Al Investment in Early Stage Companies

Ziad K. Abdelnour; once referred to by the New York Times as one of the 100 most creative investment bankers on Wall Street is a dealmaker, trader and financier with over 20 year experience in merchant banking, private equity, alternative investments and physical commodities trading. Since 1985, Ziad has been involved in over 125 transactions totaling over $30 billion in the investment banking, high yield bond and distressed debt markets and has been widely recognized for playing an integral role in the middle market of those three key market sectors.

Before founding Blackhawk Partners, Inc. in 2005; a New York based venture capital ”family office” that focuses on originating, structuring and acting as equity investor in management-led buyouts, strategic minority equity investments, equity private placements, consolidations and buildups, and growth capital financings mainly in the global energy and technology sectors, Ziad held numerous senior positions at European American Advisors; Inc.; THCG Inc .(formerly Hambro America Securities); Ladenburg Thalmann and Drexel Burnham Lambert’s High Yield Bond Department where his responsibilities included investing, financing and restructuring over 100 companies spanning the industrial, logistics, consumer and manufacturing industries both in the US as well as in emerging markets.

Since 2001, Ziad has been a trusted advisor to a number of the largest family offices in the United States, Europe and the Middle East and an angel investor and turnaround artist in a number of companies where Ziad’s corporate capital commitment through Blackhawk came either through acquiring those and other companies through their distressed debt or through the chapter 11 process.

Ziad has extensive connections with the Washington political, government and intelligence establishments having served since 1994 as a friend and advisor to a number of agencies and organizations associated with such entities in various capacities; especially when dealing with fiscal and foreign policy matters.

On a more personal level, Ziad is Founder and President of the US Committee for a Free Lebanon, Former President of the Arab Bankers Association of North America, Member of the Board of Governors of the Middle East Forum, a regular panelist and speaker on private equity and venture capital topics at industry conferences nationwide and a business angel investor in over a dozen ventures; both in the US and abroad.

Ziad enjoys an American and Lebanese dual citizenship and holds an M.B.A in financial engineering from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science in economics, Summa Cum Laude, from the American University of Beirut.

Hicham Abdelnour, a citizen of Lebanon and Canada, has been involved in real estate and corporate transactions in the U.S. and Turkey, where he currently resides full time since 1995.

Among his achievements, he is the co-developer and owner of the Konak Pier project, a major waterfront retail centre located at the heart of Izmir, Turkey. Today, Konak Pier is the flagship of the city of Izmir and an essential destination center for visitors.

Over the past three years, Mr. Abdelnour has also been advising some of the leading U.S. and European private equity funds seeking investment opportunities in Turkey. His advisory role includes product identification and origination, transaction negotiation and final execution, all within specific guidelines and parameters dictated by the investor.

In addition, Mr. Abdelnour provides post-closing asset management services, including performance monitoring, corporate restructuring, financial reporting, debt/equity financing, board membership and other on-going supervision tasks. Overall, Hicham remains fully involved in the company/project until final exit by the investor.

Prior to 1995, Mr. Abdelnour has been actively involved in real estate transactions in the U.S. and Europe, including corporate advisory work, cross-border transactions, debt and equity securitization and property portfolio management. During this period, Mr. Abdelnour was associated with the major Wall Street firms of UBS Securities Inc., Kidder, Peabody and Co. and Paine Webber, Inc.

Hicham Abdelnour received a B.S. in civil engineering and a B.A. in economics from Stanford University and earned a M.S. in real estate development and finance from Columbia University.

Maher Abuhamdeh is an aggressive, highly resourceful, results oriented executive level entrepreneur with proven ability to transform a concept into reality in telecommunications, wireless broadband, product design, and infrastructure development.

He is also an inventor in the technology space having invented and patented the software and processes to commercialize e-cash in a cellular telephone and replicate the utility of hard currency in an electronic wallet. To commercialize this technology, Mr. Abuhamdeh founded Planet Cellular, Inc in January, 1997 and has been holding the position of CEO since then.

He also founded in February 1990 and has been CEO of Cellular Pay Telephone Corporation where he invented, designed, built, installed, and operated the world’s first solar powered, credit/ATM card based, public cellular pay phone network. Maher has extensive background in the telecommunications industry with eighteen years experience in consumer electronics and wireless communications.

