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Board of Directors
Robert V. Brazell
Senator Robert W. Kasten
David L. Mercer
Peter M. Densen
Leonard Brooks III
Von H. Whitby
Miguel D. Lausell
Robert V. Brazell is the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner of Talos Partners. He was the founder and founding board member of Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) and also served as the company's president and chief executive officer.
Brazell has been the owner of several Internet properties including eHow.com (www.ehow.com), a content and search site; Delphi.com (www.delphiforums.com), the Internet's first discussion group community; and Sandbox.com (www.sandbox.com), the Internet's largest fantasy sports site. He is also the controlling owner and chairman of the board of data tracking companies Live Global Bid (www.liveglobalbid.com) and VinIQ (www.viniq.com). Brazell currently serves as Chairman of In-store Broadcasting Network (IBN), www.ibnads.com, the world's largest retail media company.
Brazell has raised and invested more than $200 million in the past ten years. He is the co-author of "The Idea Economy"TM and has authored a second book due for release in the fall of 2009. He also served on the board of the Deseret Foundation, an organization that provides predictable surgical care to children in 12 countries and establishes self-sufficient infrastructure in the countries.
Senator Robert W. Kasten
Sen. Robert W. Kasten is Managing Partner, a member of the board of directors and the corporate secretary of Talos Partners. He is also a member of the Audit Committee. He is the president of Kasten & Company, an international banking and business consulting group.
Kasten is a former U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, having served from 1981 to 1993. He also served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1974 to 1978 and as a member of the Wisconsin State Senate from 1972 to 1974. During his tenure in the Senate, he was a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee Defense Subcommittee and chairman of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, which has funding and oversight responsibility for all U.S. assistance programs, the Export-Import Bank, the World Bank, the multilateral development banks, and the Eastern European Development Bank. He also served on the Senate Budget Committee and was the ranking member on the Surface Transportation Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
Kasten served on the board of directors of the Center for International Private Enterprise, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce established to promote private enterprise and market-oriented reform worldwide. He also served as chairman and director of the Emerging Markets Group which managed the Democratic Century Fund, LLP, a hedge fund investing in emerging markets securities. He is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He is currently a director of EarthWalk Communications, a trustee of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and a trustee of the American University in Cairo. Kasten earned his bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Arizona and holds a master’s degree in finance from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business.
David L. Mercer
David L. Mercer, is a member of the board of directors of Talos Partners and chairman of Talos’ Audit Committee. He founded Mercer & Associates, Inc. (M&A), a government and public affairs consulting firm, in 1997 in Washington, D.C. With an emphasis on developing and leveraging public/private partnerships, M&A represents government entities and corporations on public affairs, business development, and lobbying strategies. M&A supplies consulting to national and statewide candidates on political operations, and advises non-profits on advocacy and development programs.
Prior to M&A, Mercer served as the deputy national finance director for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and as finance director of operations for the DNC's 1996 Democratic Convention.
Mercer has held senior roles ranging from strategic communications to convention delegate operations in five presidential campaigns and a number of congressional and gubernatorial campaigns since 1980. In the private sector, Mercer has held positions in marketing, branding, banking and media, in companies such as Procter & Gamble, Citizens Energy, Bank of Boston and the Monitor Channel.
In addition to Talos, Mercer serves on the boards of the Washington National Opera, the National Security Network (a foreign policy organization that promotes next-generation thinking on U.S. foreign policy and national security issues), the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Corporate Advisory Board, and the DNC Finance Board.
He is a former director on the board of the Democratic Governor’s Association and a Young Leader of the French American Foundation. As a political strategist and a presidential campaign media adviser, Mercer is a frequent television and print commentator abroad and in the United States.
Mercer comes from New York, attended the Bronx High School of Science and Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts, and went on to Duke University for three years, completing his final year at Principia College where he received his bachelor’s degree.
Peter M. Densen is a Managing Partner, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Risk Officer of Talos Partners. Densen also serves on the board of directors. Prior to Talos, Densen was a managing director of Aon Global Risk Consulting, focusing on alternative financial products and non-standard approaches to risk treatment including captives, structured insurance, enterprise risk, and capital market mechanisms. He also served as chairman of Aon’s U.S. Captive Council.
Prior to Aon, Densen was a senior vice president of Alexander & Alexander (A&A) of New York, a co-director of the risk strategies group and chairman of the intellectual capital initiative. During his tenure, Densen orchestrated the formation of a privatization consulting group serving as director of the group and chaired the committee focusing on the use of derivatives in insurance. He also served as a member of A&A’s pension investment advisory committee.
Densen was also a managing director of Anistics, a division of A&A focusing on risk information systems and analytical approaches to risk management. From 1986 to 1991, he was senior vice president and chief of staff of A&A Services Inc., where he was responsible for the holding company’s strategic planning process and corporate development. Before moving to the strategic planning function, Densen was the chief financial officer of A&A Services Inc.
Densen spent five years with Coopers and Lybrand as a tax accountant supervisor and financial consultant in the valuation of corporations and investment letter stock as well as the structuring and analysis of mergers, venture capital proposals and tax shelters.
He was licensed in New York as a Certified Public Accountant. He is also licensed as an insurance broker and a securities broker.
Densen received his masters of business administration degree from the Harvard Business School. He holds his bachelor’s degree in economics from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.
