Team
Kaleil D. Isaza Tuzman Managing Partner
Kaleil Isaza Tuzman is a proven entrepreneur and international corporate executive with a wealth of hands-on leadership experience in the media, software and Internet services fields. He has provided focused operational leadership and built effective management teams in businesses ranging from start-up to established to restructuring phases.
As Managing Partner of KIT Capital, Kaleil has overall responsibility for the company's investment and executive management practices.
Isaza Tuzman most recently served as the President and COO of JumpTV Inc. (TSX, AIM: JTV) a leading broadcaster of international television and sports over the Internet. He was brought in to oversee the company day-to-day in May 2005, when JumpTV had 3 employees, a handful of IP-broadcast contracts and virtually no available funds. Isaza Tuzman led the ensuing business development effort leading to the company's carriage today of 460 exclusive content partners. He also built the JumpTV team to circa 200 employees (both organically and via acquisition), with principal offices in Toronto, Dubai, New York, Orlando, London, Bogotá, and Singapore.
Isaza Tuzman helped raise nearly US$190 million in both the private and public markets since joining JumpTV, and was instrumental in both the company's Morgan Stanley-led IPO (US$65 million) in August 2006, as well as the US$100 million primary capital follow-on offering in February 2007.
As of January 9, 2008, Kaleil will take over as Chairman and CEO of ROO (OTCBB: RGRP).
Isaza Tuzman was formerly the Chairman and CEO of KPE, Inc., a leading digital media services company with clients such as Sony Entertainment, Viacom and Carnival Cruises. KPE was a majority-owned unit of advertising conglomerate Grey Global (NASDAQ: GREY). Prior to Isaza Tuzman taking over the firm in 2001, KPE was losing money on approximately US$20 million of revenue, and bordering on insolvency. Isaza Tuzman restructured and re-capitalized the company, closing down its European operations and bringing in a new management team. He led the company back to profitability and sold KPE to a unit of Agency.com for an 11.3x return on investment in 2002.
Prior to forming KIT Capital, Isaza Tuzman co-founded govWorks, Inc. in 1998, a New York-based enterprise software firm, where he served as Chairman & CEO. govWorks was a pioneer in the e-government field, and Isaza Tuzman raised US$59 million in private growth capital for the firm from KKR, Mayfield, Hearst Media and others. The company was forced to restructure and sell to First Data Corp (NYSE: FDC) in the turbulent markets of late 2000, and currently operates as a unit of that firm.
Prior to govWorks, Isaza Tuzman worked for nearly five years in the equities risk arbitrage and investment banking departments at Goldman, Sachs & Co.
Isaza Tuzman has acted as a trade mission representative for U.S. Presidents Clinton and Bush, and was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations for 5 years. He was recently named one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics by Hispanic Business magazine, and he has been a regular commentator on technology and entrepreneurial business trends over the years for CNBC, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, BBC Radio and other media outlets.
In 2005, Isaza Tuzman published the critically-acclaimed Entrepreneur's Success Kit (St. Martin's Press) and he gives regular lectures/seminars on entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, the Graduate School of Business at Stanford, Columbia Business School, and the NYU Stern School of Business.
Isaza graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a degree in Government and a Certificate in Latin American Studies. He is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish.
Isaza Tuzman is currently on the boards of ROO (OTCBB: RGRP), JumpTV (TSX/AIM: JTV), Automated Benefits Corp. (TSXV: AUT), and on the liquidation advisory committee of Oakwood Homes Corp.
Rosario Davi Director
In his role at KIT Capital, Rosario works primarily in the advisory practice, focusing on capital raise, M&A advisory, restructuring and asset sale assignments. Recently Rosario held the post of Corporate Development Manager at JumpTV, a KIT Capital portfolio company. Prior to that Rosario was General Manager of Africa and the Caribbean at JumpTV, leading the company’s strategic development in these regions. In addition, Rosario sits on the Board of Directors of Servador, Logimetrics, WRI and Litigation Management Group.
Prior to Recognition Group, Rosario served as an operations and management consultant in the restaurant and basic business services industries.
