Delivering
LHA provides best practices IR by assembling a team of seasoned professionals for each client engagement. Our professionals draw on the valuable resources available to them both within the primary account team and throughout the firm, exchanging ideas with colleagues and sharing their experiences in corporate finance, business strategy, marketing, communications and the capital markets.
Leveraging
LHA advisors are a group of investor relations professionals selected to assist the organization in providing capital advisory services and best-in-breed investor relations to our clients. Advisor backgrounds vary, but include investment banking, sell-side research, portfolio management, and client services.
John W. Heilshorn
John Heilshorn, co-founding partner of LHA, joined Keith Lippert in 1984 to create a firm that would pioneer the professional practice of investor relations and corporate communications. Working early on with international high-technology clients, John helped build LHA into a premier provider of strategic communications services to public and soon-to-be public companies. In the process, he established his own reputation as a knowledgeable, capable and credible advisor to growth companies in a variety of sectors.
Since 1982, John has advised hundreds of public and private companies on financial disclosure, strategic and crisis communications, investment thesis formation, analyst and shareholder relations, navigating the capital markets, and media relations. Drawing on his extensive relationships with investing institutions and investment banks, John advises clients in a variety of industries, including telecom/data center, cleantech, consumer goods, technology, financial services and building materials companies.
A recognized ambassador for investor relations, John has addressed National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) conferences across the country and serves on the Board of Advisors for Main Street Resources, a private equity firm. John began his career as a registered investment advisor for Merrill Lynch, and holds a BA in Government from Lawrence University.
Jody Burfening
Jody Burfening leads the New York team of account professionals who specialize in executing investor relations programs for clients spanning the technology, diversified industrials, digital media, telecommunications and consumer goods sectors. With over 15 years of investor relations experience through capital markets cycles and evolving disclosure rules and communications best practices, Jody has designed the strategy for and managed the implementation of a broad range of investor relations programs, helping both under-discovered, orphaned and newly public companies gain Street sponsorship and achieve their capital markets objectives. She has also advised clients on the full spectrum of strategic and crisis communications issues, including bankruptcies, proxy fights, unsolicited proposals, plant closings, C-level transitions among others.
Prior to joining LHA, Jody was a Manager of Business Development at Duracell International. Previously, she served as an Engagement Manager at Houlihan, Lokey, Howard & Zukin on valuation engagements, including solvency opinions and fairness opinions, and gained experience in mergers and acquisitions and equity valuations at W.R. Grace and PepsiCo.
Jody earned an MBA from the Wharton School of Business. She holds an MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago and a BA from Wheaton College. She is also a member of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI).
Kirsten F. Chapman
After joining LHA in 1999 and assuming increasing responsibility, Kirsten Chapman has led the San Francisco team since 2004. Kirsten and team work with small-cap public and private companies in a variety of industries including software and services, cleantech and traditional industrial, consumer products and telecommunications. She believes the core to improving communications begins with a thorough understanding of the business followed by organized programming and proactive implementation. Specializing in message development, communication and investor interaction, Kirsten helps clients in all stages of the business cycle navigate Wall Street. Over the years, she has guided over 75 companies through a range of IR activities including quarter end reporting, non-deal roadshows, acquisitions, management changes, catalyst events, turnarounds, product launches, IPOs, follow-on transactions and more.
Prior to LHA, Kirsten served as the Head of Investor Relations at Glenborough Realty Trust, which at the time was a publicly-traded $2 billion market-cap real estate investment trust. While responsible for all investor relations activities, she focused on creating and disseminating a consistent company message as well as targeting and managing institutional investors. Prior to that, Kirsten worked in New York for 10 years with J.P. Morgan Investment Management and Chase Manhattan Bank, where she honed her accounting, financial analysis and client relationships skills.
Kirsten earned an MBA from Fordham Graduate School of Business while working and received her BS from Lehigh University. A member of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI), she has served on the San Francisco chapter’s board. In 2006, she led the IR team that won a PRSA Silver Anvil Award for Improved Connections to Investors.
Bruce Voss
Bruce Voss founded LHA’s Los Angeles office in 1997 and leads the firm’s healthcare practice, with account professionals in Los Angeles and New York. Under his direction, LHA’s healthcare practice has become one of the largest and most highly regarded in the industry.
Bruce began his investor relations career in 1984 and has focused on the healthcare sector since 1990. At LHA, he has provided strategic, transactional and tactical support to hundreds of U.S. and overseas clients, encompassing all healthcare sectors and most every disease category. Clients range from development-stage microcaps to members of the S&P 500, Fortune 500 and NASDAQ 100 with global operations. He has particular expertise with high-impact/high-visibility events, including mergers and acquisitions, clinical trial data readouts, regulatory actions, financial reporting and restatements, proxy contests, litigation support, Analyst/R&D Days, executive turnover and changes to corporate strategy. At LHA his clients have raised more than $3 billion in equity and convertible debt transactions, including more than a dozen IPOs. His team has arranged some 10,000 one-on-one meetings between client executives and members of the investment community. Bruce also is responsible for bringing important changes to LHA, including establishing the market intelligence function and an emphasis on senior-level staffing.
