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Mr. Puopolo brings to the team over 20 years of investment banking and private equity experience. Mr. Puopolo was most recently a partner at Leeds Equity Partners, the largest private equity firm focused on companies involved in education and training. At Leeds Equity Partners he structured, financed and negotiated the LBO of DataMark Inc., the leading marketing services firm for the for-profit colleges and schools market. While at Leeds, Mr. Puopolo also originated growth capital investments in two leading e-learning companies: Cognitive Arts, Inc. and medschool.com. Mr. Puopolo also identified and assisted in recruiting the CEO as well as a senior marketing consultant for Leeds' largest portfolio company, Ross University Schools of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. Mr. Puopolo is an investor in Edison Schools Inc., the largest private management company of K-12 public and charter schools, and Lincoln Technical Institute, a leading proprietary post-secondary schools group. Mr. Puopolo is currently a member of the Board of Director of Helma Institute and Oasis Children Services. Mr. Puopolo is a former director of Sint Eustatius School of Medicine, Provant, Paxar (NYSE: PXR) and Datamark Inc. and a former director or advisory director of five other private companies. Prior to joining Leeds, Mr. Puopolo spent 18 years in the M&A, Corporate Finance and International Corporate Finance Departments of Oppenheimer & Co., Bear Stearns & Co. and Kidder, Peabody & Co. While at Oppenheimer & Co., Mr. Puopolo founded and ran the Firm's M&A group for three years. Mr. Puopolo also co-founded and was co-head of the Firm's Private Equity Firm Coverage Group. During his 18-year investment-banking career, Mr. Puopolo originated and/or executed over 50 M&A and other corporate financing transactions, over one third of which were LBOs and other highly leveraged M&A transactions. During his investment banking career, Mr. Puopolo represented BET plc in the sale of its Rediffusion flight simulation business to GM/Hughes Electronics. Mr. Puopolo also performed investment banking services for various other education-related companies including GP Strategies (NYSE: GPX), ECC International (AMEX: ECC), Gilat Satellite Networks (NASDAQ: GILTF) and Doron Precision Systems. Other than his time at Leeds, Mr. Puopolo has personally invested either with clients, in clients or independently in 20 private equity transactions. Mr. Puopolo holds an A.B. in Economics from Harvard College and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School. | 