Charles is the founder and managing partner, adjusting Cruzel’s strategy in the face of changing market circumstances. He is responsible for sourcing investment opportunities and plays an integral role in every transaction. He also is responsible for developing the firm's network of financing partners and relationships with stakeowners, CEOs and strategic institutions.

Charles brings extensive transaction experience in M&A, public and private financings. Over the years, he developed a core competency in the identification of complex, value-biased and event-driven investment opportunities and provided value-maximizing solutions to company and investors. Prior to starting Cruzel, Charles was a principal and Partner at Foundry Capital where he helped to grow the firm's European special situation platform, significantly expanding both the scope of its expertise and the quality of its sourcing and relationships. Before that Charles served as an investment banker with UBS Warburg in London where he has been involved in a leading capacity in numerous high profile M&A and Equity Capital Markets transactions for international companies. Charles is a seasoned entrepreneur and founded France Proxy, a pioneer, practice leader and adviser on Corporate Governance in France, which he sold in 2011.

Gérard has 40 years of broad business development and corporate finance experience. He is widely esteemed for his deep insights in the Steel and Energy industries where he held senior management roles focused on creating and driving international added value initiatives for top tier corporations. Gérard set up his own consultancy in 2008 and works on strategic advice and M&A transactions for a number of companies including CMI in Belgium and CLN Group in Italy. From 2007 to 2008, Gérard was member of Severstal management board in charge of Business Development. Severstal ($9.6bn cap.) is one of the world leading vertically integrated steel and steel related mining companies. From 1990 to 2006, Gérard held a series of increasingly senior business development roles at Usinor, then Arcelor (€16bn cap.), the world nº1 steelmaker. During his distinguished sixteen-year tenure at Usinor/ Arcelor, Gérard contributed to the definition of the group development strategy, initiating and handling most of the international development projects including acquisitions, JVs and alliances with first rank steelmakers. He notably led the €2.5bn acquisition of Cockerill Sambre in 1998‚ the $CAD6.5bn (EV) acquisition of Dofasco (CDN) in 2005/2006 and the €14bn transaction with Severstal in 2006 that was superseded by the Mittal acquisition, as well as most of the group development through large ventures or alliances in CDN, Brazil, Russia, China, Japan and India. Earlier in his career, from 1975 to 1990, he held different roles as Consulting Engineer in the Hydro and Nuclear power plants industry, from 1981 to 1990 at SOGREAH (Alcatel-Alsthom Group) where he led several record breaking projects on the Mississippi, Ohio and Nil rivers, and from 1975 to 1981 at CHANTIERS MODERNES and SDEM (Creusot-Loire Group) as a Project engineer.

Mr. Ein is CEO of Paris and New York-based special situation investment and advisory company, Foundry Capital. Foundry has completed over $1 billion in transactions over the past five years in different sectors, with a traditional focus on deep value opportunities. He has also been for the past several years a Senior Advisor to Apollo Global Management, an alternative asset manager with over $150 billion of AUM.

Mr. Ein started his career as an M&A specialist at DLJ (Credit Suisse) and then SG Warburg (UBS) in New York. As an investment banker, he worked on many large cross-border mergers and privatizations including Ford’s purchase of Jaguar, Merck/J&J’s purchase of ICI US consumer Health Care business, and the privatization of the Mexican Government’s steel assets.

After business school, Mr. Ein founded Foundry Film Partners, a finance company focused on the media sector, particularly in film, TV, and music. As CEO, he financed and executive produced fourteen films, creating many innovative structures for providing capital to entertainment projects and companies. Foundry’s current business was started when a family office set up a vehicle for Mr. Ein to apply his creative solutions devised in media financing to buying public and private securities in Europe.

Mr. Ein is originally from Chevy Chase, MD. He has long been involved in philanthropic work mainly focused on development and humanitarian work in Africa. Mr. Ein earned a B.A. magna cum laude at the Honors College at the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. from Harvard University.

Arno specializes in Technology Media and Telecom and has over 20 years of experience providing strategic advice to public and private companies, and their shareholders, across a broad range of equity and debt transactions.

Arno held key management roles at HSBC and Stifel where he created and led European technology investment banking teams and oversaw the origination and execution of all public and private transactions. He brings valuable insight and access to European technology companies and investors.