His previous work includes agency and in-house IR positions in New York and San Francisco. He has won numerous industry awards and has lectured at NASDAQ, NIRI and Up-Listing events. Bruce holds an MBA from the Stern School of Business, a BS from the Carlson School of Management and a BA from the University of Minnesota.
David Barnard
David Barnard has more than 30 years of investor relations, finance and operating experience in technology, early stage investing and investment management. He first joined LHA in 1999. Working with over 30 client companies during seven years, he left LHA as a senior vice president in 2006 to co-found and serve as chief financial officer for Edge Media Inc., an internet start-up.
Prior to rejoining LHA in 2021, David worked as an independent financial consultant. In the 1990s, he was senior vice president of research for Morrison & Frazier LLC, a San Francisco Bay Area investment advisor, where he served as co-portfolio manager and equity analyst, covering technology and special situations.
Mr. Barnard earned his MBA from Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, and his B.M. in Jazz Studies from Indiana University, and he is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). David and his wife Denise are active in dog rescue and have fostered and help place over 150 dogs into loving homes.
Yvonne Briggs
Yvonne Briggs joined LHA in 2019, bringing to the firm more than 20 years of experience in the healthcare sector. Yvonne leverages her experience in investment banking, as well as on the corporate side, to assist clients with their communication and growth strategies. She has particular experience providing financial guidance and crafting corporate messaging for transactional situations.
Yvonne began her career in the research departments of Dean Witter and Smith Barney before earning her MBA. She then spent nearly a decade on Wall Street as an investment banker at Oppenheimer & Co., rising from Associate to Vice President and executing capital raising and M&A transactions for middle-market healthcare companies. Yvonne was subsequently hired by her client IRIS International, a publicly traded medical device company. At IRIS International she focused on corporate development including investor relations, acquisitions and strategy, through to the company’s acquisition by Danaher Corp. During her tenure, IRIS International grew from $30 million to $130 million in annual revenues, with significantly enhanced exposure to the Street. Most recently, she worked for SilverGens, an early stage digital health company as head of its corporate development efforts, focusing on strategy, product development, partnerships and capital raising.
Yvonne holds an MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University and a BS in Business Administration from Pepperdine University.
Jody Cain
Jody Cain rejoined LHA in January 2015, having previously worked in the agency’s healthcare practice from 2001 to 2013. Jody is an accomplished senior-level communications professional with more than 25 years of experience. She is a strong strategic consultant with knowledge covering a broad range of communications issues, including corporate positioning, financial guidance, capital markets strategies and transactions, mergers and acquisitions, shareholder activism, management changes, licensing and partnership agreements and product recalls. Clients benefit from a wealth of investor relations, crisis and transactional expertise from her years at leading investor relations and crisis communications agencies. Jody brings an additional aspect to her client counsel through experience heading an in-house corporate communications department.
Jody works closely with senior management teams to develop messages that resonate with investors and identifies the best avenues to communicate these messages to targeted audiences. In addition to expertise in preparing shareholder letters, news releases, conference call scripts, investor presentations and Fact Sheets, Jody has been instrumental in arranging high-impact Analyst Day events, from date, venue and speaker selection to investment community targeting and presentation consulting.
Jody has been a speaker on investor and media relations at SEC Institute and International Business Forum conferences, as well as on investing in biotechnology at the UCLA/MIT Venture Forum. She holds BA and MA degrees in Communications from the University of Washington.
Carolyn Capaccio
Carolyn Capaccio joined LHA in 2004 after collaborating with the firm in a consulting capacity for over a year, during which she led a comprehensive perception study and repositioning exercise for NASDAQ. Through her background as both a sell-side analyst and investor relations counselor, Carolyn possesses an expertise in strategic counseling public companies on communicating significant corporate events, including emergence from bankruptcy, rebuilding/relaunching corporate identity, facilities closures, transformational M&A and capital markets transactions, and significant management changes. At LHA, she has worked with clients in the telecommunications/media/technology, alternative fuels, manufacturing, and financial sectors. She also is a co-author of the NASDAQ OMX Going Public Guide for North American Companies.
Prior to joining LHA, Carolyn was an equity research analyst at Robertson Stephens, a boutique investment bank, where she applied a return on invested capital (ROIC) and discounted cash flow (DCF) focus to analyze catalog, retail, and e-commerce channels in hard- and soft-goods retail sectors. She began her career at Prudential-Bache Securities as an equity coordinator on the firm’s equity research desk.
