Who We Are
Joan Marie Asher
Ms. Asher is a dynamic, hands-on leader with dual U.S. and European citizenship and over 25 years of experience in the financial services industry. Her career spans private equity, hedge funds, broker/dealers, and capital markets, with a proven history of collaborating with financial institutions and clients across the U.S. and internationally on a variety of investment-related initiatives and transactions.
Renowned for her ability to identify challenges and implement strategic action plans, Ms. Asher excels in mitigating risk and managing complex business tradeoffs. She consistently delivers timely results in demanding and rapidly changing environments, including business restructurings. Her expertise lies in enhancing critical infrastructure through process-driven improvements in finance, operations, audit, regulatory compliance, governance, risk management, due diligence, and oversight of third-party service providers.
With a collaborative leadership style and a focus on long-term growth and profitability, Ms. Asher transforms challenges into opportunities, driving operational excellence that aligns with organizational strategic goals. Her forward-thinking approach ensures sustainable success and measurable results.
Ms. Asher holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Fairfield University’s Charles F. Dolan School of Business. She graduated from the Investment Fund Director Institute in Dublin, Ireland as a Certified Investment Fund Director. She is also an Investment Adviser Certified Compliance Professional.
In addition to her professional achievements, Ms. Asher has served on non-profit boards and continues to contribute her expertise as an advisory board member for various other business entities.
Marry Ellen De Winter
Ms. De Winter is the Chief Strategy Officer at Paragon Strategic Advisors. She has over 20 years of management experience in the financial services, legal and consulting industries in the areas of strategic planning, operations management, project management, business development and client management.
In addition to her role with Paragon Strategic Advisors, Ms. De Winter was a Director with Distinct Solutions Group, a consulting group for professional service firms (e.g. financial institutions, law firms). Prior to her role with Distinct Solutions Group, she held senior-level management positions with global law firms. She was responsible for strategic and operational priorities, including merger and integration goals, and client development opportunities across industries (e.g. financial services, private equity, technology) and geographic markets. Before her broad experience in the legal industry, Ms. De Winter held similar management positions in the financial services industry. She led significant regional projects and managed operations and sales teams, including managing a bank investment program for high-net-worth individuals that surpassed aggressive revenue goals. She held FINRA Series 6 and 63 licenses.
Ms. De Winter is active in various professional associations, advises boards and serves on the board of Boston Women in Finance. She is a graduate of Providence College and holds an MBA from Northeastern University.
Keith Augustyn
Mr. Augustyn is an entrepreneurial operations leader excelling at driving organizational transformation and efficiency within complex, high-growth organizations. He partners with executive leadership to learn the strategy and vision, then understands the current operational state leveraging a bottom-up approach within each business vertical. Once unique challenges are identified, he outlines tactical changes that balance resource allocation and prioritization of internal and external needs, enabling your business to grow and scale on a stable, cost-effective foundation. As a hands-on executor, he has a proven track record of building and scaling successful global operations for both startups and established divisions of Fortune 500 companies.
Key areas of support include securing funding through investor presentations, pitch decks, financial forecasts, and business plan development; achieving product-market fit by identifying customer segments, pain points, and conducting competitive analysis; building strong teams by defining hiring plans, roles, and responsibilities, and leveraging a global hiring model, including deciding between in-house hires and contractors; establishing proven channel partnerships to develop key functions like Marketing & Sales, Finance, Engineering, and Customer Support with trusted vendors before building internal solutions; and addressing ongoing operational challenges through fractional COO, CFO, or Chief of Staff services, focusing on streamlining workflows, automating tasks, optimizing resources, managing cash flow, budgeting, and executing day-to-day operations efficiently.
Sabrina Sidl
Sabrina is the Director of Strategy & Partnerships at the Institute for Experiential AI, where she aids the leadership team in establishing a premier research and education hub focused on responsible, human-centric artificial intelligence. Her expertise spans operations, human capital, strategy, and industry partnerships. With over 20 years of experience collaborating with prominent CEOs and senior leaders across various sectors, she is passionate about technology’s societal impact and skilled at identifying industry trends.
In 2014, she founded C-Gate Consulting Group to provide management consulting services and executive coaching to CEOs, senior leaders, and board directors in technology, financial services, real estate, and family offices. Her areas of focus include human capital management, innovation, behavioral science, growth strategies, and business development.
Before this role, Sabrina worked with senior leaders in real estate development as well as financial institutions like Bridgewater Associates and Renaissance Technologies. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration & Psychology and has held officer positions in the global maritime industry. Recently completed executive education programs at MIT Sloan School of Management covered Artificial Intelligence’s implications for business strategy and Neuroscience for Leadership; she also studied cryptocurrency investment at the London School of Economics.
David Schwartz
Mr. Schwartz is currently VP of Business Intelligence at See Klear. A category management, market research and consumer insights consulting firm. Over the past 20+ years his career in the consumer products industry has evolved through Leadership roles where he has built three teams from the ground up. He has also held numerous roles from sales, strategic planning, sales management to category management, market research, consumer insights, and data analytics. He has engaged with almost every retailer across the consumer products industry in the food, drug, mass, dollar, convenience, ecommerce, and D to C channels.
In his current role he has spearheaded the management of large data sets and implementation of business intelligence tools. His expertise in delivering insights from data and research information across multiple business sectors is a must in todays ever changing world.
George Hirtz
George has been a distinguished lawyer in both private and federal government practice in New York and Washington, DC, for over 40 years. He began his esteemed career as a law clerk for a federal judge in New York and later became an associate at the prestigious firm Cravath.
Following this, he was a partner at Hogan Lovells and its predecessor firms for over 30 years, where he specialized primarily in complex corporate litigation, including securities disputes, contract issues, and international conflicts. Since relocating his practice to Westchester, NY, and Connecticut, he has successfully handled numerous matters related to hedge funds, private equity transactions, and investment banking.
Mr. Hritz is an accomplished graduate of Princeton University and Columbia Law School.
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