Management Team
David K. Waldman, President & CEO
David Waldman has a long and successful track record working with private and publicly traded companies of all sizes and across a wide range of industries, including energy, mining, telecommunications, technology, industrial, financial, medical, and business services. He has built a reputation as a leading expert on financing and communications best practices and has developed an extensive network on Wall Street. He has provided strategic advisory and communications counsel to senior members of management across a wide range of issues, including capital raises, M&A, management changes, crisis communications, etc.
He has experience with companies that are both private, public and in the process of going public, including an in-depth knowledge of the unique challenges facing reverse merger companies. He has assisted many foreign issuers, including numerous Russian and Chinese companies, tap into the growing investor demand for quality overseas emerging growth companies.
Prior to founding Crescendo Communications, David served as vice president at a leading New York City based investor relations firm, as well as two other premier investor relations firms, where he helped his clients build their exposure on Wall Street by attracting institutional ownership, securing research coverage, and providing introductions to sources of capital. David also brings in-house corporate experience having handled the investor relations for a multi-billion dollar satellite telecommunications company. He currently serves on the board of directors for QSGI Inc.
David has a B.S. in Communications and Political Science from Northwestern University. He lives on Long Island with his wife and three children.
Michael Lakshin, Chief Operating Officer
In September of 2010, Michael Lakshin, CEO of A-Concept, LLC, a business consulting company in New Jersey, joined forces with Crescendo Communications, LLC. Michael Lakshin is a marketing-communications specialist with a proven history of advising middle-market and emerging growth companies. Michael is a proven expert in business operations with formal training in supply chain management and a record of success in increasing operational efficiencies. Throughout his corporate career, Michael has been involved in raising capital funds from both the client and the capital advisory sides. As a member of several C-Level executive teams, Michael has been involved in strategic planning, pre-IPO financing, as well as overseeing several successful IPOs in the U.S. As a member of various capital advisory teams Michael has participated in raising capital funds for many US and international businesses and enterprises.
In addition to his role as founder and CEO of A-Concept, LLC, Michael Lakshin had been a Managing Member of Viriathus-Concept, LLC, From January 2009 until joining Crescendo Communications in 2010. Viriathus-Concept is a division of Viriathus Capital, LLC, a New York-based investment-banking firm that provides a broad spectrum of international and complex transactions to private and public companies as well as institutional investors worldwide.
Between 2006 and 2007, Mr. Lakshin served as the Executive Vice President of International Business Development of Popa Media, a Pennsylvania-based media and advertising company where he was responsible for establishing the company’s footprint in strategic markets worldwide, as well as working with potential investors to raise capital funds required to secure strategic expansion of Popa Media. . Between 2002 and 2007, Mr. Lakshin worked as the Strategic Marketing Consultant and later as the Chief Marketing Officer for Touchtone Technologies, Inc., a NY-based telecommunications company where his responsibilities included attracting potential investors to growing the company’s business in selected strategic verticals. . From 2000 to 2002, Mr. Lakshin served as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing of Empire One Telecom, a telecommunications company in New York where he had actively participated in the company's IPO. From October 1999 to September 2000, Mr. Lakshin worked as the Vice President of New Business Development for Spirals, a N.J.-based full-service advertising agency. Prior to joining Spirals, Michael Lakshin served as the COO and Executive VP of Marketing for 9NetAvenue, which has become one of the largest web-hosting and data-storage companies in the U.S. As a member of 9NetAvenue executive management team, Michael Lakshin has been actively involved in raising capital funds for the Company from the start-up until 9NetAvenue was eventually acquired by Concentric Network Corp. in October of 1999.
Since June 2007, Michael Lakshin, has been able to apply his previous capital experience by getting involved with various investment banking firms and capital advisory boutiques on Walls Street as an expert in business operations, supply chain management and international marketing to pioneer raising investment funds for companies from Russia and the former CIS within the US capital markets.
Michael Lakshin holds an Executive Master of Business Administration from Rutgers University Business School.
John J. Quirk, Jr., Sr. Vice President
John J. Quirk, Jr. is a senior vice president of investor relations with Crescendo Communications having spent nearly 20 years specializing in investor relations. Previously, Quirk was a vice president of investor relations with Porter Novelli running the New York office of Porter Novelli Life Sciences. Quirk provides clients with strategic counsel and execution specific to investor relations activities and U.S. campaigns. He has significant IPO experience and has provided communications support for a number of M&A transactions and crisis situations. Quirk combines a fundamental understanding of corporate accounting and the U.S. capital markets with an understanding of a client’s business to help clients identify key valuation drivers and “tell their story” effectively and persuasively to the US investment community and other key audiences.
Previously, Quirk served as a vice president with The Ruth Group in New York beginning in July 2004 where he focused on investor relations counsel with clients in multi-industries, and before that was in a similar capacity at Lippert/Heilshorn & Associates. He earlier spent three years beginning in 1999 as director, investor relations for iBasis, Inc., a global IP-based telephony service provider located outside Boston, beginning with the Company’s IPO led by Robertson Stephens, Hambrecht & Quist and Piper Jaffray. While serving at iBasis, the firm raised in excess of $400M in equity and debt capital and reached a peak market capitalization of more than $3.2B.
Prior to iBasis, Quirk served with strategic communications firm Robinson, Lerer & Montgomery in New York where he provided investor relations counsel in multiple industries including health care, oil & gas, biotechnology, manufacturing, and print and video production, among others, and was promoted to the position of vice president. Representative M&A assignments included Fresenius Medical Care, ICG/Netcom, and UPR/Pennzoil. Quirk also served as a spokesperson for clients including Mafco Consolidated Group and Power Control Technologies and worked on the Sumitomo copper trading scandal, a patient product recall at Fresenius, and other crisis assignments while working on IPOs including Consolidated Cigar, Ultra-Fem and Lexmark.
Quirk was introduced to investor relations counsel and execution in 1991 at Broadgate Consultants, Inc., a private New York boutique IR agency that was originally a unit of Hoare Govett, a European broker-dealer. Client accounts primarily consisted of public large-cap, European companies including Hongkong Telecom, Cable & Wireless, Reuters, Sandoz, Carlton Television and ADT intent on building capabilities for their US-based IR programs to support US institutional ownership around sponsored ADR and ADS programs. Additional European and U.S small- and mid-cap companies in multi-industries rounded out the client portfolio.
Quirk holds a B.S. in psychology from Georgetown University (1987) and an MBA from Tulane University (1991). He is a member of Beta Alpha Psi, the national accounting fraternity and is a member of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI). He is an avid skier and a resident of Manhattan.
Sheena Shen, Senior Vice President
Sheena has more than 15 years of Wall Street experience. She was an equity analyst in the consumer goods group at UBS and JP Morgan. She was also managing partner at Great Wall Research LLC, an IR/strategic consulting firm for public companies, and most recently served as Chief Financial Officer at Sino Green Land Corporation until 2012.
She has a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Brigham Young University Hawaii and an MBA in Finance from the University of Connecticut. Sheena is a Certified Public Accountant and a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Natalya Rudman, Senior Account Executive
Natalya brings years of marketing and public relations experience to the company. She has represented emerging growth companies to large-cap companies. She is responsible for managing the company's accounts, including writing press releases, message development, research, conference call scripts, consulting, planning investor road shows and handling investor inquiries. She has worked with numerous companies from a diverse range of sectors such as: technology, biotech, healthcare, and environmental services. Natalya holds a B.S. in Nutritional Science and a minor in Marketing and Communications.