Our Team

Garrett A. Bekker III, Managing Director

Mr. Bekker comes to Oberon after spending 11 years as an equity research analyst focused on a broad range of sectors across the technology industry. Most recently Mr. Bekker was a Vice President and lead analyst for information security and infrastructure software, and was a member of Merrill Lynch’s II-ranked Telecom Equipment team. Garrett’s research responsibilities have included various software sub-sectors, including virtualization, communications software, business intelligence and analytics, content management, content delivery networks, networking equipment and e-Commerce. Mr. Bekker also worked in sales and marketing at two early-stage information security companies, Bat Blue Networks and Bayshore Networks. 

Mr. Bekker holds a B.A in International Studies (with Honors) from the University at Buffalo, where he was a member of the Varsity Ice Hockey team. He also completed all coursework for a Ph.D. in Economics from the New School University (Melamid Fellow), and was an adjunct professor of Economics and Finance at St. John’s University. He also completed undergraduate studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and graduate studies at Cambridge University (Queens’ College) in the U.K.

Paul Boydell, Managing Director

Paul Boydell joined Oberon in 2012 and has been an investment banker focused on M&A and financial sponsors since 1995.  

Paul was previously at Sunrise Securities, and prior to that a senior member of the M&A group at Jefferies, involved in transaction origination and execution across a broad range of industry sectors both on the sell-side and the buy-side. Before Jefferies, Paul was at Lehman Brothers and gained extensive experience working on M&A and financial sponsor transactions focused on the industrial, aerospace and technology sectors. Paul began his banking career as an associate in Lehman's energy group after a period working in the oil industry. Overall, Paul has led or been involved in over $18 billion in advisory and financing assignments.

Paul received an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, a Masters degree in Petroleum Engineering from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh and a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College, London.

Adam Breslawsky, Partner & Managing Director

Mr. Breslawsky has worked on Wall Street since 1993. Prior to joining Oberon in 2002, Adam was with JP Morgan’s Telecom, Media & Technology Group where he was instrumental in the creation of the firm’s Wireless Data Investment Banking coverage effort. While at JP Morgan, Adam led the execution of numerous private placements, mergers, and debt financings.

Prior to joining JP Morgan, Adam worked at Merrill Lynch in the Leveraged Finance Group, underwriting high yield bonds and bridge loans as well as arranging syndicated loans and mezzanine financings. Adam also spent two years as a member of Merrill Lynch’s Mergers & Acquisition Group executing over $2 billion in completed transaction across a number of industry sectors including consumer products, healthcare, and technology. Adam holds an MBA from Wharton Business School and a B.A. from Union College.

Richard Cocca, Managing Director

Prior to joining Oberon, Richard Cocca was a Senior Partner with an investment banking firm headquartered in New England. The firm is a boutique investment bank specializing in Mergers & Acquisitions, recapitalizations, capital raising, and strategic consulting throughout the United States. Mr. Cocca's industry focus centers around business-to-business services, industrial, construction and manufacturing related markets. In his ten years with the firm, Richard has executed dozens of transactions in a variety of industries including equipment rental, linen rental, and oil and gas field services.

Mr. Cocca is a former Group VP of Finance for a Fortune 500 oil and gas production, exploration and chemical company. In that position he was financially responsible for executing a barter arrangement between the United States and Russia, exchanging phosphoric acid with the Russians for other elements that comprise fertilizer. He has also held various other executive level positions. Richard was a trained Certified Public Accountant with Deloitte and Touche and an entrepreneur himself, having either owned or operated several companies in a variety of industries.

Christopher Elders, Associate

Mr. Elders joined Oberon in 2011.  Prior to joining Oberon, Mr. Elders was a corporate associate at the law firm Cravath, Swaine and Moore LLP in New York.  At Cravath, Mr. Elders advised clients on mergers and acquisitions, leveraged finance, capital market and restructuring transactions.

A former Rhodes Scholar, Mr. Elders holds a M.Sc. from the University of Oxford, a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. from Morehouse College.  He is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Elad Epstein, Co-founding Partner & Managing Director

Prior to founding Oberon in 2001, Mr. Epstein was with Deutsche Banc Securities Inc. (formerly Deutsche Banc Alex Brown) in the Mergers and Acquisitions Group where he focused on innovative, leading-edge technology companies. Prior to the Mergers and Acquisitions Group, he was a member of the Financial Sponsor Coverage Group working with the top private equity firms on a wide range of transactions.

While at Deutsche Banc Alex Brown, Elad executed over $2.5 billion in mergers and acquisitions, leveraged debt, and equity transactions. Prior to his employment with Deutsche Banc, Elad was a member of Oppenheimer & Co. Technology Investment Banking Team. At Oppenheimer, Elad executed over 14 public and private equity transactions, raising over $750 million for emerging growth technology companies. Elad holds an MBA from the Wharton Business School and a B.A. from Tel Aviv University.

