About Us

Advisors LLC, Denali Advisors LLC, Convergence Investment Partners LLC, Kvasir Technologies, and Wilshire Lane Capital LLC. Prior to founding Nile, Mel co-managed Julius Bär Investment Management (JBIM) as Managing Director of Global Distribution. During his tenure at JBIM, assets under management grew from $800 million to a peak of $78 billion, ultimately resulting in an IPO and listing on the NYSE in 2009. He was also Managing Director and portfolio manager at Wells Capital Management and a Vice President at Shearson Lehman Brothers. Mel holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and received his MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management. Mel also attended IMD Global Leadership Program in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a member of the Los Angeles Society of Financial Analysts. Mel serves on the Board of Trustees and the Investment Committee for the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), the UCLA Foundation Board, UCLA Anderson School of Management Board of Advisors, and Saint John’s Health Center Foundation.

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Officer of Artio Global Investors/JBIM. From 1990 to 1995, he was Head of Global Fixed Income at Bankers Trust Company. From 1988 to 1990, Richard was Head of Corporate Bonds and Mortgage Backed Securities at Mitchell Hutchins. Richard is on the Board of Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison, a prison education charity. Richard received his BA in History from University of California, Berkeley and his MBA in Finance from New York University.

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industry. Prior to joining Nile, she was a manager on the North American Institutional distribution team at Investec Asset Management, and responsible for landing key accounts in the western region. From 2001 to 2012, Hien was an Associate Director of Institutional Investments at Artio Global Investors/JBIM, where she assisted in raising $25 billion in assets. From 1997 to 2001, she was with Prime Performance, as a senior account manager. She started her career with Great West Life & Annuity as a marketing associate. Hien received her BA in International Business & Marketing from University of Colorado.

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recently the Executive Director, Risk Management at Indus Capital, a long/short equity fund. Previously, he was the Head of Risk Management at Artio Global Investors/JBIM, which he joined in 2004. Before joining Artio, Prasad was a Senior Vice President for Quantitative Analysis and Risk Management at Jennison Associates. His professional experience also includes three years as a Managing Director for Quantitative Analysis and Risk Management at Prudential Investments; three years as Director of Risk Management for Nomura Securities International; and, a year as a Senior Associate at Smith Breeden Associates. Before joining Smith Breeden. Prasad was an Assistant Professor of Finance at Indiana University in Bloomington. Prasad received his Doctorate in Business Administration from the University of Michigan, a Master of Science in Statistics and Operations Research from Bowling Green University and a Bachelor of Statistics in Mathematics and Statistics from Indian Statistical Institute.

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Head of Investment Management for JP Morgan Singapore and Head of Global Equity for Bankers Trust International Private Bank before joining Nile. During his tenure, assets under management at all these organizations expanded dramatically. Brett’s responsibilities included the development of asset management and research processes, global asset allocation strategies and economic analysis. Brett began his career as an analyst with Irwin Management Company where he was responsible for the selection and evaluation of external managers and for financial oversight of Venture Capital investments. He has appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox Business News, been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, and was a guest lecturer at Yale University. Brett received his BA in Economics from the University of Virginia and his MBA from The Darden Graduate School of Business. Brett serves on the University of Virginia Alumni Association Board of Managers.

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and data science. He was previously Portfolio Manager and Director of Data Science at Denali Advisors, where he managed quantitative growth portfolios. Prior to that, Ken served as COO of McKinley Management, overseeing up to $11 billion in AUM, where he played a key role in diversifying the firm into private equity and commercial lending. Ken also worked as Senior Quantitative Research Analyst at McKinley. Earlier in his career, Ken held roles as Director of Equities and Quantitative Research at Midwest Asset Management, algorithmic trader, and Systems Analyst at Deloitte Consulting. Ken holds a master’s degree in Analytic Finance from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Northwestern University.

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organizational development, and strategic consulting. For the past three years in a row, The Lawrence Advisory has been named one of the Top Retained Executive Search Firms in Los Angeles by the Los Angeles Business Journal. Lawrence also recently served as the first Executive-in-Residence at USC’s Marshall School of Business, advising faculty, administration, and students on issues of organizational development in today’s workplace. She is a Contributor to Forbes, writing about leadership strategy.

Previously, Lawrence led the Los Angeles Consumer industry practice at Russell Reynolds Associates, one of the world’s largest executive recruiting and assessment firms. There she handled senior-level management and board of director searches, while also working in the firm’s executive assessment practice.

