Team

Dileep Saksena, Managing Partner

Dileep is an entrepreneurial investment professional who has been involved in the provision of over $212 million in senior debt, mezzanine, and equity to small and middle-market companies across various industry sectors. He also had portfolio management oversight and board observation of twelve private equity held businesses that were part of a multi-fund complex with over $5 Bn AUM that generated top quartile to top decile returns.

Dileep is marked 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 debt and equity investment that was made 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 and fresh capital to support product growth and maintenance of cutting-edge seat structure design capabilities. He brings business development, deal negotiation, investment analysis & structuring, investment diligence, portfolio management, and entrepreneurial drive. Dileep will take an advisory and board role in select companies.

Key past investments have included a manufacturer of premium auto seats, a manufacturer of printing & environmental pollution control equipment, an online value-added reseller of automatic identification & data capture equipment, a private label manufacturer of frozen novelties & ice cream products, a distributor of specialty & technical valves, a manufacturer of gaming tickets, coupons, and industrial & medical recording charts, a manufacturer of custom gears & gear drives and provider of metal heat treatment services, specialty reseller of electrical parts & components, and specialty consumer finance & service companies.

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.

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 – $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.

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.

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.

Mike Schultz, Operating Executive

President of RAIN Group, Mike Schultz is world-renowned as a consultant and sales expert. He is co-author of several books including the Wall Street Journal bestseller Rainmaking Conversations: How to Influence, Persuade, and Sell in Any Situation (Wiley, 2011) and Insight Selling: Surprising Research on What Sales Winners Do Differently (Wiley, 2014). He was named the Top Sales Thought Leader globally in 2011 by Top Sales Awards.

Mike and the team at RAIN Group have worked with organizations such as Toyota, Monitor-Deloitte, Harvard Business School, Oracle, Fidelity Investments, Ryder, Quintiles, UL, Navigant Consulting, Hitachi, Lee Hecht Harrison, Lowe’s, and hundreds of others to unleash sales performance. At 40|73 Capital, Mike will serve as a Board Director or Board Advisor focusing on overall strategy, leadership, marketing, and sales at smaller to middle-market Business Services companies.

Mike is a graduate of Brandeis University in Waltham, MA with a B.A. in American Studies, and holds an MBA from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College. Mike is currently on the faculty teaching sales at the Brandeis International Business School and previously taught at Babson College.

Specialties: Business Services Leadership | Complex Enterprise Sales | Sales Performance | Sales Training |

RESOURCE NETWORK

Beyond our core team, 40|73 Capital has close affiliations with entrepreneurs, executives, and advisors with decades of proven experience in corporate planning, operational execution & business growth, private capital investments, and board advisory. On a case-by-case basis, we supplement our team with domain experts that bring additional depth to a situation. We will extend our capabilities by leveraging the unique strengths of our capital partners and access to a world-leading entrepreneurial community.