Our Team

Investment Bankers Who Speak Technology

MergerTech leaders have expertise in the entire process of investment banking: from initial strategy to completing the transaction. Even better, we have experience building technology and technology-enabled companies. We strive to give every client “big company” services informed by tech company savvy. MergerTech executives and investment bankers have expertise in all aspects of technology investment banking, including mergers and acquisitions and capital raises for growth or recapitalization.

David Shohet

Managing Director / Partner


David is responsible for managing client engagements in the areas of Software, Data and Data Analytics, Media and Emerging Growth including Mobility, Social Commerce and Location Services. He has 20 years of experience in financial management, business capitalization and technology company management.

Since joining MergerTech in 2010, David has closed transactions for clients including big data analytics, mobile software, healthcare software, and social graph driven ecommerce. Clients include pre-revenue IP sales, and often involve companies with prior venture financing.

Prior to joining MergerTech, David was the head of finance and acting CFO at Rearden Commerce, an enterprise software company where he led private equity financing rounds and debt financing which raised over $175M in new capital, as well as managed the acquisition of two technology companies. He was director of finance at Menerva Technologies, Inc., a software development company, responsible for the successful effort to secure venture funding and subsequently the eventual sale of the business to a publicly traded software company. Thus he has managed the entire M&A process from both sides of the table, including the investor presentation, negotiations, due diligence, closing and post-closing activities.

David was founder of an Internet start-up for which he negotiated venture funding and has also performed financial management roles in several firms outside of the technology sector.

David earned a bachelor degree in business administration from the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley, and an MBA with high honors from Harvard Business School.

dshohet@mergertech.com

Rohit Malhotra

Managing Director / Partner


Rohit is responsible for managing client engagements in the areas of IT Services, Enterprise Mobility, Semiconductor Engineering Services, Telecom Software and Social Media. Rohit has over 15 years of Investment Banking and Private Equity experience across the US, Asia Pacific and Middle East and 6 years of Project Engineering experience at a world-leading provider of wireless technology.

Prior to joining MergerTech, Rohit was the head of the Technology, Media and Telecommunications (“TMT”) corporate finance practice at Avista-Houlihan Lokey, a Pan-Asian Investment Banking advisory firm with a strong focus on cross-border M&A and restructuring practice. While at Avista-Houlihan Lokey, Rohit initiated several relationships with Corporates and Regional Private Equity / VC’s to help manage deal flow and originate new client engagements that fit the mid-market strategy of the firm. Rohit led a variety of transactions at all stages, from initial client pitch to transaction closing.

Rohit previously worked at Bear Stearns and SG Cowen in New York in the Technology, Media and Telecom sector where he advised on M&A and capital markets transactions for a broad range of large-cap clients, including Nortel Networks, Time Warner, Thomson Corporation, Viacom, Disney, Avaya and Savvis.

Notable transactions include advising Claxon Interactive Group on the divestiture of its Pay TV networks in Latin America to Time Warner, NewsPage Pte in its sale to Accenture, The Thomson Corporation on the acquisition of Solucient, Nortel Networks on its $8.2 billion bid for Avaya, Avocent Corporation on its acquisition of Cyclades Corporation, $1.1 billion offering of Senior Convertible Debt by Nortel Networks Corporation, the Special Committee of the Board of Directors of Savvis in connection with the restructuring of US $300 million Convertible Preferred Stock, Private Equity growth capital investment in EBLA Computer Consultancy Kuwait.

Rohit started his career at Qualcomm in California as an Engineer. He was an initial member of the CDMA 2000 software development team, and led the first 3G integration trials in South Korea. While at Qualcomm, Rohit was awarded a US Patent for designing and implementing a system which significantly improves the system capacity of a CDMA cellular network.

Rohit received an MBA from Cornell University and an M.S. in Computer Science from Drexel University.

rmalhotra@mergertech.com

Sandra Goldberg

Managing Director


Sandra is responsible for new client acquisition and managing client sector to MergerTech through a progressive career in diverse start-up, corporate and entrepreneurial environments. Based on her in-depth operating experience running IT services and technology companies, she has particular expertise managing buy and sell-side M&A transactions in the IT services, professional services, consulting and solution provider sectors, including ERP and Business Intelligence consulting firms and numerous Cisco solution providers. She has facilitated a variety of technology sector transactions, with 75% of her sell-side clients sold to public companies or private equity firms.

Prior to her work at MergerTech, she was involved with various IT sector clients at MergerTech’s sister firm, Martin Wolf Securities and its parent, Martin Wolf Associates, including projects for Altiris (now Symantec), ASAP Software (now Dell), CDW Corporation and LANDesk Software, Inc. Sandra was CEO and President of kärna LLC, a start-up technology company where she led the company from its early stages, including raising the initial capital. She was also Vice President, Corporate Development and Acquisitions for CompuCom Systems, Inc., a $2B systems integrator, where she successfully facilitated over $600 million in acquisitions during her tenure.

Prior to her work in M&A, Sandra spent eleven years with ComputerLand as Vice President, Sales and Franchise Operations of the franchisor, ComputerLand Corporation, where she managed its $1 billion franchise business. Sandra played key roles in the acquisition of ComputerLand’s Franchise and Distribution division by Merisel, Inc. and subsequent acquisition by SYNNEX Corporation.