Unique among her peers, Lawrence is one of a select few human capital consultants with real-world senior level management experience. She is a veteran of the cable television industry, having served as General Manager of Fox Family Channel, and was previously Vice President of Affiliate Marketing at Nickelodeon. She has also held leadership roles at MTV Networks, Kraft, and Nestle. She was awarded the prestigious National Cable Television Association’s Vanguard Award for Young Leadership, in recognition of her contribution to the industry on a national level before the age of 40. In addition, she was appointed to the Aspen Institute’s Forum on Communications and Society.

Lawrence holds a BA in Economics from Stanford University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

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investor, board member and strategic advisor to growth companies and companies in transition. Mr. Reinfrank currently serves as a board member and lead independent director of Mount Logan Capital, a Canada-based asset manager. Mr. Reinfrank is also a board member of MidCap Financial Investment Corp. (formerly Apollo Investment Corp.) an externally managed, publicly traded, Business Development Company, focused on providing senior debt solutions to middle market companies. He is also a board member of Middle Market Apollo Institutional Private Lending, a private credit fund between Apollo and Mubadala Investment Company. Mr. Reinfrank was a board member of Perception Capital II, Perception Capital III, and Perception Capital IV, all special purpose acquisition companies. Mr. Reinfrank recently was a Director of Kayne Anderson Acquisition Corp. He co-founded and served as a Managing General Partner of Rader Reinfrank & Co. His prior experience includes roles as an executive, investor, advisor and board director across a wide range of industries for the Roy E. Disney and Marvin Davis families. Mr. Reinfrank is also an advisor or board member to several privately held companies. Mr. Reinfrank meets the requirements of a Sarbanes-Oxley audit committee financial expert pursuant to item 407(d)(5)(ii) of Regulation S-K and he is FINRA licensed for Series 7, 62 and Series 63.

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In addition to Mr. Feliciano’s investing responsibilities, he is responsible for the day-to-day management of the firm, and serves on the board of directors of several Clearlake portfolio companies. With a sector-focused approach, the firm seeks to partner with world-class management teams by providing long-term capital that can benefit from Clearlake’s operational improvement approach, O.P.S.® The firm’s core target sectors are software and technology-enabled services; industrials and energy; and consumer. Prior to co-founding Clearlake, he was a partner and member of the investment committee at Tennenbaum, a private investment firm focused on distressed and other special situations investments. Before joining Tennenbaum, he served as CFO of govWorks, Inc., a payments and other services provider to the public sector, where he managed the finance, corporate development and human resource functions. Mr. Feliciano began his career in the investment banking division at Goldman, Sachs & Co working in the M&A and corporate finance groups. He co-founded the SUPERCHARGED Initiative, a philanthropic grantmaking and impact investment organization, in 2014 with his wife, Kwanza Jones, which invests in both nonprofit and for-profit ventures that aim to make a lasting impact across education, entrepreneurship, equal opportunity and empowerment. In addition, he serves on the board of directors of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and the Robert Toigo Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering the career advancement and increased leadership of underrepresented talent. He is the 2019 recipient of SEO Alternative Investments’ Reginald F. Lewis Achievement Award. He graduated with high honors from Princeton University, with a BS in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, and his MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.

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School of Business Executive Program for Smaller Companies in 1978. Since then, he has devoted his career to the expansion of small, minority, and women-owned investment companies.

Among Mr. Cazenave’s many accomplishments, he is best known for his entrepreneurial pursuits. He was co-founder with Ed Callan of Progress Investment Management Company, a San Francisco based asset manager that provided many minority and women owned firms their first opportunity to manage institutional assets.

He successfully sold Progress to Liberty Financial, a subsidiary of Liberty Mutual, in 1998. He is also known as the developer and manager of the first New York Stock Exchange member firm to be located in a Black community in the Western United States. In the past, he has served as the Regional Administrator of the Small Business Administration, Director of Business Development for the State of California, and as a Principal Consultant to the State Assembly Office of Research.

He currently serves on the advisory board of Nile Capital Group, a Los Angeles based private equity firm that provides capital and strategic expertise to diverse, boutique, and emerging asset managers. He was a former board member of the Pauline Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Business, where he continues to lecture as an entrepreneur in residence. He is also a mentor to the UCLA Football program.

Mr. Cazenave has given back to his community as a volunteer at San Quentin Prison and Marin County Jail, and is currently a peer support counselor for prostate cancer at University of California San Francisco. He also continues to serve as a mentor to those in the financial services business. Mr. Cazenave has many awards including Distinguished Alumnus Award from California State University at Los Angeles and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Human Dignity Award from the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles.

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