Michael Beasley

Bio

Mr. Ward is a Managing Director of Nobska Ventures and Co-Founder and Partner of Nobska Group. Mr. Ward's professional career has focused on providing strategic and transactional counsel to high-growth companies. His prior professional experience in finance and venture capital includes serving as Vice President of O'Donnell Davis Management, Inc., a merchant bank and investment management firm then based in Princeton, NJ. Mr. Ward worked with the firm's portfolio companies in health care and information technology and managed the day-to-day merger and acquisition, as well as real estate investment activities of the firm. O'Donnell Davis was the majority investor in InfoMed, Inc., which became the market dominant competitor in the Home Health Care IT market. InfoMed established a sustainable competitive advantage in the industry with the aid of O'Donnell Davis’ expansion and acquisition capital, high-level management support, and strategic and transactional counsel. Mr. Ward contributed to the successful identification, acquisition, and/or post-merger integration of Computer Resources, Inc, Coastal, Inc., the Visiting Nurse Association of Tampa, and Script Systems, Inc. InfoMed became a publicly held company through its reverse merger with Script Systems. Mr. Ward created the tracking system and valuation methodology which identified Script Systems as undervalued and advocated and facilitated the acquisition of operating control of the company by O'Donnell Davis. O'Donnell Davis further leveraged its knowledge of health care and health care informatics through substantively profitable risk arbitrage activities. Mr. Ward created the financial model supporting these and other investments, most notably in support of O'Donnell Davis's position in Hospital Staffing Services, Inc. "HSSI”. Additionally, Mr. Ward was a management consultant with CSC Index, then one of the world's premier management consulting firms, which originated the consulting disciplines of "Reengineering" and "Value Disciplines." His work at CSC Index included strategic advisory services to such clients as GE Capital as well as internal marketing and practice development responsibilities on behalf of the firm. Early in his career, Mr. Ward worked for The Equitable Companies in corporate finance and legislative affairs in the Office of the Chairman. Presently, Mr. Ward serves as a Board Member of the Open Society Institute (in Baltimore, MD) and the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies. Mr. Ward attended Harvard Law School and Stanford University's Graduate School of Business after completing his undergraduate studies at Harvard College, with honors in History and Science and as a Harvard National Scholar.