About The Speakers
Howard Brod Brownstein
President of Brownstein Corporation
Howard Brod Brownstein, CTP, is a nationally-known turnaround and restructuring professional, and regularly provides programs for Women in the Boardroom. He is President of Brownstein Corporation, which provides turnaround management and advisory services, as well as investment banking, fiduciary services, litigation consulting, investigations and valuation services. He regularly serves on the boards of directors of public and private companies, and currently serves on the boards of: P&F Industries (Nasdaq: PFIN) where he chairs the Nominating/Governance and Strategic Planning & Risk Assessment Committees, Renew Financial, where he serves as chair of the Risk Committee, and Merakey, a nonprofit with over 10,000 employees. He is a Certified Turnaround Professional, and also an NACD Board Leadership Fellow and Immediate Past President and Board Chair of the NACD Philadelphia Chapter. He has authored ninety articles and textbook chapters, is a Contributing Editor at two publications, and is a regular guest-lecturer at Harvard Business School, Wharton, NYU and elsewhere. He received JD and MBA degrees at Harvard, and B.S. (Wharton) and B.A. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.
Cathy L. Reece
Director in the Financial Restructuring, Bankruptcy and Creditors’ Rights Practice Group at Fennemore Craig, P.C. headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona
Cathy L. Reece has extensive experience in commercial finance and real estate workouts and bankruptcies. She represented the committee and plan proponent and now represents the real estate liquidating entities of Mortgages Ltd., a hard money lender with a $900 million loan portfolio secured by real estate with thousands of investors. She represented (a) the committee and joint plan proponent in the Baptist Foundation of Arizona cases with over 13,000 creditors and $650 million of liabilities, (b) a municipality, which is the owner and landlord of the arena, in the Coyotes Hockey bankruptcies, (c) the secured lender and joint plan proponent in the publicly traded ILX Resorts time share industry case, and (d) the post-petition lender and ultimate buyer of the Nevada gold mines in the chapter 15 cross border Veris Gold USA case. She has represented secured lenders and unsecured creditors in large chapter 11 cases such as MicroAge, Einstein Bagel, Boston Chicken, Foster Grant, UDC Homes and in numerous real estate cases involving shopping centers, apartments, office buildings, mines and health care facilities. Ms. Reece was selected Legal Advisor of the Year by M&A Advisor in 2014 and received the Mining Deal of the Year and Cross Border Restructuring Awards for the sale of the Nevada gold mines in 2016. Ms. Reece is a Member of The American Law Institute. Ms. Reece served in several international officer positions with TMA Global and received the 2011 Individual Contribution Award from TMA Global. Ms. Reece is the Treasurer of the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers and was chair of the ABA’s Loan Workout Subcommittee. Ms. Reece is Board Certified in Business Bankruptcy Law. She is listed in Best Lawyers, Super Lawyers, and Benchmark’s Top 250 Women in Litigation, and has been named one of the Most Influential Women in Arizona Business.
Deborah Hicks Midanek
Board Director, Entrepreneur & Author
Deborah Hicks Midanek is a veteran independent director, a pioneer in the corporate restructuring industry, and a serial entrepreneur. Widely respected for her turnaround skills, she has diagnosed and remedied problems for over 60 corporations and facilitated the growth of nearly 30 other ventures, including her own. Described by the late Fletcher Byrom, CEO of a Fortune 25 company, as a “pure thinker” – quickly gaining a deep understanding of complex problems and demonstrating an extraordinary ability to assimilate information and craft resilient solutions.