Assaf Guterman, Managing Director

Assaf has nearly 10 years of experience in financial markets and the healthcare industry. Prior to joining Oberon, Assaf was an Equity Research Analyst at Lazard Capital Markets covering the companies comprising the medical device industry including of fields including cardiology, neurology, general and minimally invasive surgery, orthopedics, diagnostics and aesthetics. Assaf’s research experience includes macro analysis of the medical device and healthcare universe, fundamental equity analysis, institutional buy-side marketing and a variety of relationships with company managements and key industry-leading physicians.

Prior to joining Lazard, Assaf was Director of Finance at Taro Pharmaceuticals, a publicly traded company with over $300 million in revenues, where he held a variety of responsibilities including financial and SEC reporting, budget preparation, managing the company’s debt structure and helping to maintain relationships with Wall Street. Prior to Taro, Assaf was the Chief Economist at the Israeli Ministry of Finance Mission to NY, helping the State of Israel raise funds through the issuance of sovereign bonds through the financial markets.

Assaf is a CFA charter-holder. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from Tel Aviv University and an MBA in Finance from Zicklin Business School at Baruch College. Assaf is a member of the CFA Institute and the New York Society of Security Analyst.

John Kinney, Managing Director

John Kinney joined Oberon Securities in 2012 bringing more than 20 years experience in investment banking and corporate development gained as a senior banker in the investment banking departments of Deutsche Bank Securities, Dresdner Kleinwort Securities, Daiwa Securities, and UBS Warburg / PaineWebber where he generated and executed transactions across the consumer products, retail, technology and general industrial sectors. He began his career with Chemical Bank and ABN AMRO completing more than forty public and private debt transactions for small and mid-cap companies.

Immediately before joining Oberon John served as the VP/Head of Corporate Development for an early-stage renewable energy and feed company based in Florida as well as a Director in Business Development at Valens Capital, a billion dollar hedge fund focused on providing flexible, custom-tailored and cost-effective debt and equity growth financing solutions to small-cap public and private companies.

John received his MBA from the Stern School of Business of New York University and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Mordechai C. Kubany, Business Development

Mordechai Kubany is a business development and marketing executive focusing on building companies through strategic management, operations, sales and financial advisory, mergers and acquisitions. Mordy’s career spans more than 20 years in the technology, media, and financial sectors working with top-tier companies to foster growth and geographic expansion.

Prior to joining Oberon Securities, Mordy was the CEO and owner of a boutique financial services firm specializing in estate planning and funding, private financing deal structures, investing, and insurance needs tailored to businesses and high-net-worth individuals.

Mordy holds a BS in engineering computer science, and as well as a degree in business management, from Tel Aviv University.

John Neczesny, Managing Director

John joined Oberon Securities in 2012 as Managing Director with over 15 years investment banking experience focused on M&A and corporate finance. Before joining Oberon, he was Vice President, Corporate Development at Par Pharmaceutical Companies and a partner with Ensemble Advisors providing strategic advice and capital raising to emerging healthcare and technology companies.

Prior to that, John was a Managing Director at Bear Stearns & Co. where he spent 10 years in the firm’s Healthcare investment banking group providing M&A and corporate finance advice to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical technology and services companies and generating and executing transactions totaling over $170 billion. Previously, he spent 10 years in business development and project management positions with contract laboratory and data services companies.

John earned an MBA in Finance from New York University Stern School of Business and a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of Delaware.

Yoav Rekem, Partner & Managing Director

Prior to joining Oberon in 2004, Mr. Rekem was a Vice President with CIBC World Markets’ Technology Investment Banking Group where he initiated banking coverage of the telecom networking equipment and voice-over-packet sectors. While at CIBC, Yoav led the execution of numerous equity financings including IPO’s, secondary offerings, private placements, and mergers and acquisitions transactions.

Previous to joining the Technology Group, Yoav worked at CIBC’s Leveraged Finance Group where he executed various financing transactions such as high yield, mezzanine and bank debt offerings; mergers and acquisitions, restructuring advisory assignments, and private equity investments.

Yoav is a lawyer, who practiced for over a year with M. Seligman & Co. in Tel Aviv. He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a joint degree in Law and Economics from Tel Aviv University.

Nicole Schmidt, Co-founding Partner & Managing Director

Prior to co-founding Oberon, Nicole was head of US operations for Kentech Ventures, an Israeli-based VC, where she was successful helping start-up software companies identify business opportunities, forge strategic relationships, amend and execute their business plans and source capital. Prior to joining Kentech, Nicole spent nearly 7 years working on Wall Street as a senior equity analyst on both the buy and sell-side. Nicole is an expert on Internet, e-commerce, enterprise software, contract manufacturing and IT services companies and wrote the definitive tome on the Information Security space in early 1998, while she was a Vice President/Director of Technology Research at CIBC Oppenheimer & Co. She started her finance career as an equity analyst on the buy-side at Hudson Capital Advisors, a firm which managed $1 billion in institutional assets.