Prior to being a management consultant, Rosario worked at First Investors Corporation, a financial services institution that manages $5 billion in assets in over 400,000 individual and institutional accounts.
Rosario graduated with a Bachelors of Science Degree in Finance from Rutgers University in conjunction with the Rutgers School of Business and speaks both Sicilian and Spanish.
rdavi@recognitiongroup.com
Jaime Levine Director
In her role at KIT Capital, Jaime works in the advisory practice as a business analyst and marketing, public relations and investor relations consultant. Jaime is currently dedicated full time to working with KIT Capital portfolio company, JumpTV, where she is the Director of Communications, in addition to her focus on operational and business development functions.
Prior to KIT Capital, Jaime was the director of operations at Dos Trece Inc. where she managed the launch of their live, on-line radio station. Jaime worked as a publicist in the music industry for Kathryn Schenker Associates, and also did marketing and PR consulting for a number of small businesses including Janis Spindel Serious Matchmaking, Miss Williamsburg, Linda Carbone Management, Forge Ahead Media and Fiorucci US.
Jaime graduated with a BBA from the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College and is fluent in Spanish.
jlevine@recognitiongroup.com
Juan Carlos Estevez Affilate Partner
Juan Carlos Estevez is currently the General Manager, Latin America at JumpTV, the world’s online television broadcaster and a KIT Capital portfolio company. In his role at JumpTV Juan Carlos is responsible for the overall strategic direction of JumpTV’s initiatives in Latin America.
Prior to joining Recognition Group, Juan Carlos was Vice President of ARC International Corp., a boutique investment banking firm that specializes in providing domestic and international middle-market and emerging growth companies with a broad range of strategic financial advisory services including mergers and acquisitions and capital raising advisory services, as well as portfolio optimization services to institutional investors.
Prior to ARC, Juan Carlos worked with Credit Suisse First Boston’s Private Equity Group based in New York. At CSFB, Juan Carlos’ primary responsibilities were to generate, analyze and execute principal investment opportunities worldwide for privately held and publicly traded companies, particularly in Latin America. Prior to CSFB, Juan Carlos worked at Lehman Brothers and at the International Finance Corporation (the merchant-banking arm of the World Bank).
Mr. Estevez holds an MBA from Columbia University and a BS/BA from American University. He is fluent in Spanish.
jcestevez@recognitiongroup.com
Tom Herman Affiliate Partner
Mr. Herman has over 15 years of start-up experience leading technical strategy, software architecture, fundraising and mergers and acquisitions of technical assets.
Tom currently serves as the Vice President for Product Marketing at ooVoo Inc, a web 2.0 online video company with leading products in video chat, video conferencing, and video social networking. At ooVoo he is responsible for product design and development strategy leading initiatives to analyze the online video marketplace and develop ooVoo's product roadmap to fit future market trends.
Previously, Mr. Herman served as the COO and Vice President for Product Strategy at JumpTV, the world's online television broadcaster and a KIT Capital portfolio company. In his role at JumpTV, he was responsible for building out JumpTV's New York City offices, setting up off-shore engineering resources, CRM systems, and launching versions 2.0 and 3.0 of JumpTVʼs video broadcasting products. He was also responsible for all of JumpTV's online marketing initiatives including SEO, SEM, affiliate marketing and social networking strategies.
Prior to co-founding Recognition Group, Tom was the co-founder, and Chief Technology Officer of govWorks, Inc., a NY-based company that pioneered the global e-government marketplace. The govWorks transaction-processing middleware products web-enable state and local government transactions such as traffic infractions and tax payments, business and recreational permit applications, government records retrieval and voter registration. Under Mr. Herman's guidance, the firm designed, built, and launched the proprietary e-commerce payment engine to serve the $500 billion municipal payments market and a government resource portal rated "Best of the Best" by Forbes Magazine. As CTO, he also led govWorks through the due diligence process examining dozens of acquisition candidates, resulting in several consummated corporate acquisitions. He was also responsible for forging enterprise-wide technical and product development partnerships, including those with American Management Systems and Arthur Andersen.
Mr. Herman graduated from Bates College with a degree in Psychology and Computer Science.