We combine capital

Nishita Cummings

Co-founder and Managing Partner

Nishita Cummings is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Composition Capital. Prior to co-founding Composition Capital, Nishita was Managing Partner and Co-Head of the Growth Capital Strategy at Kayne Anderson. Over the course of approximately 17 years, Nishita helped grow the Growth Capital Strategy at Kayne Anderson to $1.3 billion of assets under management across six funds. Nishita was elected to Kayne Anderson’s Board of Directors in 2021 and has been recognized by numerous publications for her accomplishments in the private equity, growth capital, and technology ecosystems.

Prior to Kayne Anderson, Nishita worked at Boston Avenue Capital, a value oriented activist hedge fund focused on micro-cap and small-cap public companies, focusing on investments in retail and apparel, medical technology, and software companies. Additionally, Cummings has held positions at LEK Consulting and the Wharton Small Business Development Center. Nishita earned a B.S. in Economics with a concentration in Finance from the Wharton School and a B.S. in Biomedical Sciences from the School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Nishita grew up near Albany then Mission Viejo and lived in Philadelphia and Tulsa prior to settling in Los Angeles with her family.

In her free time, Nishita enjoys modern art, finding the next great restaurant wherever her travels take her, learning fun facts about nature from her older son while cleaning up her youngest son's expansive toy car collection, and spending time with her family including their dog, Bear (and her husband).

Leon Chen

Co-founder and Managing Partner

Leon Chen is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Composition Capital. Prior to co-founding Composition Capital, Leon was Managing Partner at Kayne Anderson. Over the course of approximately 12 years, Leon helped grow the Growth Capital Strategy at Kayne Anderson to $1.3 billion of assets under management across six funds.

Prior to joining Kayne Anderson in 2012, Leon was the Director of Business Development at Relativity Media, a film financing and production company based in Los Angeles. Prior to that, Leon held positions at Clarity Partners, a Los Angeles-based middle market private equity firm and at Citigroup in the investment banking division in New York. While at Clarity Partners and Citigroup, Leon focused on transactions in the media, telecommunications, and business services industries. Leon earned a B.B.A in Finance from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Leon grew up in Appleton, WI and lived in New York prior to settling in Los Angeles with his family.

In his free time, Leon enjoys spending time with his wife and two kids, tending to his home and office plants, and spending time thinking about how to better optimize airport logistics.

Jacqueline Berris

Principal

Jackie Berris is a Principal at Composition Capital, where she is responsible for identifying and analyzing investment opportunities, deal execution, and actively working with portfolio companies post-investment. Prior to joining Composition Capital, Jackie was a Vice President for Kayne Anderson’s growth capital strategy, which was also led by Nishita Cummings and Leon Chen.

Prior to Kayne Anderson, Jackie led the finance function at Clutter, a venture-backed Series D start-up in the B2B and B2C moving and storage sector. Prior thereto, Jackie held positions at ECP, an energy focused private equity firm, and J.P. Morgan in the investment banking group. Jackie earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree with Honors in Accounting from the University of British Columbia. Jackie grew up in Vancouver and has lived in Calgary and New York prior to Los Angeles.

In her free time, Jackie enjoys sketching, being active outside, watching F1, and persuading her stubborn dogs to walk.

Vladimir Malugin

Principal

Vlad Malugin is a Principal at Composition Capital, where he is responsible for identifying and analyzing investment opportunities, deal execution, and actively working with portfolio companies post-investment. Prior to joining Composition Capital, Vlad was a Vice President for Kayne Anderson’s growth capital strategy, which was also led by Nishita Cummings and Leon Chen.

Prior to (re-)joining Kayne Anderson, Vlad was with Hive Homes, an impact-focused single-family-rental platform. Previously, he was with Marlin Equity Partners, a software-focused private equity firm in Los Angeles. Prior thereto, he was with Kayne Anderson’s growth capital team, and with Wells Fargo Securities in the financial sponsors group of the investment banking division. Vlad earned a B.S. in Finance from the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. Vlad is originally from Russia and grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah.

In his free time, Vlad loves to camp in national parks in the summer and snowboard in the winter.

Laura Mason

Vice President

Laura Mason is a Vice President at Composition Capital, where she is responsible for identifying and analyzing investment opportunities, deal execution, and actively working with portfolio companies post-investment. Prior to joining Composition Capital, Laura was a Senior Associate for Kayne Anderson’s growth capital strategy, which was also led by Nishita Cummings and Leon Chen.

