Management Team
David K. Waldman, President
David Waldman has a long and successful track record working with publicly traded companies of all sizes and across a wide range of industries, including telecommunications, technology, industrial, financial, medical, and business services. He has built a reputation as a leading expert on communications best practices and has developed an extensive network on Wall Street. He has arranged hundreds of investor road shows and has provided communications counsel to senior members of management across a wide range of issues, including M&A, management changes, earnings surprises, crisis communications, Reg-FD disclosure, etc.
He has experience with companies that are both public and in the process of going public, including an in-depth knowledge of the unique challenges facing reverse merger companies. He has also assisted many foreign issuers, including numerous china-based 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 was responsible for managing a wide range of accounts. He has 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 IR experience having handled the investor relations for a multi-billion dollar satellite telecommunications company.
David has a B.S. in Communications and Political Science from Northwestern University. He lives on Long Island with his wife and daughter, and enjoys fishing.
Klea Theoharis, Managing Director
Klea Theoharis brings a wealth of experience and contacts to her mission of maximizing the visibility of publicly-traded companies among members of the investment community throughout the United States. Klea has spent her 25-year career on Wall Street and during that time has cultivated extensive relationships among institutional and retail investors around the country. Her investor relations background encompasses the full scope of the function, including message development, press releases, conference call scripts, consulting, investor road shows, introductions for capital raising purposes and pre-IPO planning from an investor relations perspective.
During her 12-year tenure in the investor relations business, Klea has represented dozens of companies in sectors as varied as consumer products, technology, biotech, healthcare, specialty finance, REITs and environmental services, among others. While she has worked successfully with companies of all market caps, her focus has been on those with market caps under $500 million where the challenges are greater, but the impact of her efforts are often of greatest significance.
Prior to founding KLEA Associates in May of 2004, she was Director of Market Intelligence at a leading New York-based investor relations firm where she was responsible for executing all aspects of investor road shows and investment community outreach. Previously, she designed and implemented the IR programs for companies in a diverse range of industry sectors. Klea was an associate director at The Nasdaq Stock Market prior to embarking on a career in investor relations where she provided Nasdaq-listed companies with market research and analysis which focused on trading characteristics of their stock, target marketing for investor relations efforts, and market maker activity. Prior to Nasdaq, she worked in the Private Client Group at Wertheim Schroder. Klea also spent six years at Mitchell Hutchins Asset Management, a division of PaineWebber, as a research associate in the equity mutual funds area. Klea began her career in the equity research departments of A.G. Becker and Lionel D. Edie.
Klea is a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College with a degree in business management. She also attended the New York Institute of Finance where she studied security analysis and portfolio management. Klea has held Series 7, 63 and 65 brokerage licenses. She is also a member of the National Investor Relations Institute and New York Women in Communications.
Vivian Huo, Sr. Vice President
Vivian Huo brings to Crescendo Communications a combination of expertise in investment banking and finance-based investigative journalism.
Prior to joining Crescendo, Vivian Huo spent half a decade as the New York correspondent for one of China's largest publications (circulation of over 2 million). She has conducted in depth research and analysis of major financial, legal, and business news, including featured reports on the global financial meltdown, the Chinese licensing business, the auto industry, and key legal issues facing Chinese state owned enterprises, among other topics. Her original investigative report on the increase in shareholder litigation against Chinese companies was featured on the website of the Supreme People's Court of the
Vivian Huo gained her MA in International Finance from Columbia University, and obtained her BS in accounting in China. She is a native of Beijing, and is fluent in both English and Mandarin Chinese.
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
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