Terrapin Partners, LLC || Asset Management - Private Equity

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Nathan Leight, Partner

Mr. Leight is the co-founder and the Senior Managing Member of Terrapin Partners LLC, and the Chief Investment Officer of Terrapin Asset Management LLC. Mr. Leight has over 25 years of experience in asset and hedge fund management, venture capital, and private equity investing. Previously, Mr. Leight was the Chief Investment Officer of Gabriel Capital LP, a $1 billion plus hedge fund which specialized in bankruptcies, under-valued securities, emerging markets, private equity and merger arbitrage. Prior to joining Gabriel Capital, Mr. Leight established and oversaw the Proprietary Trading department at Dillon Read & Co. Inc., which specialized in bankruptcy/distressed situations and risk arbitrage. Mr. Leight started his career as an Associate in the corporate finance department of Oppenheimer & Co.

As the Senior Managing Member of Terrapin, Mr. Leight has served as the Chairman of the Board of Aldabra 2 Acquisition Corp., a blank check company which raised $414 million of gross proceeds in its June 2007 initial public offering. In February 2008, Mr. Leight became a director at Boise Inc. (NYSE: BZ) when Aldabra 2 acquired the paper and packaging assets of Boise Cascade, LLC in a transaction valued at more than $1.6 billion. Prior to that, Mr. Leight was the Chairman of the Board of Aldabra Acquisition Corporation a blank check company which raised $55.2 million of gross proceeds in its February 2004 initial public offering. In December 2006, Aldabra merged with Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation (NASDAQ: GLDD), the largest provider of dredging services in North America, in a transaction valued at more than $400 million. Mr. Leight became a director of Great Lakes at the time of the merger. Mr. Leight formerly served on the board of TradeStation Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: TRAD) from June 2009 until its acquisition by Monex Group in June 2011.

Mr. Leight graduated cum laude from Harvard College. Mr. Leight is married and has four children.

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Sanjay Arora

Mr. Arora joined the firm in 2007 to focus on the firm’s special purpose acquisition corporation activities. Prior to Terrapin Partners, Mr. Arora was a Managing Director at Deutsche Bank AG in Hong Kong, where he ran the equity-linked origination team for Asia-Pacific. Prior to this, Mr. Arora held a variety of positions in leveraged finance, derivatives, and equity capital markets at Bankers Trust and Deutsche Bank. During his banking career, Mr. Arora raised over $5 billion of equity and debt for companies in both the US and in Asia.

Mr. Arora received an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago and a BSc in economics from The London School of Economics.

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Guy Barudin

Mr. Barudin joined the firm in 2007 to focus on the firm’s special purpose acquisition corporation activities. Mr. Barudin joined Terrapin from Medco Health Solutions, where he held various business development and finance positions and concentrated on healthcare information technology and pharmacy benefit strategy. Prior to Medco, Mr. Barudin was Vice President for Alliances and New Ventures at MasterCard International. Before joining MasterCard, Mr. Barudin held business development and finance positions at several high technology firms. He began his career in corporate finance at Merrill Lynch, PaineWebber Group Inc., and Dillon Read & Co. Inc.

Mr. Barudin received a MS from Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management and a BSE from Princeton University with honors.

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Ashley Byron

Ms. Byron joined the firm’s accounting department in June 2010 from Marcum LLP as a Staff Auditor in the firm’s Alternative Investment Group, where she provided audit and advisory services to a variety of clients such as hedge funds, asset-backed lending funds, funds of funds and private equity.

Ms. Byron received a BS in Accounting as well as her MBA with a specialization in Accounting from the John F. Welch College of Business, Sacred Heart University.

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Irina Carpov

Ms. Carpov joined the firm’s accounting department in June 2010. Previously, Ms. Carpov worked at Marcum LLP as a Senior Auditor in the firm’s Alternative Investments Group, where she provided audit and advisory services to hedge funds, private equity and fund of funds clients. Prior to joining Marcum LLP, Ms. Carpov held a senior auditor/tax accountant position at Farkouh, Furman & Faccio LLP and a business analyst position at Accenture LLP. Ms. Carpov began her career as a junior accountant at the investment advisory firm, David J. Greene & Company LLC.

