|
John R. Willis - Managing Partner, of Willis Stein & Partners. Willis Stein is a Chicago-based private equity firm founded in 1995. Mr. Willis is responsible for managing the affairs of the approximately $3 billion of capital raised for the firm's three private equity funds. These responsibilities include initiating investment opportunities, structuring acquisitions, advising portfolio management teams and arranging for the disposition of partnership investments in the firm's target industries of business services, consumer products and services, health care, manufacturing, media and telecommunications. From 1989 through 1994, Mr. Willis was President and a director of Continental Illinois Venture Corporation. Mr. Willis joined Continental Bank Corporation in 1974, holding a variety of managerial responsibilities in corporate banking. In 1988, he founded the successful Continental Mezzanine Investment Group and was its manager through 1990. Mr. Willis serves on the board of directors of many of the Willis Stein portfolio investments, including Aavid Thermal Technologies, Inc., Baker & Taylor Corporation, CompuPay, Inc., Merit Health Systems, Corporation, National Veterinary Associates, Inc., Roundy's Inc. and Ziff Davis Media Inc.
Mr. Willis is a General Trustee of Rush University Medical Center, Chairman of Rush’s Alternative Investment Subcommittee; a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council of The Krannert School of Management, Purdue University, and a member of Alternative Investments Advisory Council of the Purdue Research Foundation. He is member of the Visiting Committee of The Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, and Vice Chairman of the Illinois Venture Capital Association. In addition, he has been a speaker at the Venture Capital Institute, the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, Cornell University and The University of Chicago. Mr. Willis received an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and holds a BS degree in Agricultural Business Management from Purdue University.
| 