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Our team of advisors at Paragon Strategic Advisors is comprised of industry professionals, with diverse senior-level experience, from the financial services, legal and consulting areas. We work collaboratively with clients, from start-ups to organizations in the Fortune 500, to assist them with their goals through various stages of investment and development across different business areas.
We welcome the opportunity to speak with you and provide you with information and resources to assist you with your current and future business objectives.
Joan Marie Asher
Ms. Asher is the Founder of Paragon Strategic Advisors (formerly Paragon Fund Services). With dual citizenship in the U.S. and Europe, she has an established career of over 25 years working in worked for top-tier financial institutions in the US and abroad in a variety of investment related activities. Her roles have included Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Compliance Officer culminating in a bird’s-eye view which is critical to the times and to the challenges facing most businesses.
Ms. Asher’s experience in the industry has allowed her to play a critical role in deal negotiations, compliance and governance, risk management, operational due diligence, and the oversight of third-party service providers. She is knowledgeable in establishing process-driven back and middle-office operations. Her operational standard of excellence has enabled her to keep a keen eye on the balance sheet and regulatory climate without losing sight of a firm’s overall strategic objective.
Ms. Asher is a Certified Investment Fund Director and an Investment Adviser Certified Compliance Professional.
She is a graduate of Fairfield University’s Charles F. Dolan School of Business, with a bachelor’s degree in finance and a graduate of the Investment Fund Director Institute in Dublin, Ireland.
She served as Board Chair of the American Institute of Wine & Food, CT Chapter and Board Treasurer of Stamford Dollars for Scholars, a division of Scholarships of America.
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Mary Ellen De Winter
Ms. De Winter is the Chief Strategy Officer at Paragon Strategic Advisors. She has over 20 years of management experience in the financial services, legal and consulting industries in the areas of strategic planning, operations management, project management, business development and client management.
In addition to her role with Paragon Strategic Advisors, Ms. De Winter was a Director with Distinct Solutions Group, a consulting group for professional service firms (e.g. financial institutions, law firms). Prior to her role with Distinct Solutions Group, she held senior-level management positions with global law firms. She was responsible for strategic and operational priorities, including merger and integration goals, and client development opportunities across industries (e.g. financial services, private equity, technology) and geographic markets. Before her broad experience in the legal industry, Ms. De Winter held similar management positions in the financial services industry. She led significant regional projects and managed operations and sales teams, including managing a bank investment program for high-net-worth individuals that surpassed aggressive revenue goals. She held FINRA Series 6 and 63 licenses.
Ms. De Winter is active in various professional associations, advises boards and serves on the board of Boston Women in Finance. She is a graduate of Providence College and holds an MBA from Northeastern University.
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Keith Augustyn
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Mr. Augustyn has an outstanding track record of developing new product offerings in financial information and technology SaaS companies as well as building and leading global business operations. He has extensive experience in developing the right business strategies, product roadmaps, operational designs, sales support and delivery plans to win and successfully deploy multimillion-dollar revenue generating products. With a client-centric mindset, he is deeply skilled at building large-scale global businesses from the ground-up to execute on new product revenue goals.
Keith joined FactSet Research Systems as a Vice President in 2007 to build the FactSet Fundamentals product and global content operation. He created overseas operations in India; spearheaded the idea and execution of FactSet’s subsidiary in the Philippines; conceptualized and built shared service centers for global document acquisition and language translation. Promoted to Director, he then created a new start-up Fundamentals offering focused on Deep Sector data including management of the Revere acquisition. Prior to this role, Mr. Augustyn was a Director at Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor’s Global Market Intelligence for 3 years. At Capital IQ, he was responsible for global Fundamental data strategy and content operations and in parallel, he developed and executed on an overseas start-up becoming the Country Manager of Capital IQ, Philippines. In the two years prior to Capital IQ, Mr. Augustyn was a Vice President with Thomson Financial in charge of merging four key Fundamental data set acquisitions including WorldScope. Prior experience in Investment Banking as a Sell-side Equity Analyst with Merrill Lynch as well as an analyst at Bloomberg. He received a B.S. in Accounting from Rider University.
Sabrina Sidl
Sabrina serves as director, strategy & partnerships at the Institute for Experiential AI, Sabrina supports the leadership team in its mission to create the leading research and education hub focused on responsible, human-centric artificial intelligence. Her focus is directed toward operations, human capital, strategy, and developing industry partnerships. She brings over 20 years of experience in working with prominent CEOs and senior leadership teams across multiple industry sectors. She has a deep passion for how technology impacts society and human behavior and is acutely adept at recognizing industry trends.
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Sabrina founded C-Gate Consulting Group in 2014 and provides management consulting services and executive coaching to CEOs, senior leaders, and board directors in technology, financial services, real estate, and prominent family offices. Her expertise spans human capital management, innovation, behavioral science, growth, and business development.
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In prior positions, Sabrina worked closely with senior leaders in real estate development and financial institutions such as Bridgewater Associates and Renaissance Technologies. She has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration & Psychology and had a global career working in officer positions in the maritime industry. Most recently, Sabrina completed executive education programs at the MIT Sloan School of Management titled Artificial Intelligence and Its Implications for Business Strategy and Neuroscience for Leadership. In addition, she completed a program on cryptocurrency investment, blockchain technology, and disruption at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
George Hritz
George has been a lawyer in private and federal government practice in New York and Washington DC for over 40 years. He began his career as a law clerk for a federal judge in New York and later became an associate at Cravath. He was a partner at Hogan Lovells and predecessor firms for over 30 years practicing mostly complex corporate litigation, including securities, contract and international disputes. Since moving his practice to Westchester, NY and Connecticut he has handled numerous hedge fund, private equity and investment banking related matters.
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Mr. Hritz is a graduate of Princeton University and Columbia Law School.
David Schwartz
Mr. Schwartz is currently VP of Business Intelligence at See Klear. A category management, market research and consumer insights consulting firm.
Over the past 20+ years his career in the consumer products industry has evolved through Leadership roles where he has built three teams from the ground up. He has also held numerous roles from sales, strategic planning, sales management to category management, market research, consumer insights, and data analytics. He has engaged with almost every retailer across the consumer products industry in the food, drug, mass, dollar, convenience, ecommerce, and D to C channels.
In his current role he has spearheaded the management of large data sets and implementation of business intelligence tools. His expertise in delivering insights from data and research information across multiple business sectors is a must in todays ever changing world.
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