Team

Dileep Saksena, Managing Partner

Dileep brings an entrepreneurial, hands-on investment approach to 40|73 Capital, paired with a deep institutional foundation. With over $212 million in capital deployed across the lower-middle market, he specializes in executing lower-middle market buyouts and structuring investments across the capital stack to drive growth. His experience includes managing institutional-scale portfolios, including 12 private equity-backed businesses valued at over $800 million within a $5 billion+ AUM multi-fund complex that generated top-quartile / decile returns.

Leveraging this background, Dileep aligns with 40|73’s mission to provide active, strategic guidance to business partners. His focus on proactive risk management and operational empathy enables him to support management teams through critical, value-creating initiatives.

Dileep is distinguished by his ability to make prudent debt and equity investment decisions, having navigated around the Financial Crisis and Great Recession. In addition, he was the principal author of a challenging $12 million special-situation and impact investment that he executed during the pandemic in a premium auto seat manufacturer. The investment supported a carve-out from the manufacturer’s publicly traded parent and required a corporate restructuring of its foreign business unit, alongside fresh capital to support product growth, create high-quality regional employment, and maintain cutting-edge seat structure design capabilities. Dileep was also a member of a deal team that invested in a middle-market custom gear manufacturer, achieving a gross return of 31.6% IRR and 2.6x MOIC upon exit. He brings expertise in business development, deal negotiation, investment analysis and structuring, investment diligence, portfolio management, and entrepreneurial drive to lower-middle market investment opportunities. Dileep takes active advisory and board roles in select companies.

Representative Investments Include:

Business Services / Value-Added Distribution: B2B e-commerce value-added reseller of automatic identification and data capture hardware & business consumables, a value-added distributor of specialty & technical valves, and specialty reseller of electrical parts & components.
Healthcare Services: Home healthcare, small regional dentistry practice acquisitions, and investment committee review/investment of various healthcare companies.
Niche / Advanced Manufacturing: Premium auto seat manufacturer, a printing & environmental pollution control equipment manufacturer, a custom gear & gear drives manufacturer & associated metal heat treatment services; as well as a manufacturer of gaming tickets, coupons, and industrial & medical recording charts.
Consumer: A private label manufacturer of frozen novelties & ice cream products, specialty consumer finance firms, premium aftermarket auto seats, and multi-unit franchise.

Dileep has consulted or worked with Arctaris, WAIN Street, Barings, Bain Capital Ventures, Progress Partners, Banco Popular, and Northern Trust. Past successful analyst and associate interns that Dileep has trained have hailed from Goldman Sachs, Babson College, Case Western Reserve, Yale, and Boston College.

Dileep accepted the nomination from McKinsey & Company to become a member of The Economic Club of New York. He holds an MBA from Babson College and bachelor’s degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Mark Panico, Operating Executive

Mark Panico has more than 25 years of experience leading P&Ls from $20M to $300M in revenue in markets such as Plastics, Specialty Chemicals, Building Services, Data Communications & Broadband. Mark has led global businesses both in the U.S. and in Europe and is adept at building and executing strategies that drive revenue and profit growth organically and via acquisitions across multiple manufacturing technologies.

Mark’s career began as a Sales Associate with Cognitronics, a manufacturer of optical character and mark recognition equipment. He joined General Electric’s Plastics Division through their Sales Leadership program where he steadily progressed over 12 years through assignments in sales, marketing, and international global account management. In 1999 Mark joined Honeywell Corporation as Director of Marketing to lead new product development and was promoted to Vice President, Marketing for the $2.4 billion Automated Control Services Division in the first year. Mark’s scope included marketing, research and development, and mergers and acquisitions. In 2003 Mark became General Manager of a $200 million global business unit for Nalco Chemical based in the Netherlands with P&L responsibilities including product development, marketing strategy, and global account sales and service. Mark then joined Legrand in 2004 as President of the Data Communications Division where he drove revenues and profit margins from $75 million and 3.8% to over $300 million and 20% respectively in a fifteen-year period through a combination of organic growth and 6 acquisitions. After 15 years of progressive accomplishments at Legrand, Mark became CEO of Stay Online, a portfolio company of Huron Capital’s Flex Equity Fund in 2019 and the company was sold in early 2021.

