OUR TEAM | SENIOR ADVISORS | GLOBAL ADVISORY COUNCIL
David Barnes is a Senior Advisor at Bridge Growth Partners. Mr. Barnes previously served as the Chief Information and Global Business Services Officer of United Parcel Service, a world leader in supply chain, logistics, and transportation services. In this capacity, from 2005-2016, he served as a member of the UPS Management Committee, as a member of the Company’s Finance, Risk, and Strategy Committees, and as the Chair of the Technology Steering Committee.
Mr. Barnes currently serves as a Director of DXC Technology, Hertz, Solace, and Syniti, and is a former Director of Ingram Micro.
Randy Cowen is a Senior Advisor at Bridge Growth Partners. He currently serves as a Director of Solace. Mr. Cowen has over 30 years of leadership experience in the technology and IT sectors. He has a long-tenured history at the Goldman Sachs Group, joining in 1982 and becoming a Partner in 1996, and held numerous executive leadership roles including Global Head of Technology and Operations (2004-2008), Chief Information Officer (2001-2007) and Co-Chief Administrative Officer (2007- 2008).
Mr. Cowen previously served as a Director of EMC, Pivotal Software, GTY Technology Holdings, and The Depository Trust & Clearing.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in History with a minor in Mathematics from Michigan State University.
Tom Ferrando is a Senior Advisor at Bridge Growth Partners. Mr. Ferrando brings more than three decades of experience building and scaling technology services businesses. Most recently, Mr. Ferrando served as the Chief Executive Officer of Salient CRGT, a former Bridge Growth Partners portfolio company and a leading provider of data analytics, cloud, agile software development, cybersecurity, and infrastructure solutions to U.S. national security, federal civilian, and federal health agencies. Mr. Ferrando played an integral role in driving Salient CRGT’s transformative growth, resulting in its acquisition in August 2021 by GovernmentCIO, a portfolio company of Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. Prior to that, Mr. Ferrando was CEO of CRGT, which merged with Salient in 2015.
Mr. Ferrando currently serves on the Board of Directors of GovernmentCIO.
He holds a Master of Science in Management from Stevens Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Seton Hall University.
Peter Griffiths is a Senior Advisor at Bridge Growth Partners. He is a Director of Accedian and Syniti. Previously, he was the Executive Vice President of Products at CA Technologies, where he was responsible for investment and strategy across the company’s broad portfolio of products and solutions for enterprise and growth markets.
Prior to CA, Mr. Griffiths was Vice President of Worldwide Business Analytics and Applications Development of IBM, responsible for building the Business Analytics division within IBM Software.
Prior to IBM, Mr. Griffiths served as Senior Vice President of Products at Cognos, which he joined when Cognos acquired Relational Matters PLC, a data analytics company that Mr. Griffiths co-founded and led as Chief Executive Officer.
Mr. Griffiths was a former Director of Lavastorm Analytics, and is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the Anita Borg Institute. He earned a B.S. degree in Electronic Engineering with 1st Class Honors from Brighton University in England.
Ken Hamel is a Senior Advisor at Bridge Growth Partners. He currently serves as a Director of Syniti. Mr. Hamel has over 38 years of operations, finance and IT experience in the technology industry. He has a long-tenured history at SAP, joining in 2003, and held numerous leadership roles including Executive Vice President – Global Business Operations (2018-2021), Senior Vice President – Global Customer Strategy and Sales Operations (2012-2018) and Senior Vice President – Global Presales and Solutions (2009-2012).
Prior to SAP, Mr. Hamel spent 10 years at Oracle as Vice President of Oracle University – Americas, leading the Customer Education business in the US, Canada and Latin America, and Vice President of Global Sales Support. Earlier in his career, Mr. Hamel held various senior sales positions at Digital Equipment Corporation for 10 years.
Jonathan Harber is a Senior Advisor at Bridge Growth Partners. Mr. Harber has over 30 years of experience as a pioneer in education technology. Mr. Harber was the CEO and Co-Founder of SchoolNet, a company that helped school systems use data to increase academic achievement. In 2011, SchoolNet was acquired by Pearson, a global education and publishing company, where Mr. Harber served as CEO Pearson K12 Technology.
