean-Paul Comtesse, Director
jcomtesse@asiacap.net
Mr. Jean-Paul Comtesse is an international business development leader for over twenty years. Mr. Comtesse is a co-founder of Vorum Research Corporation in Canada, a computer software and hardware company with a special application in the medical and retail industries. He is also a shareholder of Silipos, a private medical related products manufacturing company in New York. Mr. Comtesse served as Chairman and CEO of Mayzaud S.A. in Brive, France, and President of IPOS North Americas. He was also a General Manager of IPOS in Germany.
Mr. Comtesse has worked as a senior staff in Orthopedic University in Zurich, Switzerland. Mr. Comtesse has his Master Degree from Germany in 1982, and Orthopedic Degree from Switzerland in 1980.
Dean A. Christiansen, Director
dean@acacia.com
Mr. Christiansen is a founding principal of Acacia Capital, Inc., a New York City based corporate finance advisory firm. Acacia focuses primarily on initiating and executing acquisition and refinance transactions as agent. Typical customer companies range in size from $10 million to $100 million in capitalization. Secondary efforts include initiating and executing corporate sale and divestiture efforts, and privately placing equity and debt. Prior to forming Acacia Capital in 1990, he was a senior member of the corporate finance team at Weatherly Private Capital, a New York based merchant banking boutique, and has previously held various positions with Bankers Trust Company and Merrill Lynch. Mr. Christiansen is a 1983 graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a degree in Government. Additional academics include four years of Aerospace Engineering and one year of Biblical studies, and he passed the Series 7 and Series 63 securities exams in 1984. Concurrent with the formation of a new broker-dealer for the benefit of a client of Lord Securities Corporation, New York, NY, a sister company of Acacia Capital serving the asset securitization industry, Mr. Christiansen passed the Series 24 securities exam in the fall of 1997. During college, he was recruited into the management-training program of the Zapata Offshore Company of Houston, TX, and roughnecked on various oil-drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
He is very involved in charitable activities, primarily through volunteering and fundraising support to benefit the Ronald McDonald House of NYC. The son of missionary parents, Mr. Christiansen spent ten years through December 1970 in Rhodesia, Africa.
Mr. Christiansen currently serves as a member of the board of directors of Structural Concepts Corporation of Muskegon, MI, and Capital Markets Engineering & Trading, LLC, of New York, NY. In addition, he serves an independent director for a number of special purpose finance vehicles organized by Lord Securities Corporation.