Prior to Kayne Anderson, Laura was on the founding team at Verdure Capital Management, a venture fund focused on growth-stage technology investments. Prior thereto, Laura was on the investment team at a New York-based multi-family office and was a senior consultant in the financial services consulting group at Ernst & Young. Laura earned a B.S. in Business and Enterprise Management from Wake Forest University. Laura is originally from West Virginia and lived in Charlotte and New York prior to Los Angeles.

In her free time, Laura is an avid reader and yogi and loves to ski.

Brendan Talarczyk

Senior Associate

Brendan Talarczyk is a Senior Associate at Composition Capital, where he is responsible for identifying and analyzing investment opportunities, deal execution, and actively working with portfolio companies post-investment. Prior to joining Composition Capital, Brendan was an analyst for Kayne Anderson's growth capital strategy, which was also led by Nishita Cummings and Leon Chen.

Brendan earned a B.A. in Economics and a B.A. in History from Brown University. Brendan is originally from Ohio, but has also lived in Oregon, Texas, and Rhode Island prior to Los Angeles.

In his free time, Brendan enjoys playing recreational basketball, and volleyball on the sunny beaches of Los Angeles.

Ronald Pierre

Vice President of Finance and Operations

Ronald Pierre is the Chief Compliance Officer and Vice President of Finance & Operations at Composition Capital, where he is focused on ensuring firm compliance with legal standards and internal policies. He is also responsible for fund operations, financial reporting and portfolio management. Prior to joining Composition Capital, Ronald was a Vice President for Kayne Anderson's growth capital strategy, which was also led by Nishita Cummings and Leon Chen.

Prior to joining Kayne Anderson, Ronald worked at Morgan Stanley as an Associate. Prior thereto, Ronald held a position at Hamilton Lane, a private equity firm, within the fund accounting and valuation divisions. Ronald earned a B.A. in English Writing from Temple University as well as an M.B.A. in Finance from the Rutgers Camden Business School. Ronald grew up in the Philadelphia area and is now based in Los Angeles.

In his free time, Ronald enjoys spending time with his family, reading biographies and pursuing athletics.

Grace Gaysasai

Executive Assistant

Brooks Tobey

Media and Telecom

Industry Expertise: Media and Telecom

Past KPF Board Affiliations: You.i, Chairman of the Board

Brooks Tobey’s role is to apply his knowledge and expertise in the media & telecom industry to assist on assessing potential partners and providing advice and introductions to our portfolio companies at both the Board and operational levels. He most recently served as Chairman of the Board of Kayne Partners III portfolio company, You.i Labs.

Tobey left Warner Media after serving as Head of Technology Strategy and Business Operations for Turner Broadcasting System. As part of Turner’s Global Technology Operations organization for 19 years, Tobey provided strategic technology leadership across audience data and analytics platforms, advertising systems and linear/digital video delivery technologies. He also led Turner’s cloud strategy, the Emerging Technologies groups and all M&A technology diligence and IP portfolio.

Mr. Tobey earned a Bachelor of Science in computer science from Regents College in New York, and a M.B.A. in technology management from the University of Phoenix. He has served on several boards (iStreamPlanet and Freewheel among them) and was a member of the Strategic Digital Video Advisory Committee for Adobe. Mr. Tobey has earned multiple distinctions as a member of the CableFAX Digital Hot List, and led the team responsible for a Technology & Engineering Emmy at Turner.

David Jenkins

Property Tech & Financial Technology

Industry Expertise: Property Technology & Financial Technology

Past KPF Board Affiliations: Conservice, Former CEO & Chair

David Jenkins’ role is to apply his knowledge and expertise in the Financial Technology and Property Technology industries and to assist with assessing potential partners and providing advice and introductions to the Kayne portfolio of companies at both the Board and operational levels.

Mr. Jenkins is currently the Chairman of the Board for Conservice, the nation’s largest utility management company for the real estate industry. He serves on several boards across a wide range of different industries providing experience and expertise around growth and scaling. He has invested in many different businesses which provides him with a broad exposure to various business approaches.

