"Our mission is to create wealth by working
together to develop and expand the
value of a carefully selected portfolio of
privately held companies.”
The
General Partner of the Fund is Roxiticus Valley
Partners, LLC, (“RVP”) formed for the purpose of
managing the Fund and supporting its mission and
operating activities.
RVP’s management includes:
Richard DeSimone, Managing Director is an
entrepreneur with more than three decades of
experience in business finance and management.
Mr. DeSimone has extensive experience in
building and managing early stage businesses. He
has been involved with dozens of successful
early stage businesses either as a member of the
management team, as an investor or advisor. He
has held executive and board positions with
several privately held firms. In 2001, Mr.
DeSimone negotiated and sold Planet Technology
Solutions to Vytek Wireless a venture capital
funded technology company. He had served as
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive
Officer of Planet. In 2005, acquired and sold
CentreReach Technologies, Inc. to Canadian based
emFast Corp in a private transaction. Mr.
DeSimone is also the founder of Roxiticus
Ventures LLC. In 2001, Mr. DeSimone and
Roxiticus advised the founding team of ESP
Pharma, Inc. and was involved as an advisor and
investor. ESP Pharma was sold in 2005 to PDL
BioPharma for $500 Million. In 2005 Mr. DeSimone
founded Roxiticus Valley Life Sciences Fund
where he serves as General
Partner. RVLSF is an early stage investor in EKR
Therapeutics, Inc where he serves on the Board
and as acting CFO. He also serves as a member of
the Board of Directors of a number of early
stage companies.
W.R. “Max” Carey, Managing Director
is the founder
and chairman of CRD, a nationally-recognized
business to business marketing strategies and
advisory firm and is recognized as one of
America’s leading sales and marketing experts.
CRD was founded in 1981 help people and
businesses succeed. The evolution of the company
has led to frequent inclusion of CRD successes
and concepts in national publications including,
Fortune, Inc. Magazine, Life, Success and
various trade journals. Mr. Carey graduated from
Columbia University where he was an Ivy League
and NCAA record-setting defensive back. He
became a Naval aviator, earned Top Gun
certification and flew over 100 combat missions
over North Vietnam. After his military service,
he joined AON, formerly known as Ryan Insurance
Group, as an entry-level salesman and in five
years rose to National Marketing Manager. His
expertise in differentiation strategies has
served as a guide for CRD to provide practical,
real world, and highly measurable solutions to
business problems. Mr. Carey’s expertise in
marketing and differentiation strategies has led
CRD to a position of serving some of the
nation’s largest and most prestigious companies
and fast growth entrepreneurial firms in
effectively dealing with pressures caused by
increased competition and less product and
service differentiation. He serves on
the Board of Directors of four public companies:
Outback Steakhouse, K-force, J.B. Hanouer and
Crosswalk.com. He is also the Chairman of the
Foundation for Entrepreneurship.
Advisory Board
Members of Roxiticus Valley Partners, LLC Board
of Advisors includes:
Stewart E. McClure currently serves as the Chief
Executive Officer of The Bank of the Somerset
Hills. The Bank of the Somerset Hills tailors
its products and services to meet the unique
needs of the community. Prior to The Bank of the
Somerset Hills, Mr. McClure served as Senior
Executive Vice President and Manager of The
Private Bank at Summit Bank, a subsidiary of
Summit Bancorp. In 1990, Mr. McClure joined The
Summit Bank Corporation, a Princeton-based
financial services organization. At that time,
Mr. McClure served as Executive Vice President
and Senior Lending Officer of Summit’s Somerset
Trust Company affiliate.
In 1993, Somerset Trust Company was consolidated
into Summit Bank, and he served as Group
Executive Vice President of Commercial Banking,
which included Corporate Banking, Commercial
Real Estate and Mortgage Warehouse Finance. At
that time Summit Bancorp had more than $33
billion in assets and operates more the 450
traditional branches throughout New Jersey,
Connecticut, and eastern Pennsylvania. Summit
Bank was sold to Fleet Bank in March 2001.
Mr. McClure began his banking career in 1972 at
American National Bank in its Morristown, New
Jersey office. In 1980, Mr. McClure joined
Fidelity Union Bank in Newark, New Jersey as a
Vice President of Corporate Banking. He also
served at Carteret Savings Bank in Morristown,
New Jersey where he served from 1983 to 1990.
Mr. McClure attended West Virginia Wesleyan
College in Buckhannon, West Virginia and
graduated with a B.S. in business and economics
in 1972. He received his M.B.A. in management
from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison,
New Jersey in 1975.
Howard Weisman is currently Chairman and CEO of EKR Therapeutics, Inc. Prior to EKR Mr. Weisman
was President, Chief Operating Officer and
Director of ESP Pharma, a specialty
pharmaceutical company which he sold to PDL
BioPharma in 2005 for $500 Million. Mr. Weisman
began his career at Merck & Co, Inc. and held
several positions of increasing responsibility
in hospital sales and marketing management for
Merck's hospital product line. Mr. Weisman
joined Parke-Davis in 1994 as Director of New
Products and later was Senior Director, Diabetes
Marketing where he oversaw the launch of Rezulin
in 1997. He went on to become the Senior
Director of Strategic Partnership Development at
Parke-Davis and co-founded the company’s
E-Business Unit in 1999. Mr. Weisman is a
partner at ESP Equity Partners LLC, a healthcare
consulting and investment firm, which he founded
in 2005. Mr. Weisman holds a BA in Chemistry
from Rutgers University and attended Princeton
University Graduate School of Chemistry.