Nicole is a lawyer and holds a B.A. in Political Science from New York University. She began her career working at The Segal Company, the premiere multi-employer employee benefits consulting firm, drafting pension plans and welfare plans for unions and their employers.

Stephen Sloan, Senior Vice President

Stephen brings over 20 years of professional business and deal making experience to Oberon. He also brings a notable operational perspective to his deal work resulting from a background that includes managing a P&L, sourcing and closing transactions for AT&T Solutions, and working with a broad array of clients that include Merck, Astra-Zeneca, United Health Care, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, and Lexmark.

Prior to joining Oberon, Stephen worked with C level executives on organic growth, acquisitions, divestitures, and finance through his own firm, S&G Sloan LLC. As CEO of SAXA Equity Partners, a healthcare focused fund, Stephen established its investment strategy, marketed the firm, recruited its board, sourced and evaluated a variety of investment opportunities. At Overture Pharma where he was President, Stephen sourced transaction partners and raised capital for deals from Funds and high net worth individuals.

Stephen holds an MBA from EDHEC in France, an MPP from Georgetown’s Public Policy Institute, and a BA from Trinity in Texas.

Siva Sundaram, Analyst

Mr. Sundaram joined Oberon in the fall of 2011.  Prior to joining Oberon, Mr. Sundaram was a consultant at Morrissey Advisors, where he provided corporate finance advisory to mid-market firms in the Banking and Industrial sector.  Previously, Mr. Sundaram worked at Gartner Inc, as a Senior Consultant, where he provided corporate and technology strategy to Fortune 500 companies and Government agencies. Prior to obtaining his MBA, Mr. Sundaram worked as a management consultant with Accenture Ltd.

Mr. Sundaram holds an MBA in Finance from University of Oxford, where he received the Nautilus award for outstanding contribution to the college. Additionally he holds a mechanical engineering degree from Annamalai University, India.

Adam Taplinger, Managing Director

Adam Taplinger, is an M&A and capital raising specialist in the Consumer and Retail sector, with a focus on consumer products, apparel, jewelry and the luxury markets as well as digital media. Adam has over 14 years of investment banking and consulting experience. He was previously a Vice President in the Asia Focus Group at Sagent Advisors, where his work centered on international Mergers and Acquisitions and capital raising activities. Prior to Sagent Advisors, Adam was a Vice President at Daiwa Securities, an affiliate of Daiwa Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and worked closely with Japan's largest corporations to help develop, implement and execute their global M&A initiatives. He completed numerous acquisitions, divestitures and joint ventures on behalf of his clients. Adam offers clients a truly global reach with his extensive cross-border experience. He has led transactions of various sizes in numerous industries in over 15 countries.

Prior to joining Daiwa, Adam was a consultant to the CFO of J.Crew Group. At J.Crew he built an institutional, centralized reporting process to enable the consolidation of the company's independent divisional FP&A functions. Adam began his career at JWGenesis Capital Markets, now part of Wells Fargo Securities.

Adam holds a BS from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University and is a registered representative with FINRA. He serves on the Advisory Board for Public Allies, an organization that empowers young adults to strengthen their communities through leadership and civic participation.

JW Vitalone, Senior Vice President

JW Vitalone is responsible for initiating and executing transactions for small and mid-sized oil and gas companies. His background includes nearly 15 years as both buy-side and sell-side analyst covering upstream and downstream oil and gas companies for Wells Fargo Capital Management, Evergreen Investments and Tradition Asiel Securities. In 2001 JW was selected by USAID to participate in its Russian business mentor program in Vladivostok where he counseled an independent consulting and financial advisory firm, and the trading department of one of Vladivostok’s major banks.

JW graduated with honors from St. Bonaventure University. He has also received an MBA from the Saunders College of Business at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and a J.D. from the Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco. During his third year of law school, JW clerked for the Regional Counsel of the Comptroller of the Currency, and immediately following graduation interned with the European Economic Commission in Brussels as a Charles A. Dana Fellow for International and Comparative Legal Studies. He has been awarded the Chartered Financial Analyst designation by CFA Institute and has served as chairman of the organization’s Advocacy Committee.

Richard Volonino, Senior Vice President

Prior to joining Oberon, Mr. Volonino has been Managing Partner of V-Three, LLC, a strategic Business Advisors company specializing in Mergers & Acquisitions and various Business Improvement Requirements since 2007. In 1997, he helped co-found United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE:URI), a construction equipment rental company, as Vice President, Acquisitions.

In 1991, Mr. Volonino was co-founder and Vice President, Acquisitions of United Waste, Inc., a solid waste management company. Mr. Volonino was employed from 1964 to 1997 with several privet and public waste management companies, Combustion Equipment Associates, Inc., SCA Service, Inc., GSX Corporation, Laidlaw Waste Systems and Chambers Development Co. Inc., holding various positions.

Mr. Volonino has a B.S. degree in business from the University of Bridgeport, CT and an Associates degree in Electrical/Mechanical Engineering from New York City Community College.