Mr. Harber is a former Director of Finalsite, which is backed by Bridge Growth. Finalsite is the leader in marketing and communications solutions for K-12 independent and public schools.
Mr. Harber received his M.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he completed a thesis on education technology at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the MIT Media Lab. He received his B.A. with Honors in Cognitive Science from Wesleyan University.
Dave Laverty is a Senior Advisor at Bridge Growth Partners. He is a former Director of Finalsite. Previously, he served as Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of IBM’s Data and Analytics Division, where he was responsible for strategy positioning and driving demand for the division and managing a global team of 400 marketing professionals.
Prior to IBM, Dave was Chief Marketing Officer for Cognos a global business intelligence software company acquired by IBM. Before joining Cognos, Dave held senior management positions with Surebridge, a venture-backed infrastructure and SaaS provider acquired by Navisite, and with Lotus Development Corporation, acquired by IBM.
Mr. Laverty serves as a board member for the Rhode Island PBS Foundation, and Demand Spring, a marketing consultancy. He is a graduate of Bryant University with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.
Sander Levy is the Managing Member of Lakeside Capital Holdings, a private investment firm. He is a Co-Founder of Bridge Growth Partners and a Senior Advisor of the Firm and served as a Managing Principal from Bridge Growth’s founding in 2013 until April 2021. Prior to Bridge Growth Partners, he was a Managing Director of Vestar Capital Partners, a private equity investment firm, which at the time managed over $8 billion of equity capital, and was a founding partner at the firm’s inception. Mr. Levy was Co-Chair of Vestar’s Investment Committee, a member of the Executive Committee, and was primarily responsible for the firm’s financial services practice. Earlier in his career, he was a member of the Management Buyout Group of First Boston (now Credit Suisse).
He currently serves as Director of Symetra Financial, and is a former Director of SalientCRGT, Clark Schwebel, Duff & Phelps, Gleason, Sun Apparel, Triton Container, Validus and WiltonRe Holdings, among other Vestar-related companies.
In addition, Mr. Levy serves as a Trustee of The Jewish Museum. He previously served as a member of the Board, Executive Committee and was Chair of the Finance Committee of The Birthright Israel Foundation. He also served on the Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets of The Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Mr. Levy graduated summa cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and holds an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School.
Janet Perna is a Senior Advisor of Bridge Growth Partners. She was the former General Manager of Information Management within IBM Software, responsible for a multi-billion dollar businesses within the Company.
Ms. Perna has held numerous board positions, and is a current Director of Solace, and was a former Director of Cloudmark, Cognos, Deltek, Flexera, JDA Software, RedPrairie, and Varicent Software.
She is a member of the Foundation Board of Directors at the State University of New York at Oneonta, and is also the Founder of the Perna-Rose Foundation for Hope. Ms. Perna has a B.S. in mathematics and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the State University of New York at Oneonta.
Dr. Danny Sabbah is a Senior Advisor at Bridge Growth Partners, and is a former Director of Finalsite.
Dr. Sabbah held numerous senior executive positions at IBM, including Chief Technology Officer and General Manager of IBM Cloud and NextGen Computing, General Manager of Tivoli and Rational Software, and Chief Technology Officer of IBM Software (among others) where he oversaw more than 22,000 developers across 57 R&D centers.
He began his IBM career in 1974, focusing on telecommunications software (VTAM) in Kingston, New York. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Rochester in 1981, specializing in artificial intelligence and computer vision.
George Stoeckert is a Senior Advisor of Bridge Growth Partners. He was most recently President & CEO (Interim) of The Brink’s Company, and presently serves on the Board of Directors. Previously, he was the President of North America and Internet Solutions at Dun & Bradstreet. Prior to Dun & Bradstreet, Mr. Stoeckert was at Automatic Data Processing Inc., where for nearly 17 years he held various senior operational leadership positions and in his last role led the global employer services business. Mr. Stoeckert also spent 17 years with Ryder System, Inc. in various financial and general management roles including Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Mergers & Acquisitions.
Mr. Stoeckert serves as a director of Theragenics, a medical device company. He is a past director of Onvia, Inc and Capital Re Corporation.
He holds a M.B.A. from the University of Miami Graduate School of Business as well as an A.B. in Psychology.