Sandra received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and was recognized as Outstanding Female Graduate.

sgoldberg@mergertech.com

Frank Jarolimek-Proner

Senior Vice President


Frank joined MergerTech in 2010 and is responsible for managing client engagements throughout the M&A process in the areas of Software, Analytics, Mobile Technology, and Emerging Technologies. Frank has over twelve years of experience in the technology industry as entrepreneur, advisor and investor. Frank is passionate about technology because: “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic (Arthur C. Clarke)”.

Prior to joining MergerTech, Frank worked as an expatriated Senior Consultant in São Paulo, Brazil for Vila Nova Asset Management, a financial investment consultancy focusing on global asset allocation strategies as well as private placements. Frank was responsible for client development as well as providing investment strategy recommendations and portfolio simulations. Before that Frank was part of the start-up team at Hotgrinds.com, an advanced web analytics solution providing opinion mining and sentiment analysis funded by Allen & Company.

Education

Frank studied Political Science at the Institut d’Études Politiques (sciences-Po) in France and studied International Relations, Economics and Finance at the London School of Economics (LSE) where he received a BSc with Honors. Frank speaks fluent French and Portuguese.

Investments

Frank is an early investor and advisor to the Y Combinator startup REVL, an ultra-stable action camera with auto-edit and instant sharing.

Where can we typically find you on a Sunday afternoon?

Frank is an avid kiteboarder and surfer. Whenever the conditions are right, he will be in the water, rain or shine, chasing wind and waves.

fjarolimek-proner@mergertech.com

Patricia Wegner

Chief Operating Officer


Patricia is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations and client services at MergerTech. She has worked in mergers and acquisitions focused in the technology sector for the last fifteen years, participating in more than 20 closed transactions.

Pat has 35 years of experience in the IT industry, including software product development, operations, sales and marketing for IT supply chain companies, and development and marketing of value-added services for enterprise solution providers.

Prior to launching MergerTech, Pat was VP and General Manager of Martin Wolf Strategies, a technology channel consulting practice of Martin Wolf Associates. She worked with IT sector companies including Microsoft, CDW Corporation, Altiris (now Symantec) and LANDesk Software to develop strategic partner relationships for indirect sales and services delivery. Pat worked for fourteen years for ComputerLand Corporation in marketing and operations and its parent Merisel, Inc., where she was responsible for advertising, promotions, and value-added programs. Pat is a FINRA registered representative.

Pat has a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from San Francisco State University.

pwegner@mergertech.com

Nitin Khanna

Founder and Chief Executive Officer Emeritus


Nitin founded MergerTech in 2009. He spent the first six months rebranding (MergerTech was formerly known as M&A Forum), repositioning, and relaunching the company. Since then he has helped lead the company’s growth and client development efforts as well as being the lead strategy and negotiation advisor on the company’s largest deals.

Prior to becoming CEO of MergerTech, Nitin was the founder, Chairman and CEO of Saber Corp., one of the largest providers of state government solutions in the country. Nitin cofounded Saber in July 1998 and helped grow it to 1200 employees and over $120MM in revenue by 2007 when it was sold to EDS for $460MM. Nitin then assumed leadership of EDS’ government business operation that included Saber; eight months later when he departed EDS (after HP’s acquisition of EDS) the company had $300MM in revenue and 1500 employees. Nitin led 8 M&A transactions at Saber, and that experience allows him to provide both operational, strategic, and M&A advice to our clients.

Nitin sits on the boards of TiE Oregon (non-profit) and the Classic Wines Auction (non-profit), and in addition advises over half a dozen companies in the mobile, social, and cloud spaces.

He holds Master’s and Bachelor’s of Engineering degrees from Purdue University.

nkhanna@mergertech.com

Karan Khanna

Founder and President Emeritus


Karan co-founded MergerTech in 2009. In addition to Business Development activities, Karan’s primary focus is to create partnerships, both external and internal, that allow MergerTech to grow and scale rapidly. This growth is achieved by ensuring that the company has the senior bankers and analysts, as well as operational resources at its disposal, to meet its mission to help advise technology companies. Karan created the full hiring plan and brought on senior bankers and analysts that aligned with the firm’s traditional strength in IT Services and Solution Providers but also those who could lead clients in the emerging verticals of Mobile, Big Data, Social and Cloud. He formed partnerships with Stanford and UC Berkeley to bring on interns and analysts, while concurrently creating an infrastructure that could manage 100% of the year-over-year growth expected by MergerTech. This team and infrastructure successfully supported MergerTech as it grew from approximately $30MM in closed transaction value in 2010 to over $300MM in 2012.

Prior to MergerTech, Karan was the founder, President and COO of Saber Corp. a Portland based national firm focused on providing technology solutions to government clients. Saber’s success, based in a large part on its on-time and on-budget delivery and enviable record of service and reputation, led to a significant investment in the company by Accel-KKR Private Equity in 2005 with an eventual sale of the company for $460MM to EDS in December 2007. At Saber, Karan helped lead the integration of 8 M&A transactions, an experience that currently allows him to provide deep operational, strategic, and M&A advice to MergerTech clients.

Karan sits on the boards of the Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship (Chapman University) and TIE South Coast (non-profit). Karan lives in Southern California with his wife Priyanka and son Kismat.

kkhanna@mergertech.com

decades of experience working in and selling technology solutions and services businesses
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