Mr. Jenkins was the founder and CEO of Conservice (a former Kayne Partners portfolio company) and filled the executive role for 20 years. During his tenure, the company grew to a valuation of $2.6 billion as of the last transaction before retiring from the role in late 2020. Mr. Jenkins graduated with a BS in Business Management and a MS in Human Resource management from the Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University where he also sits on the schools National Advisory Board.

In 2011, Mr. Jenkins was named the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year for the Utah multi-state region. Under his leadership, Conservice was also named to the Inc. 5000 for 13 years in a row. He works closely as an advisor for the Stephen R. Covey Leadership Center. He is associated with several non-profit and philanthropic efforts locally and internationally.

Mr. Jenkins lives in Logan and St. George Utah with his wife. They have three adult aged daughters. He enjoys international travel, hiking, golf, and reading history books.

Susan Solinsky

Healthcare

Industry Expertise: Digital Healthcare and Technology

Susan Solinsky is Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer at Ellipsis Health, a mental/behavioral health company that has developed an AI-powered, speech-based vital sign to quantify and manage stress, depression, and anxiety symptoms at scale. Susan is a senior sales and operations leader with a passion for supporting mental health.

Prior to Ellipsis, she was VP of Enterprise Sales at Phreesia (IPO, 2019). Before that, she co-founded Vital Score (acquired by Phreesia), a digital health company that harnessed the evidence-based therapeutic technique, Motivational Interviewing, to help patients self-identify goals and barriers and drive their own care planning. She also served as Managing Partner at Reditus Revenue Solutions, a management consulting firm that provided interim/fractional executive leadership across sales, strategy, marketing, product, operations, and fundraising to innovative start-ups and digital health care companies to develop new business lines with an emphasis on scaling to profitability. Earlier in her career, Susan was SVP and Managing Director as part of the founding team of the Advisory Board (IPO) and the Corporate Executive Board (IPO).

Susan received her A.B. from Princeton University. Her mission is to support and partner with entrepreneurs, administrators, and clinicians to drive innovation and improve health care outcomes. An avid supporter of female entrepreneurs, she volunteers as the Director of the Women’s Health Tech Initiative at HITLAB supporting femtech. She is an active angel investor in digital health. She’s a Founding LP of the How Women Invest Fund, LP at DigitalDx, LP at Coyote Ventures, Investing Member of Portfolia, and Investing Member of HIP. Susan serves on several boards including Carium, Inc, Dubug7, Inc., HITLAB Women’s Health Tech, and The Wender Weis Foundation for Children.

Forrest Hobbs

Sales Enablement/Go-To-Market

Industry Expertise: Sales Enablement/Go-To-Market

KPF Board Affiliations: Decisiv, Board Director

Forrest Hobbs brings over 20 years of experience leading Go-to-Market, including several advisory board roles where exits were achieved. Forrest has a passion for building high performance teams and leading businesses from pre-revenue and pre-product market fit to rapid growth and successful exits and has scaled multiple seed stage startups through $100M ARR and helped take Microsoft Office 365 to a full global rollout and $1B ARR.

Prior to tech, Forrest was part of the team that rebuilt and exited Artisan Entertainment to Lionsgate, which led to founding his first tech company, music licensing platform, MoWorks. He spent the first 8 years of his career as a commercial fisherman in the Bering Sea, Alaska.

Forrest received his degree in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Lynda Grindstaff

Cybersecurity

Industry Expertise: Security, Compliance & Infrastructure

Lynda Grindstaff transforms consumer and technology trends into high-margin, multibillion-dollar strategies for global products. She brings over 25 years of deep experience in technical engineering, product marketing, and strategic planning to leadership teams and boardrooms, providing a strategic framework for growth and transformation. Lynda optimizes people, processes, and technologies for internal growth and efficiencies, and ensures the right technologies and ecosystems are brought to market. Lynda is currently a Vice President of Engineering at McAfee and previously spent over two decades at Intel in a variety of technical and business roles.

Lynda is passionate about ensuring organization diversity, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). She is on the board of directors for Women’s Empowerment – a non-profit focused on educating and empowering women who are experiencing homelessness, and a strategic advisor for Women Leaders for the World program where she provides executive mentorship and coaching to startups and early-stage companies. Lynda has also coached more than 700 technical leaders in leadership, effectiveness, transformation, and revenue generation through her independent consultancy. She has been an active member of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) for three decades, a recipient of several national SWE awards, and a leader at the local and national levels. Most recently she has chaired the SWE audit committee. Lynda is also passionate about women in venture and is a founding LP in several funds focused on women.