Leonard Brooks III
Leonard Brooks is a member of the board of directors of Talos Partners. As a senior investment banking professional with over 20 years of Wall Street experience, he has completed over 200 capital raising and advisory assignments, including public and private issuances of debt and equity as well as mergers and acquisitions. He also founded and ran a number of investment banking initiatives including Goldman Sachs’s Private Equity Finance Group, UBS’s Private Equity Placement Group, PaineWebber’s Private Capital Group, and Salomon Brother’s Southeast Commercial Real Estate Group. He has also been an active investor in a wide range of private equity and special situation opportunities.
In 2007, Goldman Sachs & Co. recruited Brooks as a managing director to establish and run the firm’s private equity finance group. Under his leadership, the group raised over $18 billion of capital for growth and restructuring in the financial services, business services, technology, and industrial industries.
In 1998, Brooks was recruited by PaineWebber to serve as a managing director and group head of the firm’s Private Capital Group. He was also a member of the investment bank’s Operating Committee and Private Equity committee. Upon the UBS’s acquisition of PaineWebber in 2000, Brooks served as a managing director and group head of UBS’s Private Equity Placement Group. He also served as chairman of UBS’s Private Equity committee and established the group’s European private equity activities in 2001. While he was group head, from 1998 to 2006, the group raised in excess of $7.6 billion of private capital.
Brooks’ previous experience includes serving as a director at Deutsche Bank, a vice president at Merrill Lynch, a vice president and senior investment manager for Multi-Finance Holding Corporation (the investment operation of a Saudi sheikh), and a real estate investment banker for Salomon Brothers.
In addition to Talos, Brooks also serves on the boards of Starfish Holdings, Inc. and Stratos Renewables Corporation. Additionally, he previously served on the board of Trenwith Securities, an affiliate of BDO.
Brooks earned a master of business administration degree from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in business studies from the College of William and Mary.
Von H. Whitby is a member of the board of directors of Talos Partners and serves as a member of the Audit Committee. He has been active in the business community for over 35 years with a broad background in investment banking, corporate management and tax-advantaged merger and acquisition strategies.
Whitby is the co-founder of Investestate, a publicly-held real estate development and management company, and served as the chairman and CEO of Hydro Flame Corporation. Whitby joined First National Bank of Chicago in 1973 with the responsibility of providing financial advisory services for private placements, project financing and mergers and acquisitions. Moving to Crocker National Bank in 1976, he served as manager of the corporate finance department with similar responsibilities.
Since 1981, Whitby has been the managing partner of Whitby, Santarlasci & Company, a privately-held investment banking firm that specializes in providing financial advisory services for leveraged buyouts, financial restructurings and workouts. The firm has made and developed investment opportunities in several business sectors including laser optics system for the military, appliances, fuel tanks, waste containers, modular buildings, electrical components, the apparel industry, as well as commercial real estate projects.
He is currently involved with, or has served as director of, several private and public corporations. Active with volunteer and community service organizations, Whitby has also served as a trustee for the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C., The Children’s Center and The Economic Development Corporation of Utah. He was selected by the governor of Utah to serve as a member of the Governor’s Task Force for Cost Effective Government and as a member of Utah’s Bicentennial Committee. He has also served as a trustee of Ballet West.
Whitby earned a bachelor’s degree in finance and business management from the University of Utah. In 1993, he received his masters of business administration degree from Harvard University. He earned his master’s degree in accounting at the University of Illinois and was licensed as a Certified Public Accountant in 1974.
Miguel D. Lausell is a member of the Talos Board of Directors. He served as president and chairman of the board of directors of Ponce Bank, a $1 billion plus institution, from 1990-1998. Prior to his experience at Ponce Bank, he served as president and chief executive officer of the Puerto Rico Telephone Company, the 14th largest telephone company in the United States with assets of over $1.5 billion.
Lausell served as undersecretary of the treasury in charge of legal affairs and intelligence for the commonwealth of Puerto Rico. He also served as coordinator and legal advisor to the banking and securities, income tax, excise tax and property tax bureaus. In addition, he served as advisor to the insurance commissioner of Puerto Rico.
Lausell recently served as vice chairman of Cap Cana, a $2 billion plus tourist development in the Dominican Republic. He is U.S. counsel to Cap Cana CEO, Dr. Ricardo Hazoury. He currently serves as chairman of FransGlobal, which owns Angel's, Camille's, Taco Maker and Jack's franchises.
Lausell serves on various boards and committees, including the Export Policy Commission of the Economic Development Council of Puerto Rico, the National Business and Industry Advisory Council of the Emergency Broadcast System, the United States Telephone Association and formerly the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico. Lausell was also the first Hispanic to serve on the board of directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
Lausell served on the national finance board of the Gore 2000 Committee. He served as a partner of the Democratic National Committee’s Leadership 2000 Board, and he was a partner of the DNC in 2004. He is a partner of former Pres. Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative. Lausell also served as the senior political advisor to U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Additionally, he co-chaired the board of directors of Hispanic PAC USA, Inc. and is on the board of directors for the National Governor's Association.
Lausell was a professor and an associate director of the graduate studies program at the Inter-American University School of Law in Puerto Rico. He received his master of laws degree from Harvard Law School, his bachelor of arts degree from Villanova University, and graduated magna cum laude with his doctor of laws degree from the University of Puerto Rico’s Law School.