Team

Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

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TEDx Times Square

David is Founder, Chairman and CEO of IssuWorks.   The studies that he and Ed Kim co-authored documented the long-term decline in equity capital formation in the United States and provided the core arguments that gave rise to the JOBS Act and many of the specific provisions contained in the JOBS Act.   For these reasons, he has been called “The father of the JOBS Act.”  David has also called for a “JOBS Act 2” or “JOBS Act Part 2”  -  language increasingly heard on Capitol Hill.  Weild and Kim’s written work was cited by a broad range of legislators, regulators, academics, the IPO Task Force and the White House Jobs Council leading up to the JOBS Act.  David has testified in Congress (most recently in June 2013) and at the SEC (most recently at the Roundtable on Decimalization) on these and other market issues and attended the signing of the JOBS Act by President Obama in the Rose Garden on April 5, 2012. 

David was also recently asked to author a study for the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which was entitled, “Making Stock Markets Work to Support Economic Growth” and presented in April 2013 in draft form to the 35 member nations of the OECD, IOSCO and the European Commission.  The U.S. Treasury and SEC were in attendance.   He later presented the final version at a meeting in June that included the CEO of the World Federation of Exchanges where it was generally agreed, as Weild and Kim have maintained,  that structural changes to stock markets have caused  the global decline in capital formation for small companies.

David is a former Vice Chairman and executive committee member of The NASDAQ Stock Market and spent years running Wall Street investment banking and equity capital markets businesses.   

David holds an MBA from the Stern School of Business and a BA from Wesleyan University. He studied on exchange at The Sorbonne, Ecole des Haute Etudes Commerciales and The Stockholm School of Economics.   He is also Chairman of the Board of Tuesday’s Children, the 9/11 charity.

Chief Operating Officer

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Edward has over 25 years of capital markets, finance, product development, and operations experience in both established and entrepreneurial environments. Prior to helping form IssuWorks, he was Managing Director of Financial Communications at Stern And Company, a strategic communications and public relations firm.

Previously, Edward was Senior Vice President at The NASDAQ Stock Market with responsibility for developing new products and services for NASDAQ’s Corporate Client Group. Prior to NASDAQ, he was Chief Administrative Officer of PurchasePro. Edward has worked in investment banking, equity and equity-linked trading, salestrading, research and equity capital markets at firms including Lehman Brothers, Prudential Securities, and Robertson Stephens, in the financial centers of New York, San Francisco, London and Tokyo.  Edward has a BS in Materials Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds FINRA Series 7, Series 24, Series 63, Series 79 and Series 99 licenses.

Head of Sales

Lauren is Head of Sales and is a Board Member of IssuWorks Inc.  She also is founder of LAS Advisors LLC, which provides Consulting & Advisory Services focused exclusively on the Financial Services Industry.

Lauren spent nearly 13 years at financial services specialist Keefe, Bruyette & Woods where she co-founded the Asset Manager/Securities Brokerage Research practice, one of the first successful ventures into non-bank financials at the firm. She most recently served as Managing Director in the Investment Banking Division within the Diversified Financials Group focused on the securities industry.   Lauren spent her first twelve years at KBW with the firm’s Equity Research Department, most recently serving as Managing Director responsible for the coverage of the US Securities Brokerage Industry. In all, Lauren has more than 25 years of experience in research, covering brokers, asset managers, banks and select specialty finance companies at firms also including Prudential Securities, Smith Barney, Dillon Read and CS First Boston.  Lauren holds FINRA Series 7, 16, 24, 63, and 79 licenses and received her B.A. in Economics and a minor in Sociology from Hobart and William Smith Colleges and her MBA in Finance from Fordham University Graduate School of Business Administration. 

VP Product

As VP Product in a startup, Brian's current responsibilities include design of our professional services and technology products, project management, facilities, business systems and compliance. He is a Certified Scrum Product Owner and Certified Scrum Master, holds the FINRA Series 7 and Series 63 licenses, and enjoys life as a startup animal.

His recent experience includes VP Product at OurStage.com -- a crowd-sourced music entertainment and competition platform -- and VP Product at Helium.com from its inception to sale to RR Donnelly. Prior to Helium, Brian worked in Strategic Systems at Monster.com where he managed global e-commerce and employer platform projects from business requirements, through usability, design, specification and development.

On the professional services front, he was integral to the design and management of the professional services / brand engagement products for OurStage.com (clients included Intel, Best Buy, Coors and ESPN), Helium.com (clients included AOL, Hearst Corporation, Fox Interactive, and Pulitzer), and the web marketing & development firm BaseSix (clients included Johnson & Johnson, Dupont, and CMGI).

On the creative side, Brian's explorations include music (singing, songwriting, recording, professional and street performance), screenwriting, filmmaking, voiceover and film acting (lead roles in indie films shown at Sundance and Woods Hole Film festivals, major productions such as Manchurian Candidate, Mystic River, Law & Order and Sex and the City).

Board Observer, IssuWorks & Managing Director, Weild & Co.

Mr. Wright has over 25 years of investment banking experience.Mr. Wright began his career in the Investment Banking division of Merrill Lynch. He worked there for over two decades, including as Managing Director and Head of Corporate Finance for the firm's Global Financial Sponsors Group. His last posting at the firm was as Managing Director and Head of Corporate Finance for Merrill Lynch in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.  He subsequently served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ThinkEquity LLC.  Mr. Wright graduated cum laude from Princeton University and holds FINRA Series 7, Series 24, Series 63 and Series 79 licenses.