Board of Advisors
Ethan Flaherty
Ethan M. Flaherty is General Counsel of Cartera Commerce, Inc., the leading provider of card-linked marketing solutions that increase revenue and customer loyalty for merchants, banks, issuers and loyalty programs. For merchants, Cartera powers the industry’s largest card-linked advertising network that targets shopping offers to more than 150 million loyal consumers and tracks in-store and online sales. For banks, issuers and loyalty programs, Cartera provides the industry’s most comprehensive card-linked offer platform that powers personalized in-store and online shopping programs that build consumer engagement, maximize card spend and create new revenue streams. Cartera’s platform delivers card-linked offers via multiple digital marketing channels including Websites, online banking, email, mobile, social media and browser apps.
Prior to joining Cartera, Ethan was a partner and manager of the corporate/business practice at Pabian & Russell, LLC from 2005-2011. In addition, Ethan was an associate in the Boston office of Nixon Peabody LLP from 1996-2003, and in the Boston office of Keegan Werlin & Pabian, LLP from 2003-2005.
Ethan received his Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1996 and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from Brown University in 1993. While at Georgetown, Ethan was an executive editor of the Georgetown International Environmental Law Review and a member of the American Inns of Court. Ethan is a past President of the Board of Directors of the Brown Club of Boston, and is a member of the Boston Lawyers Group.
Ethan was selected by his peers as a “Super Lawyer/Rising Star” by Boston Magazine and Law & Politics Magazine each year from 2005 through 2011, a distinction given to only the top 2.5% of up-and-coming attorneys in Massachusetts. Ethan is admitted to practice before the bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He is a member of the American, Massachusetts and Boston Bar Associations.
Stephen M. Honig
Stephen M. Honig practices a broad spectrum of business law, with emphasis on corporate law and governance, securities law, mergers and acquisitions, and emerging businesses. Since the 1960s, his practice has included forming, building, reorganizing and advising on the governance of private companies and public companies and M&A transactions for public and private buyers and sellers both in the United States and overseas. He encourages a focus on critically evaluating the components of a given transaction, so as to minimize protracted negotiations in areas which are not value-added to the client.
Mr. Honig’s career has reflected the technological orientation of the New England area in which he has practiced, representing startups, emerging companies, and entities and individuals in technology transfer arrangements in many industries, including high energy physics; photo-voltaics; electronics; computer manufacturing; software; medical devices; pharmaceuticals; semi-conductor materials; circuit boards; online service providers; telecom infrastructure; e-commerce; and energy. Mr. Honig has served as president of an SEC-registered investment advisor, represented companies and underwriters in public offerings and private placements, represented broker-dealers and market makers, and effected the entry of banks into the securities business.
Over the years, Mr. Honig’s practice also has evolved into other areas. He now serves as trustee of family trusts and, in that capacity, evaluates and supervises the operation of businesses on behalf of the families whose wealth he manages. He also represents individual, institutional and venture capital investors in equity, debt and lease financings.
Mr. Honig has taught securities law and regularly lectures and writes on governance issues, shareholder disputes, middle market antitrust issues, securities law regulation, Sarbanes-Oxley, and the representation of senior executives engaged in establishing compensation regimes in both public and private company settings. Mr. Honig is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors, the Securities Law Committees of the Boston and Massachusetts Bar Associations, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Enterprise Forum. As principal program director for the National Association of Corporate Directors in New England, he has designed and presented programs for directors and advisors to directors on matters of governance, director duties, boards in crisis, boards faced with regulatory issues, and the legal challenges facing directors under Delaware and federal securities laws. He is the regular securities law columnist for In-House (the Lawyers Weekly publication directed to in-house attorneys). He is a 1966 graduate of Harvard Law School and holds his undergraduate degree from Columbia College.
Gina LaRoche
Gina LaRoche is a founding partner of Seven Stones Leadership, a professional services firm advancing the practice of leadership, wisdom, courage and sufficiency. She leverages over 20 years of experience in delivering executive programs that have challenged leaders, teams and entrepreneurs to accelerate results using vision, strategy and accountability for execution.
