Charles Cozean
Partner and Group Leader
Charles Cozean leads the Technology Group and heads the Investment Committee. In 2001, Mr. Cozean co-founded Stonecroft Capital LLC. Mr. Cozean brings significant knowledge and experience developed over the past twenty five years of his career as an investment banker, venture capitalist and engineer.
At Stonecroft, Mr. Cozean continues to lead successful transactions with companies across the size spectrum and across many technology sectors, including: enterprise software and services, communications, Internet and mobile, semiconductor, electronics and advanced materials. Under Mr. Cozean’s leadership, the Technology Group has not only developed a broad base of industry relationships and expertise, but also developed a broad transaction capability, including: buy-side and sell-side M&A, reorganizations, recapitalizations, spin-outs, cross-border JVs and licensing.
Prior to Stonecroft, Mr. Cozean was a founding Partner of Mercator Capital, a merchant banking firm comprised of the most senior investment banking leadership of PricewaterhouseCoopers Securities. Mr. Cozean was also a founding Partner of Mercator Broadband, a venture capital fund focused on early stage technology firms. Mercator Broadband’s investors included NEC and the CIT Group. Prior to Mercator Capital and PricewaterhouseCoopers Securities, Mr. Cozean was a Managing Director of Alliant Partners, Silicon Valley Bank’s technology investment bank headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Prior to Alliant Partners, Mr. Cozean was an active turnaround investor and Mr. Cozean continues to serve on the boards of a number of technology growth companies and invest in early stage technology companies.
Prior to entering investment banking, Mr. Cozean worked for NASA as an engineer in both the propulsion and microgravity experiments departments, and has held collaborative positions with NASA’s commercialization departments, the European Space Agency, General Motors, Bell Labs, and Intel.
Mr. Cozean’s education includes a Bachelors of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton, a Masters of Material Science and Engineering from Stanford, and an M.B.A. from the Anderson School at UCLA. Mr. Cozean previously held the following FINRA registrations: Series 24, Series 62, Series 63, Series 79, and Series 99.
Tim Howard
Partner and Group Leader
Tim Howard leads the Healthcare Group at Stonecroft Capital. Tim brings significant knowledge and experience developed over the past thirty years of his career as an investment banker, CEO, business unit manager and engineer. As a former CEO that raised venture financing and exited through a strategic acquisition, Mr. Howard brings a deep insight into the challenges faced by emerging growth clients.
Mr. Howard has led venture financing, partnering and acquisition activities and negotiated strategic transactions for and with global chemical, pharmaceutical, medical device, contract research organization, healthcare technology firms, and leading venture and private equity groups. Mr. Howard has led advisory projects for numerous global companies in the healthcare sector as well as leading sell-side engagements for dozens of middle market healthcare and technology clients.
Prior to joining Stonecroft Capital, Mr. Howard was CEO of Galt Associates, a bioinformatics firm he founded, that provided software and subject matter consulting to leading biopharmaceutical and medical device companies worldwide and was subsequently sold to Cerner Corporation. During his tenure as CEO, Mr. Howard was twice selected as an Ernst& Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist in the life sciences sector, and twice led Galt to positions in the Deloitte & Touche National Fast 500, and Virginia Fast 50. Prior to Galt, Mr. Howard led M&A activities at Honeywell Federal Systems and served as the business unit manager for the secure systems group. Mr. Howard began his career as a communication engineer with Burroughs (subsequently Unisys).
Mr. Howard’s education includes a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from Ursinus College, and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Howard previously held the following FINRA registrations: Series 24, Series 62, Series 63, Series 28, Series 79, and Series 99.
Steve Rhoades
Partner and Group Leader
Steve Rhoades leads the Energy and Renewables Group at Stonecroft Capital. With more than ten years of experience as both a CEO and COO of two market leading, public solar companies and greater than 18 years of experience as an engineering, marketing and operating executive with some of world’s largest semiconductor equipment companies, Mr. Rhoades brings a wealth of experience to bear for Stonecroft Capital’s Energy and Renewables Group.
Prior to joining Stonecroft Capital LLC, Mr. Rhoades was CEO of Satcon Technology. From 2008 through 2011 Mr. Rhoades led Satcon’s strategy to focus on the utility scale solar market. During this period he divested three non-core divisions, raised more than $95MM in debt and equity capital, grew annual revenue from $24MM in 2008 to $188MM in 2011, and led the company to the #1 in market share in North America and the #2 market share position globally for commercial and utility scale, photovoltaic inverters. Prior to Satcon, Mr. Rhoades was the COO of Advanced Energy where he led a significant turn-around of their operations. During his tenure he restructured AE’s product portfolio to focus on core power and flow products, divested four non-core divisions, raised gross margin from a low of 28% in Q4 2004 to more than 45% in Q1 2007 and improved operating income from a loss to greater than 17% of revenue. Based on this performance Mr. Rhoades and others from AE’s executive leadership team raised $112MM in a secondary offering and retired all of the company’s convertible debt. Prior to AE, Mr. Rhoades held executive roles in corporate development, general management, marketing, engineering and operations at several leading semiconductor and semiconductor equipment companies including Lam Research, Trikon, Applied Materials, Rockwell International and Hughes Aircraft.
Mr. Rhoades’ education includes a Bachelors of Science and a Master of Science in Physics from The University of Illinois. Mr. Rhoades previously held the following FINRA registrations: Series 63 and Series 79.
