Robert Puopolo

Robert Puopolo General Information

Biography

Mr. Robert Puopolo is a Co-Founder and serves as Partner at Epic Partners. Mr. Puopolo brings to the team nearly 30 years of education, private equity and investment banking experience. Mr. Puopolo is responsible for overseeing all of Epic Partners' activities. As such, Mr. Puopolo originated, among others, Epic Partners' investments in St. Matthew's University School of Medicine and Oasis Children's Services. Before co-founding Epic Partners, Mr. Puopolo was a partner at Leeds Equity Partners, the largest private equity firm focused on companies involved in education and training. At Leeds Equity Partners he structured, financed and negotiated the LBO of DataMark, the leading marketing services firm for the for-profit colleges and schools market. While at Leeds, Mr. Puopolo also originated growth capital investments in two leading e-learning companies. He also identified and assisted in recruiting the CEO for Leeds' largest portfolio company, Ross University Schools of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. Mr. Puopolo was an investor in Edison Schools, the largest private management company of K-12 public and charter schools, and is currently an investor in Lincoln Educational Services, a leading proprietary post-secondary schools group. He is currently Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors of Oasis Children's Services and a member of the board of Panax Capital. Mr. Puopolo is a former director of St. Matthew's University School of Medicine, Datamark, Provant, the University of Sint Eustatius School of Medicine, LAWYERStv, Helma Institute and Paxar, and a former director or advisory director of four other private companies. Prior to joining Leeds, Mr. Puopolo spent 18 years in the M&A and Corporate Finance Departments of Oppenheimer, Bear Stearns and Kidder, Peabody. While at Oppenheimer, he founded and ran the Firm's M&A group for three years. Mr. Puopolo also co-founded and was co-head of the Firm's Private Equity Firm Coverage Group. During his 18-year investment banking career, he originated and/or executed over 50 M&A and other corporate financing transactions, over one third of which were LBOs and other highly leveraged M&A transactions. During his investment banking career, Mr. Puopolo represented BET plc in the sale of its Rediffusion flight simulation business to GM/Hughes Electronics. He also performed investment banking services for various other education-related companies including GP Strategies (NYSE: GPX), ECC International, Gilat Satellite Networks (NASDAQ: GILT) and Doron Precision Systems. Other than his time at Leeds and Epic Partners, Mr. Puopolo has personally invested either with clients, in clients or independently in over 20 private equity transactions. Mr. Puopolo holds an AB in Economics from Harvard College and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.