Previously, Nick worked in the private equity and strategy practices at Oliver Wyman Group (previously known as Mercer Management Consulting) advising private investors and corporations on matters of growth, turnaround, and investment.  Nick is a Trustee of the Upper Valley Land Trust and an active member of the Dartmouth and Tuck alumni communities. Nick graduated from Dartmouth College and received an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.  

Prior to co-founding The Firefly Group, David co-founded Spring Mill Venture Partners, a venture capital firm.  Previously, he worked with ServiceMaster Ventures and served as a founding member of the ServiceMaster Home Service Center, a joint venture between Kleiner Perkins and ServiceMaster.  David began his career as an officer in the U.S. Navy.  He serves on a number of non-profit boards and is an adjunct faculty member at Indiana University, Kelley School of Business (Indianapolis).

Prior to founding Compass Group, John launched and led HBM Holdings, a family office focused on diversifying its core holdings. Earlier in his career, he served as Senior Vice President of Strategy & Corporate Development for Aegion (NASDAQ: AEGN), where he was responsible for corporate strategy, mergers & acquisitions, joint-ventures and strategic alliances.

His earlier experience also includes serving as Managing Principal of an international consulting firm, where he provided strategic and organizational consulting to Global 1000 customers.

John is a graduate of the University of Illinois, where he received degrees in Engineering and Business Administration.

Mr. Acharya is a Board Member of Impact XM, a leading provider of experiential marketing solutions for global clients and a portfolio company of AGI Partners LLC.

Previously, Mr. Acharya was a Director of a NYC based private equity firm. Mr. Acharya was responsible for investment sourcing and execution. Among other accomplishments, he sourced and executed Revolution Dancewear for this NYC based private equity firm (co-sponsored with Incline Equity Partners), an investment that won the Consumer Products Deal of the Year from the Global M&A Network.

Before joining this NYC based private equity firm in 2009, Mr. Acharya was a Vice President with Apprise Media, a private equity firm focused on niche media investments, where he worked with the founders of PRIMEDIA, a former KKR founded portfolio company. Mr. Acharya invested over $200 million in niche media companies across digital, events and print products in North America, Europe and Asia. He has made significant contributions to Apprise Media’s largest portfolio company: Canon Communications, the leading B2B media company focused on the $3 trillion advanced, technology-based manufacturing industries. Canon was successfully sold to United Business Media in 2010.

Prior to his time at Apprise Media, he spent 10 years as an investment banker in the highly ranked leveraged finance groups of JP Morgan Chase and Toronto Dominion Securities where he advised, structured and raised over $18 billion of capital for leading financial sponsors, media, telecom, consumer product and other various companies across the globe. He also advised clients on debt tender/consent transactions that affected over $4 billion in debt. In addition, he was involved in numerous private equity investments including Rural Cellular Corporation (sold to Verizon), Voicestream (aka T-Mobile), Completel, Bresnan Communications, Intermedia Communications (Leo Hindery’s Cable Venture), as part of Toronto Dominion’s merchant banking investments.

Mr. Acharya was elected President of the Board for the ACG New York Chapter, the largest and premier association for middle market deal making professionals. Also, he is a member of the Advisory Board of The Sport Source, the leading educational technology company in providing students with access to scholarship information for collegiate athletic programs across 23 sports.

Mr. Acharya holds B.S. and M.B.A. degrees, both conferred with honors, from St. John’s University. He was also selected for the Executives-In-Residence program where he worked with leading executives from financial service firms. In addition, he was inducted into Omicron Delta Epsilon, the economics and finance honor society.

He later joined the bank’s Commercial Lending Department. In 1995, Dan moved to Chicago to join LaSalle Bank’s (now Bank of America) credit training program. As a Commercial Loan Officer at LaSalle, Dan focused on leveraged and asset based transactions with middle market companies.

Dan received his M.B.A., with honors, in 1999 from the Anderson School at U.C.L.A. As a Venture Fellow, his studies focused on finance and entrepreneurial studies. In 1993, Dan earned a B.S. in Political Science, magna cum laude, from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

Dan currently serves on the Board of Directors of Classic Brands Holdco, Inc., Monarch Industries Limited, Nester Hosiery and Reliant at Home Inc.
Dan lives with his wife and two daughters in Western Springs. He is active in his community, serving on the board of his local school district’s foundation and as a coach of his daughters’ teams.