Hala Suleiman
Partner and Group Leader
Hala Suleiman heads Stonecroft’s Dubai office. Ms. Suleiman brings over fifteen years of investment banking experience to each engagement.
While at Stonecroft, Ms. Suleiman has expanded her significant transaction base in digital media, entertainment and e-learning sectors and leads Stonecroft’s related Industry Group. In addition, Ms. Suleiman serves as a critical resource in providing Stonecroft clients, across its Industry Groups, to potential partners and opportunities overseas. In this capacity, Ms. Suleiman has co-led numerous healthcare and technology transactions.
Prior to co-founding Stonecroft Capital LLC, Ms. Suleiman was a Vice President in Technology Investment Banking at Dain Rauscher Wessels and its successor, RBC Capital Markets, where she focused primarily on M&A buy-side and sell-side advisory services for digital media and the e-learning sectors. Prior to joining Dain Rauscher Wessels, Ms. Suleiman was a Director at Concordia Capital Technology Group, Inc., a boutique merger & acquisition advisory firm based in San Francisco, California, providing buy-side and sell-side merger & acquisition and corporate strategic advisory services to a variety of public and private companies. While at Concordia, Ms. Suleiman was instrumental in establishing the firm’s investment banking practice in the for-profit education and e-learning sectors.
Ms. Suleiman earned her B.A. degree in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley and also completed the Stanford Business School Executive Education Negotiation Program.
John Wagner
Managing Director and Group Leader
John Wagner leads the Environmental and Safety Group at Stonecroft Capital. John is an innovative executive and brings over 30 years of experience in building business opportunities and leading related successful strategic transactions, including financings and mergers and acquisitions.
Mr. Wagner has held executive positions in companies ranging from startups to large operating units within Fortune 500 companies. These positions include: general management, corporate strategy, product line management, engineering and client/market development. Mr. Wagner has worked at such firms as Advanced Energy (IKOR subsidiary President- delivered 10x revenue growth in 4 years), AMD (authored the $2B Mobile Computing business plan and market strategy), Motorola (originated the GSM Data business and posted $1M of sales in first 30 days), Validus DC, VisionTek and Zenith Data Systems. Most of these positions culminated in John assuming a leadership position in a strategic transaction and many of these transactions were in conjunction with Stonecroft Capital.
Prior to joining Stonecroft Capital, Mr. Wagner was a Vice President and General Manager of the Diamonox Water business unit at Advanced Diamond Technologies. From 2011 to 2019, Mr. Wagner led the successful commercialization of this novel electrochemistry platform. In this timeframe, Mr. Wagner engaged an international customer base with applications ranging from oil and gas, wastewater treatment and food and beverage safety. Advanced Diamond Technologies was acquired by the Smiths Group plc.
Mr. Wagner holds a Bachelor degree in Applied Computer Science from Illinois State University, holds 6 issued US patents (with multiple US and international applications in process) and is active on the board of advisors for several technology businesses.
Michael Levi
Managing Director and Group Leader
Michael Levi leads the Emerging Technologies group at Stonecroft Capital. With over 20 years of experience launching companies spanning the Renewable Energy, Smart City, Mobile Telecom, Supply Chain Management, Enterprise Software, and Consumer Packaged Goods industries, Mr. Levi brings a proven track record of developing and executing successful commercial strategies that help organizations drive top line revenue growth and maximize brand equity across disruptive technologies and products, with a concentration in turnarounds, brand launch, and strategic market/segment expansion.
Prior to joining Stonecroft Capital , Mr. Levi founded L1CG, a Marketing and Strategy Advisory based in San Francisco, California. Specializing in commercial and product go-to-market strategy and execution, L1CG’s services included market entry and launch, commercial enablement, corporate development and brand management. In the capacity of interim executive, Mr. Levi helped launch Enphase Energy (NASDAQ: ENPH) into the commercial and industrial solar energy market sectors, managed the commercial launch of Petra System’s 5G telecom solutions across North America and the Caribbean, and helped drive Delta Electronics (TPE: 2308) Solar Energy division’s launch into the North American marketplace. In addition, Mr. Levi assisted in multiple transactions including SunPower Corporation’s (NASDAQ: SWPR) acquisition of Cogenra, Wartsilia’s (OTCMKTS: WRTBY) $170MM purchase of Greensmith Energy, and AlsoEnergy’s acquisition and integration of skytron, Draker and Locus Energy.
Prior to L1CG, Mr. Levi was the Vice President of Product Management, Applications Engineering and Worldwide Marketing for Satcon Technology Corporation (NASDAQ: SATC) where he helped lead the company’s global expansion from $24MM in 2008 to $188MM in 2011 and the attainment of #1 in market share in North America and #2 market share globally for commercial and utility scale photovoltaic inverters. Mr. Levi was also a core contributor in Satcon’s public and private financing rounds as part of the Corporate Development team.
Prior to Satcon, Mr. Levi was the Director of Solution Strategy at i2 Technologies (NASDAQ: ITWO), a Global Supply Chain Solutions Provider. While at i2, Mr. Levi was integral in driving product and commercial strategy across the High Tech, Consumer Electronics, CPG and Transportation verticals and was a key member of the Corporate Development team, directly assisting in the acquisition and integration of RiverOne Technologies and supporting the $396MM acquisition of i2 by JDA (NASDAQ: JDAS).
Mr. Levi received his Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Pepperdine University and Bachelor of Arts Degrees in History and Anthropology from Lake Forest College.