Mark has also served on several Boards, most recently as Executive Chairman for Lynn Electronics where he was responsible for coaching and mentoring the CEO, guiding key initiatives, and leading the M&A Strategy. The company was successfully transacted in June of 2022. He also serves as an Advisor for three additional PE firms, mentors C-Level executives, and works as an independent business strategy consultant.

Mark holds a B.S. Degree in Chemistry with minors in Economics and Marketing from Fairfield University and has completed the Mergers & Acquisitions Program at Kellogg School of Management. He is also Six Sigma certified.

Werner von Pein, Operating Executive

As CEO or as an Outside Director Werner quickly identifies Revenue and Profit growth opportunities as a foundation for strategic and exceptional execution to enhance enterprise value. He has built Family and Investor Portfolio Companies for domestic and foreign ownership across a spectrum of businesses. Werner is a recognized Change Agent with strong leadership and communication skills and a record of building loyal Teams and Partnerships. On numerous occasions, he was charged to lead companies during a transition (usually $25 million – $100 million) and subsequently build them to the next level. He has exhibited strong leadership skills in diverse cultural environments and has turned around several operations at various stages in their life. Werner is skilled in public as well as private company challenges. His accomplishments as a builder and turnaround specialist of middle-market businesses were featured in the Wall Street Journal, the London Financial Times and discussed in interviews on Fox Live.

He is able to conduct business in four languages and has extensive business building, turnaround, and board experience in the U.S. and abroad. Werner received a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester and an MBA from Xavier University.

Asha Saxena, Operating Executive

Asha Saxena is a strategic, innovative leader with a proven track record of building successful tech businesses for the last 25 years. With a strong academic background, creative problem-solving skills, and an effective management style. She has been instrumental in building business models for success. She is the author of the Amazon bestseller The AI Factor: How to Apply Artificial Intelligence and Use Big Data To Grow Your Business Exponentially. Asha Saxena is also a CEO Coach with CEOCI, the leading coaching firm for growth-focused CEOs and entrepreneurs, where we follow a practical and proven methodology to help CEOs and their teams perform at their very best and achieve their business goals.

As a Board Advisor and an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, she teaches graduate classes on Management Consulting, Entrepreneurship, and Big Data Analytics. She has served a four-year term as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Columbia Business School.

Asha Saxena is a Board Director for several for-profit companies. She served as CEO of ACULYST Corp. Healthcare Data Analytics Firm, built an eCommerce Company, and served as the CEO of Future Technologies Inc., an international data management solutions firm for twenty years.

Asha Saxena was invited to be a part of the World Economic Forum where Future Technologies Inc. was named “Global Growth Company 2007.” Her entrepreneurial spirit has also enabled her to gain notable success as a restaurateur, real-estate developer, and movie studio producer.

VALUE CREATION PARTNERS

40|73 Capital is supported by an expanded network of operating executives who drive value creation across our key industry verticals. We maintain close relationships with a seasoned team of entrepreneurs, executives, and advisors who possess decades of proven experience in corporate planning, operational execution, and business growth—integrating these domain experts to bring institutional depth to complex situations.

Within our Healthcare vertical, our value creation engine goes far beyond boardroom oversight. We combine active, hands-on partnership from a veteran Healthcare Operating Executive with the strategic backing of a Multi-Family Office capital partner. Our strategic multi-family office relationship combines the certainty and readily available capital of a traditional fund with a flexible holding period.

Because we limit our portfolio of platform companies, our team has the bandwidth to work side-by-side with your team to actively de-risk clinical operations. Working directly alongside clinicians on the ground, we focus on scaling physician practices, specialty providers, and healthcare business services through:

Organic Growth: Accelerating market penetration and commercial strategy.
Operational Optimization: Enhancing infrastructure and scaling administrative workflows.
Strategic add-on acquisitions: Identifying and smoothly integrating complementary acquisitions.

We extend our capabilities by leveraging the unique strengths of our capital partners and access to a world-leading entrepreneurial community.