Carolyn earned a BA from Rutgers University where she participated in the Henry Rutgers General Honors Program and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Harriet C. Fried
Harriet Fried manages comprehensive investor relations programs for clients in a wide variety of sectors, including consumer goods, industrial/manufacturing, technology, transportation and business services. She joined LHA in 2000 with more than 20 years of corporate communications, consulting, and Wall Street experience. Her expert counsel and fresh strategic and tactical ideas – personalized to fit each client’s business fundamentals and corporate culture – have enabled LHA’s clients to expand the scope and caliber of their shareholder base and increase their sell-side coverage. Client longevity is a hallmark of Harriet’s contributions to LHA: among her clients, several have been with the firm for more than 15 years.
Before entering the field of investor relations, she was a vice president at Kidder, Peabody & Co., first specializing in federal finance and then moving into corporate public relations, and at Oppenheimer & Co., where she focused on real estate finance.
Harriet earned an MBA from Fordham Graduate School of Business, an MA with honors in Urban Affairs and Policy Analysis from the New School for Social Research and a BA with honors from the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Kim Sutton Golodetz
Kim Sutton Golodetz joined LHA’s healthcare practice in 1998. Drawing from more than 15 years of Wall Street experience, including several years as a sell-side securities analyst, she provides her clients with first-hand perspective on how the Street evaluates companies, how analysts build their models and, most importantly, how managements’ communications affect credibility and valuation. LHA clients have utilized Kim’s experience as a corporate relations manager at the American Stock Exchange to navigate through listing-related issues. During her tenure at LHA, Kim has guided many clients through introductions and investment banking relationships in support of IPOs, follow-on offerings and PIPEs that led to approximately half a billion dollars in funds raised. She is a full-service IR practitioner and her capabilities run the gamut from traditional tactics – including the preparation of written materials, such as conference call scripts, presentations, press releases and corporate Fact Sheets – to consulting on corporate positioning. As a long-time veteran of LHA’s healthcare practice, Kim has knowledge of various FDA regulatory pathways, including Pre-market Approvals, New Drug Applications, Abbreviated New Drug Applications and 510(k) Applications.
She was previously director of investor relations for a microcap company during a change in management and business focus from a biotechnology company to a drug delivery/medical device company.
Kim received a BA in English from the State University of New York at Albany and an MBA in International Business and Finance from Pace University.
Tirth Patel
Tirth Patel joined LHA in 2021, specializing in investor relations and capital markets strategy for healthcare companies. He is responsible for day-to-day client program management, fortifying and expanding relationships across the investment community, attracting new institutional investors and analysts and guiding executive leadership teams on financial communications.
Building upon an academic background in the life sciences, Tirth understands scientific and structural complexities within healthcare to better position companies to capture interest from investors and other stakeholder groups, and differentiate them from the competition. With more than eight years of healthcare investor communications experience, Tirth has guided private and public companies in various healthcare sub-sectors to accomplish their capital markets goals including IPO support, fundraising strategy, scenario planning, crisis communications, and more. Immediately prior to joining LHA, Tirth was Director of Investor Relations at BioDelivery Sciences (NASDAQ: BDSI), where he led the development of their IR program. Earlier in his career he was a senior professional in the New York offices of Tiberend Strategic Advisors and Edison Group, where he specialized in healthcare-focused investor relations.
Tirth holds a BA in mathematics from Emory University and an MA in Motor Learning & Movement Disorders from Columbia University.
Jeff Kelley
Jeff Kelley joined LHA in July 2000 with primary responsibility for cultivating relationships with institutional investors, securities analysts, investment bankers and retail stockbrokers on behalf of the firm’s healthcare clients. Since that time, Jeff has built the outreach effort to more than 1,000 institutional meetings and 750 retail stockbroker contacts annually, primarily in the U.S. His work includes LHA clients with market capitalizations ranging from less than $50 million to more than $500 million, and has covered all sub-sectors of the healthcare industry. Jeff has taken the lead on arranging meetings for clients at the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, with as many as 30 clients holding more than 400 meetings in a three-day period. His contribution to successful client programming has included supporting fundraising activities through introductions to investment bankers and direct investors, arranging introductions with sell-side analysts leading to company coverage and securing invitations for clients to present at brokerage-hosted investment conferences. While most client roadshows are managed by LHA, Jeff also works frequently with institutional sales forces and analysts.
Jeff has worked in investor relations since 1999. His previous experience includes more than 15 years as a retail stockbroker, market maker and investment advisor at Shearson Lehman, PaineWebber, Crowell Weedon and Dean Witter Reynolds.
Jeff holds a BA in History from the University of California Los Angeles, and has earned graduate business credits from Pepperdine University and graduate history credits from California State University Los Angeles.
Daniel Chertock
Daniel is an Investor Relations Associate at LHA, a branch of Alliance Advisors. Previously, he worked at PNC Bank in their Treasury Management Department. Daniel received a BS in Economics & Mathematics from The George Washington University.