In addition to his accomplishments in telecommunications, Mr. Abuhamdeh created in 1987 a full service project management firm specializing in complete facilities, infrastructure development and build out. The firm was selected as a joint venture partner in an overseas project with a budget of $400 million.

Maher has extensive business experience in North American, Europe and the Middle East with high level contacts with the government, financial, and business communities. His successes in the Middle East have been greatly assisted by the fact that he is multilingual and multicultural but also is a U.S. citizen.

Mr. Maher Abuhamdeh received his Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in 1983 in product design from the Western Design Institute.

Candice Beaumont is a Managing Director who runs L Investments, a family office with a vast portfolio of public and private equity that is primarily focused on commodities. She oversees all capital allocation decisions for the family fund of funds as well as their direct investment portfolio. She is also a financial consultant to Genoil Inc, (www.Genoil.net) an emerging heavy oil technology and portfolio company of L Investments. Ms. Beaumont is a member of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

Candice Beaumont has over a decade of experience in the investment business. She started her career in Corporate Finance at Merrill Lynch. Ms. Beaumont worked as an investment banker at Lazard Frères for several years, executing over $20 billion of merger and acquisition advisory assignments. While at Lazard, Candice advised clients globally on a wide array of transactions including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations, hostile takeovers and hostile defense.

She left Lazard to work as a private equity principal at Argonaut Capital, where she was responsible for all aspects of new investment execution for the firm and its portfolio companies, including sourcing and screening potential investment candidates, conducting industry and market analyses, determining valuations, and structuring and negotiating term sheets.

Ms. Candice Beaumont attended Rice University, and obtained a Bachelor in Business Administration from the University of Miami, graduating first in her class with a major of International Finance & Marketing.

Jack Becker is a practicing attorney with over 45 years of experience. As Chairman of the Corporate & Securities Department of the firm that bears his name, Snow Becker Krauss P.C., Mr. Becker specializes in corporate finance activities, mergers and acquisitions and securities law matters, and has substantial experience with investment banking firms and merchant banking companies.

Mr. Becker is a recognized authority in public and private securities financings as well as oil and gas transactions. He represents buyers, sellers, intermediaries and management teams in structuring a broad range of transactions, and provides legal advice to assist clients and their financial advisers in meeting tax, accounting and regulatory requirements.

Mr. Becker has extensive background and familiarity with the launching and supporting of new companies, and the forming of strategic alliances and has numerous contacts in the financial community which are often sources for early stage venture capital and later stage financing. Mr. Becker's specialties also include providing legal advice concerning regulatory filings and compliance matters.

Mr. Becker received a B.S. degree (cum laude, 1957) from New York University, and a law degree (1960) from New York University School of Law. Mr. Becker was an enforcement attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission, New York Regional Office, from 1962 to 1966 where he became a Branch Chief, and the Assistant Director of Compliance of the American Stock Exchange from 1967 to 1968. He is also a member of both the American Bar Association (Member, Section on Corporation, Banking and Business Law), and the New York State Bar Association.

Charles Brooks Charles Brooks, Associate Partner

Charles Brooks, appointed by the White House to serve as the first Director of Legislative Affairs for The Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), joined Blackhawk Partners in July 2007 in order to expand our investment efforts in the Home Land Security sector.

The Directorate serves as the research and development arm of the DHS, utilizing our nation's scientific and technological resources to provide federal, state and local officials with the technology and capabilities to protect the homeland.

Charles also serves on the Adjunct Faculty of Johns Hopkins University where he has taught graduate level courses on homeland security and Congress. He has an extensive background in government relations, international trade, and investment banking that spans over twenty years in the public and private sectors.

Mr. Brooks worked on Capitol Hill as a Senior Legislative Assistant for Defense, International Business, and Foreign Affairs to Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA). In 1986, he was appointed by President Reagan to serve as the Special Assistant to the Director of the Voice of America where he specialized in interagency relations and in domestic & international public affairs. He received his B.A. in Political Science from DePauw University and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Chicago.

He also earned a Certificate in International Law from The Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands and has a Top Secret/SCI security clearance.

