Foster Wollen
415-***-**** / ********@*****.*** / 1463 45th Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94122
SUMMARY
Skilled corporate transactional lawyer, former finance professional, entrepreneur & self-published author seeks general corporate legal work
EXPERIENCE
SULLIVAN & CROMWELL, New York, NY 1991 - 1995
· Corporate transactional attorney in the General Practice group focused on initial public offerings & mergers & acquisitions
· Managed transactions involving securities issues (equity & debt, including high-yield), mergers & acquisitions, U.S. financings for foreign entities, medium-term note programs, corporate reorganizations and restructurings, asset-based finance and securitized borrowings, and investment company matters
· Served as adviser in all aspects of capital markets structure, products and transactions and the regulation of the participants in those markets under securities, banking, commodities and other laws
· Clients including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Salomon Smith Barney, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Georgia Pacific Corp. & Prudential Insurance MORGAN, LEWIS & BOCKIUS LLP, New York, NY 1995 - 1997
· Corporate transactional attorney in the Business & Finance group focused on mergers & acquisitions and securities
· Led firm’s day-to-day involvement in several underwritten public offerings (mostly IPOs), mergers & acquisitions (financial and strategic), and private equity and venture capital financings
· Clients including Salomon Smith Barney, Merrill Lynch, Chase & Citigroup NETHANDICAP.COM, San Francisco, CA 1999 – 2001
· Founder & CEO of a golf-focused venture-capital funded start-up Internet community for avid golfers that grew to over 100,000 members within a year before being sold to Book4Golf.com, the leading online tee time reservation provider
· Raised two rounds of funding totaling $1 million from investor group that included Eureka Capital, a San Francisco based seed stage venture capital firm, and the sitting and former Deans of Harvard Business School
· Conducted business development effort and negotiated and closed 16 syndication, content-licensing and offline marketing and member acquisition programs using direct online (email), banner advertisements, online co-promotion partnerships, tell-a-friend, print media, take-ones, events, trade shows and organization partnerships that generated over 20,000 member registrations in one month
· Scoped and managed web development and back-end Oracle database project led by Infinite Info, a San Francisco based web development firm
· Managed 5 employees and 6 outsourced service providers including co-location, hosting, equipment leasing, web development, public relations, graphic design, legal and accounting functions
· Partnerships and vendor relationships established included Buy.com, Yahoo, GoTo.com, Oracle, Millennia Vision Corporation, AboveNet, Golfweek, Golf Magazine, Weather.com, Engage Media/Flycast, PGA Tour pro Greg Chalmers, Titleist, TaylorMade and Ping
· Conducted auction process that resulted in 3 letters of intent and the sale of the company for cash and stock to a publicly traded acquirer in September 2000
· Unlike many other start-ups of the era, NetHandicap.com is still an operating company pursuing the same business plan established over two decades ago AMERICAN CANYON PARTNERS, San Francisco, CA 2001 – 2004
· Managing Director of 4-person private equity firm focused on acquiring a middle-market California manufacturing company with $5 million in sales
· Negotiated roll-up acquisition of three California furniture manufacturers with combined EBITDA of
$2 million
· Established funding relationships with a network of financial institutions and high-net worth individuals
· Conducted acquisition search effort that sourced and performed due diligence on dozens of small cash flow positive manufacturing targets
PURSUED ENTREPRENEURIAL ACQUISITIONS, San Francisco, CA 2004 – 2016
· Continued to pursue entrepreneurial acquisition of California-based private companies outside of a firm as an owner-operator
ADDITIONAL EXPERIENCE
WESTERN AVENUES GAZETTE, San Francisco, CA 2016 - 2022
· Publisher & sole author of the Western Avenues Gazette, a quarterly San Francisco newspaper sold through S.F. vendors and on Amazon.com
· Developed circulation program allowing a network of homeless individuals to sell the paper on the streets of San Francisco for their own profit
EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA DARDEN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, Charlottesville, VA 1997-1999
· M.B.A., 1999
· Portfolio Manager of The Darden Fund, a $700,000 student-managed fund part of the school's endowment; achieved IRR of 37% equity return (versus 18.5% for S&P 500) with balanced portfolio of stocks that was fully invested at start of tenure UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF LAW, Charlottesville, VA 1988 – 1991
· J.D., 1991
· Executive Editor of Virginia Journal of International Law
· Elected to Phi Delta Phi academic legal fraternity for scholastic achievement AMHERST COLLEGE, Amherst, MA 1984 - 1988
· B.A., 1988; Rugby
· Student leader elected to 5-person board that distributed $800,000 in student fees and as President of College-sponsored social organization with 300 student members SOFTWARE
Microsoft Office, Libre Office & Scribus (publication software) BAR ADMISSION
Attorney admitted to the New York bar; in good standing since admission INTEREST
Golf