Seven Stones was created to fulfill on the supposition that meaningful effective leadership requires the exposure of assumptions that guide organizations. Once uncovered, organizations can create a new set of beliefs, ones which if embraced and enacted would powerfully shift the company toward the mindset of sufficiency. The concept of Sufficiency asserts that there are enough resources to sustain all and a global economy based on these principles would be very different world in which to compete. We work with individuals, executives, teams and corporate systems who want to create a culture of trust, integrity and sustainability. Gina serves as a visiting faculty member for executive education programs at Simmons School of Management. She started her career as a sales professional at IBM where she received numerous excellence awards. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BSBA from Georgetown University. She is married and has two elementary age sons.
Ann M. Murray
Ms. Murray is an experienced business development, coach, management, & business executive with twenty-five+ years experience generating revenue from technology, business, and outsourcing (India & China) consulting services to financial services companies. She is Vice President of Solutions Business Development for Financial Services at Dextrys, in Wakefield, MA. ,P. Her experience spans working for large corporations such as Prime Computer, Digital Equipment Corporation, CDI Corporation, and Patni Computer Systems, to working for start-up consulting firms such as Innovative Information Systems, Concept Five Technologies (commercial spin-off of The Mitre Corporation), Granitar, The Reference, and DarwinSuzsoft, now known as Dextrys.
Ms. Murray’s business experience and earlier career as a psychologist combine her talents to make contributions to the following organizations:
- Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), Member
- ACG Women’s Executive Forum, Planning Committee Member Commonwealth
Institute, Member - Harvard Club of Boston, Member
- Women of The Harvard Club: Planning Committee Member
- MS Cure Fund, Executive Steering Committee Member and VP of Corporate Development
- Boston Women in Finance, Board Member, Co-Chair Communications, and Member
- Simmons School of Management’s Business Plan Competition, Mentor
Ms. Murray’s academic credentials include:
- BA, Psychology, Millersville University of Pennsylvania, Millersville, PA
- MA and CAGS (Certificate, Advanced Graduate Study), Counseling Psychology, Assumption College, Worcester, MA.
Steve Wishner
Steven Wishner is Managing Director of Exigent, LLC, a boutique Boston based consulting firm focusing on turnaround management and growth strategies for small to mid sized businesses.
Previously, from 2004 to 2010 Mr. Wishner was Senior Vice President, Finance, Strategy and Business Development of Charming Shoppes, Inc., the largest women’s specialty apparel retailer in the country offering plus-sized women’s fashions with more than 2100 stores and annual sales in excess of $2 billion.
Prior to joining Charming Shoppes, from 2002 to 2004 Mr. Wishner was Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of Sequel Management, LLC, a boutique private equity investment firm located in Boston and fro 1999 to 2002 was Chief Financial Officer of BuyerZone,com, Inc., a successful internet startup operation which he helped shepherd to profitability within 2 years of bringing its first product to market. BuyerZone was eventually sold to Reed Elsevier.
From 1986 until 1999 Mr. Wishner served as Vice-President, Finance and Treasurer of The TJX Companies, Inc., the largest retailer of off-price family apparel in the United States, with then annual sales in excess of $8 billion. During his tenure at TJX Mr. Wishner participated in significant financial engineering resulting in a complete restructuring of the company, which included the divestiture by IPO, spin-off or sale of numerous divisions and subsidiaries, the acquisition of several businesses, and various significant financings. Mr. Wishner also played an important role in the development of several international businesses for the company. During his tenure at the Company its market value grew from approximately $1.5 billion to $11.5 billion.
Prior to his affiliation with TJX, Mr. Wishner was in the entertainment industry with Viacom International, Inc., and in high tech manufacturing with General Instrument Corporation. Mr. Wishner’s experience also includes several years of banking with each of Chemical Bank and the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City.
Mr. Wishner holds a BA in Philosophy from Colgate University and received an MBA degree in Corporate Finance from the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University. He has served on the Advisory Board of Vanguard Solar, a start-up operation looking to capitalize on a new, break-through nanotube technology in the solar energy industry. He is a past Director of both Remote Video International, Inc. and Technical Communications Corporation (NASDQ: TCCO), as well as of Occupational Health Services, Inc. Mr. Wishner has also served as a member of Protection Mutual Insurance Company’s Advisory Board, has been the Co-Chairman of the Alumni Executive Council’s Admission Commission at Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management, and is a Founding Director of the Sudbury Educational Resource Fund. Mr. Wishner has also served on Sudbury’s Town Finance Committee as its Vice-Chairman.