Thomas Duffy, Associate Partner

Thomas S. Duffy is the CEO/ President and Founder of Venture Capital International, LLC, a private equity firm, which acts as a gatekeeper for seven private funds including but not limited to the Dunbar Group, Manara Fund, and Nationwide Angel Groups. The firm was set up in 2006 for the purpose of identifying companies most poised for success, primarily in the real-estate, green energy efficient technology and pharmaceutical industries, and investing over $200 million into those companies.

With over twenty-five years of experience in merchant banking, extensive networking abilities and business operational knowledge, Mr. Duffy has led Venture Capital International, LLC to consistently deliver positive financial returns to investors on every project since its inception, with some projects yielding over a 200% return within a twelve to eighteen month period.

Prior to founding Venture Capital International, LLC and from 1997-2206, Mr. Duffy was President at Tuthill LLC, a commercial and venture capital fund of over $100 million concentrated in the lending of hard money. At Tuthill, LLC, Mr. Duffy honed his abilities to negotiate "win-win" deal terms that motivate portfolio company management teams yet provide solid governance, control and protection for investors. Simultaneously, Mr. Duffy was a Partner at TDI Inc. where he managed over 100 residential real estate projects in the New York Tri-State area with sales in excess of $15 million annually, spearheaded project development of the waterfront in Jersey City, NJ, and Weehawken, NJ and led a team of twenty-five in the development of a sixty story residential tower.

On a personal level, Mr. Duffy is President of the Fairfield Connecticut Chapter of Business Network International and is called upon to act as a Real Estate and Financial Consultant to New York City think-tank Gerson-Lehman Group.

He was recently awarded National Republican Congressional Committee Businessman of the Year in 2007, New Jersey Better Business Bureau Man of the Year in 2006 and Council Businessman of the Year from 1997-2001 by the Bergen County, New Jersey Chamber of Commerce.

Thomas S. Duffy attended Fordham University in New York where he studied business and economics.

Ashley Heather, Associate Partner

Ashley John Heather is the President of White Space Group, a NY company which incubates and helps accelerate the growth of businesses with exceptional potential, mainly in the social media, mobile and entertainment industry.

An entrepreneur and business leader, Mr. Heather has over 15 years of experience having founded and operated a number of innovative media/tech companies including Entertainment Media Works, MusiKube and CuttingEdged Technologies. Through these companies he built partnerships with leading interactive groups including ABC, AOL, CBS/Showtime, 20th Century Fox, Fremantle/19, Intel, Microsoft, MTV Networks, MySpace, and Virgin Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Univision.

Mr. Heather’s companies have received awards from the prestigious AlwaysOn Top 100 in Hollywood award in 2007 to European Interactive Consultancy of the Year in 2001.

Mr. Heather is a frequent speaker at leading wireless/media industry events such as iBreakfast, CTIA Wireless, iWireless World, The Digital Media Summit, MoMeMo and the Digital Coast Roundtable.

Mr. Heather has been quoted in press including the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and made appearances on NY1, CCN Headline News.

Mr. Heather holds a B.A. in Economics from Sheffield University, England and is a board member of Nextcode Corporation, Cutting Edged Technologies, Zaah Technologies, co-founder of MoMeMo.org.

Amir Heshmatpour, Associate Partner

Amir Heshmatpour is the Founder and Managing Director of AFH Holding & Advisory LLC, an integrated advisory and consulting firm serving U.S. and international clients who seek strategic counsel and sophisticated access to global capital markets. Since founding the Company in 2003, he has led AFH through numerous successful transactions both in the United States and China.

Prior to founding AFH, Amir Heshmatpour was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Metrophone Telecommunications, Inc., a company he began in 1994 with $ 30,000. At the age of 24, Amir Heshmatpour completed his first reverse merger between Metrophone and Datawave Communications, a prepaid telephone card company, which was then affiliated with AT&T.

Over the next ten years, Amir Heshmatpour spearheaded Metrophone’s growth, leading it through a total of 17 acquisitions and growing the business to over $100 million in revenue. Metrophone was twice named among the 100 fastest growing companies in the Northwest and by 2003 the company operated in 34 states and was ranked among the top 10 public service providers in the U.S.

Amir was recognized as "Businessman of the Year" by the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2003 and served as Head of the Republican Congressional Business Advisory for the year. Together with his family, he founded Holding Hands Pediatric Therapy & Diagnostics, an organization serving children with special needs and their families.