Lynda is an experienced public speaker and a recognized expert in her field. She has given over two dozen presentations at the Society of Women Engineers conferences and has spoken about cybersecurity and executive leadership at more than ten industry conferences. She has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from California State University, Sacramento.

Bryan Boudreaux

Managing Partner

Industry Expertise: Supply Chain and Logistics

KPF Board Affiliations: Natural Partners Fullscript, Board Observer

Bryan Boudreaux’s role is to apply his knowledge and expertise in the supply chain and logistics industry to assist on assessing potential partners and providing advice and introductions to our portfolio companies at both the Board and operational level. He currently serves as a Board Observer at Natural Partners Fullscript, a Kayne Partners Fund IV company.

Boudreaux is currently the Chief Operations Officer for Smitty’s Supply. Prior to Smitty’s, he was Senior Vice President of Supply Chain supporting distribution center operations in the eastern half of the United States. His role supported 50 distribution centers encompassing roughly 45 million feet of space and over 33 thousand associates. Mr. Boudreaux spent over 10 years in the Wal-Mart Private Fleet. His prior role was Vice President of Eastern Operations. In this role, he was responsible for inbound and outbound transportation from both grocery and general merchandise distribution centers. Boudreaux is an accomplished leader of a large, complex supply chain organization with 14 years of senior executive experience.

Boudreaux graduated from Southeastern Louisiana University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Government and went on to earn his Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Webster University, St. Louis, Missouri. Mr. Boudreaux was commissioned as an Officer in the U.S. Army. During his five years on active duty, he served in various leadership positions and served in Operation Desert Storm.

Puja_Agrawal

Financial Technology

Industry Expertise: Financial Technology

Puja Agrawal is a board director, advisor, investor, and C-suite executive in the enterprise software industry. She is a Fintech expert and widely regarded as a leader in transforming growth-stage and underperforming Fintech companies into market leaders. Puja’s track record includes serving as General Manager/CEO of a global business, where she transformed a struggling business to $100MM+ annual revenues for a public company, as well as her role as COO & CRO, where she drove P&L and transformational growth of a $750MM revenue business for the third largest Fintech in the world. Her expertise and achievements have been recognized through numerous awards, publications, and speaking engagements.

Puja has deep expertise in enterprise software businesses across Go-to-market, product management & global operations. She has been a pioneer in introducing disruptive solutions to the financial technology market, while owning the full P&L, and executing growth strategies via organic, inorganic growth, and revenue generating partnerships.

Puja currently serves on the board of directors for Quantifind Inc, as a Strategic Operating Partner for Kayne Partners, as a Venture Partner for NextGen Ventures, as a GTM Advisor for Greycroft Ventures, as a Mentor for NYC Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, and advises multiple startups and growth stage companies. With a wealth of operating experience in start-ups, growth-stage to multi-billion-dollar enterprises across VC, PE, and public organizations and well-known names such as NICE Actimize, CA and Finastra (Vista Private Equity company), Puja is passionate about advising founders and organizations in their journey of growth to create unparalleled outcomes.

Puja holds a BS from Minnesota State University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Elaine Macdonald

Healthcares

Industry Expertise: Healthcare Services Technology

Elaine MacDonald has held several industry executive level roles at leading healthcare systems and technology companies where she had P&L and business growth expansion responsibilities scaling healthcare services and software businesses. (HCA, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Cerner Corporation).

At Vanderbilt University Medical Center, MacDonald was Vice President responsible for service line development and the startup of a new specialty pharmacy services business working with peer healthcare systems, PBM’s, payors and pharmaceutical manufacturers. While at VUMC, she led strategic growth and expansion, including consulting services, specialty pharmacy operations, medication management and care coordination services.

At Cerner, she led post-acquisition business unit integration, technology roadmap and solution design, the deployment of multiple enterprise SaaS clinical applications, and the launch of a virtual care/remote patient monitoring/AI based technology.

Prior to the acquisition by Cerner, MacDonald was the COO for InterMedHx, an HCA software start-up, where she had oversight for the go to market, clinical and technical implementation of several hospital operation and ambulatory solutions across 300+ combined hospital and physician practices.

Elaine holds a Master of Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University and a BSc from the University of Waterloo, Canada.

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