Team

Founder

Jay Shepherd

Jay Shepherd, the Founder and President of SGP, has over 30 years of experience working with middle market and emerging growth companies to help them grow and maximize their potential. He has helped build and exit companies as a private... Read More

Senior Advisors

SGP’s efforts are complemented by those of a deep team of Senior Advisors who are available to provide advice to SGP’s partner companies.  SGP’s Senior Advisors include CEOs who have multiple experiences growing, developing and exiting companies, founders who have successfully built and exited their own businesses, and experienced senior executives with deep functional knowledge in critical areas such as marketing and operations.  We understand the important role of leadership and leadership development in building great companies, so many of our Senior Advisors can assist with leadership coaching and team development as well.


Donna Novitsky

Donna Novitsky currently serves as CEO of Yiftee, a company she co-founded. Depending on how you count them, Yiftee is Donna’s 3rd or 19th start-up. She is also a former partner of a top tier venture capital firm, took a startup from scratch to IPO, teaches marketing to engineers and entrepreneurs at Stanford University... Read More

George Montgomery

George’s most recent role as a CEO was with I Drive Safely LLC, the premier on-line provider of driver safety training. George was recruited to the CEO role to transition the company from a small privately held entity to a professionally managed, high growth company.  He recruited a new executive team and acquired... Read More

Janice Hamlin

Janice is the founder and CEO of Marketing Immersion, a marketing strategy consulting firm. Her scope of expertise spans the entertainment, consumer products and retail industries. As a consultant and as an executive, Janice has spearheaded the strategic planning and growth of some of the most well-known companies in the world. These companies’ brands, revenues and profits have been enhanced by her... Read More

Tim Ristoff

Tim Ristoff is Managing Director and CEO of TriVista, a firm he founded to help investors and managers build companies that are more productive, efficient, and valuable by assessing and improving their operations. He has over 25 years of experience in manufacturing, operations, and general management.  Tim is a practitioner of Lean... Read More