He has also served on the Board of "Young Life", a teen-mentoring organization and currently serves on the board of the California Council on Economic Education (CCEE), an organization promoting financial and economic literacy.

Bruce MacFarlane, Associate Partner

Bruce MacFarlane has approximately 27 years of experience as a principal investor and advisor providing and implementing strategic and transactional advice and execution for financial services companies worldwide.

Mr. MacFarlane has been an investor or advisor on assignments with clients from more than 25 countries. His financial services experience includes senior positions in private equity, investment banking, management consulting and the U.S. government, each focused exclusively on the financial services sector.

Mr. MacFarlane is a founder of several private equity firms including GPO Capital Corp, Aquiline Holdings, and Venturion Capital. Currently Mr. MacFarlane is the President of GPO Capital and Chairman of both Meridian Development Partners, a real estate investment firm and FMS Services LLC, a debt collection company that serves the Federal government, state and local agencies and private sector clients.

As an investment banker with Smith Barney Inc. from 1992 to 1998, Mr. MacFarlane was a Director in the Financial Services M&A Group. In addition to domestic U.S. mergers and acquisitions, Mr. MacFarlane focused on financial strategies and international investment banking activities.

In 1991 and 1992, in his role as an appointed U.S. government official with the Resolution Trust Corporation Oversight Board, Mr. MacFarlane served as Director of Financial Institutions and Senior Advisor to the President for the Cabinet-level agency. Mr. MacFarlane was also a management consultant Andersen Consulting and Oliver, Wyman & Co., providing management consulting and strategic advisory services to the senior management of banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions both in the U.S. and internationally.

Mr. MacFarlane earned his B.A. with honors in Chemistry from Harvard College in 1981 and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1986.

Mr. MacFarlane serves as a member of the advisory committee for the California Community Financial Institutions Fund, a San Francisco-based private equity fund specializing in financial services companies in the western United States.

In the legacy of his forefathers, Middle Eastern banking merchants, Joseph Richard Safra took up an interest in banking early in life after earning a B.S/B.A. in finance from Boston University, he spent two years (1985 – 1987) undergoing intensive training in all areas of banking at Republic National Bank of New York.

Having shown immense promise as a banker and financier, Joseph Richard was handpicked by his uncle Edmond Safra to work as his “eyes and ears” of his then new venture Safra Republic Holdings in Geneva, and later as his private wealth manager at Banque Safra Luxembourg, SA.

The years spent working with his uncle provided the best possible hands-on training from one of the world’s most successful and renowned banking experts. Today, Mr. Safra is using this sound advice to provide professional counsel and to leverage global business transactions with some of the most prominent CEOs, private equity companies, venture capital firms and government officials around the world.

Mr. Safra also holds invaluable experience with a broad range of products including money markets, fixed income, foreign exchange, precious metals, emerging markets and derivative’s products.

A native of Argentina, Mr. Safra speaks five languages and currently resides in New York City.

Considered one of the Top Business Strategists dealing with “Immediate Change,” Peter has developed unique techniques to address and refocus a company’s strategy in a few hours versus a few months.

Called “The Most Connected Man in America,” he calls on a “Dream List” of Global Business and Political Leaders to provide instant feedback to validate business concepts and direction.

Mr. Strople is a former Director of Dell Computer Corp. and a former Executive with Grid Systems Corporation (the Inventor of our modern Clam Shell Laptop Computer). He advises investors and executives involved in start-ups to Fortune 25 global companies. He has equity in more than 20 companies in industries such as Technology, Biotech, Energy, Media & Entertainment, Wireless and Telecommunications.

Mr. Strople is an advisor to GMG Capital Partners, and Marsh USA and is heavily active in the following non-for-profit organizations: Chairman Emeritus, Refuge House Foster Care Agency-Dallas, TX; Director for Texas CASA Business Advisory Board; Director of The Marbridge Foundation and Chairman, Development Committee; Director of the Texas School for Deaf Foundation.

Mr. Strople is the past Chairman of Texas Fund Raising for Kairos Prison Ministries, and he still has a passion for seeing ex-offenders reintegrated back into our communities.