Ms. Carpov received a BA in accounting from Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College and is a Certified Public Accountant.

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Nathalie Cunningham, Partner, Portfolio Manager & Director of Research

Ms. Cunningham joined Terrapin Partners LLC in 2000 and became a senior analyst on the Fund of Funds research team in 2002. She is responsible for the firm’s manager due diligence and monitoring efforts and is a member of Terrapin’s Investment Committee. Ms. Cunningham began her career as a research associate at Eastman Kodak Company focusing on biomedical research and development. She has also held positions at Harcourt General and The Thompson Corporation.

Ms. Cunningham graduated from McGill University as a Faculty Scholar, and received her MBA with a specialization in finance and economics from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

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Stuart Gallin, CPA, Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Gallin joined the firm in January 2007 from Avenue Capital Group, where he served as Vice President of Accounting. During his tenure at Avenue Capital, Mr. Gallin supervised accounting and operations functions for five Asian distressed debt hedge funds and three Asian long-short hedge funds, with combined net assets in excess of $2.3 billion. Prior to Avenue Capital, Mr. Gallin served as Controller for William E. Simon & Sons’ Special Situations and Private Equity Funds. Prior to that, he was a senior auditor in the Financial Services Practice of Ernst & Young LLP, where he provided audit and advisory services to hedge funds, private equity, and institutional clients. Mr. Gallin began his career as staff auditor at Anchin Block & Anchin LLP.

Mr. Gallin received a BA in accounting from Franklin & Marshall College and is a Certified Public Accountant. Mr. Galin is married and has one child.

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James K. Kim, Research Analyst

Mr. Kim joined the firm in 2008 from Chardan Capital Markets LLC, where he worked on the investment banking team involved in mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, and SPAC deals in both the US and China. Mr. Kim started his career within Deutsche Bank AG’s Investment Banking – Corporate Finance division.

Mr. Kim graduated magna cum laude from Rutgers Business School with a BS in Finance and Sociology.

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Christopher Peters, Investor Relations Associate

Mr. Peters joined the firm’s sales and marketing department in August 2010. Previously, Mr. Peters was an Institutional Sales Associate at Sidoti & Company, a sell-side research firm focused on small cap equities. Prior to joining Sidoti & Company, Mr. Peters traded equities and ETF’s for T3 Capital, LLC, a proprietary trading firm. Mr. Peters started his career as an Internal Wholesaler at Legg Mason Asset Management servicing both Independent Financial Advisors and Banking Financial Advisors in Manhattan and Connecticut. Mr. Peters received his BA in Economics from Fairfield University.

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Robert C. Plotkin, Director of Technology

Mr. Plotkin joined Terrapin Partners LLC in 2000 from IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center, where he worked for 10 years on projects including the development of parallel supercomputers, MPEG video systems, digital library management systems, and interactive web technologies. Mr. Plotkin served as Chief Technology Officer of Aldabra Acquisition Corporation.

Mr. Plotkin received a BS in electrical engineering from Columbia University, and a Masters in computer science from Polytechnic University. Mr. Plotkin is married and has two children.

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Darren Rabenou, Managing Director

Mr. Rabenou joined the firm in 2005 from JP Morgan Asset Management. At JP Morgan, Mr. Rabenou was a senior member of the portfolio management team where he helped oversee $2 billion in small cap active and quantitative strategies as well $1.2 billion in a REIT fund. Prior to JP Morgan, he was a senior analyst and portfolio manager for Prudential Investments, where he focused on the emerging markets and global small cap stocks. Before Prudential he worked for ING Barings’ institutional equity sales and derivatives division, which had an exclusive focus on the emerging markets (Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe).

Mr. Rabenou received a BA in political science from the University of Rochester and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Mr. Rabenou is married and has two children.

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Stephen Spence, CFA, CAIA, Director of Quantitative Analysis

Mr. Spence joined the firm in 2006. Mr. Spence spent 16 years with Merrill Lynch, where he served as a director in the Management Science Group. This group supported strategic decision-making in complex business situations through the use of quantitative modeling and analysis.

Mr. Spence received an MS in operations research from Case Western Reserve University, an MBA from Rutgers University and a BS in mathematics from Bucknell University.

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For more information, please contact us at 212.710.4100 or info@terrapinpartners.com