Business Series: Exit Strategies for ABA and Related Health Organizations

Karen is the Founder and CEO of Special Learning. She started the company in 2010 after learning about the effectiveness of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) juxtaposed against the reality that over 95% of the world did not have access to ABA. As an entrepreneur with over 20 years of corporate experience, she started Special Learning to leverage existing and emerging technology to make quality ABA resources and services available to parents, educators and professionals around the world.

Karen’s entrepreneurial experience includes starting and growing a diversity retained executive search firm specializing in placing women and minority executives in leadership positions of Fortune 1,000 companies. Her investment banking background includes working with various venture capital and private equity companies to facilitate deal flow while representing CEOs of rapidly growing companies seeking to raise equity and debt capital for various middle market businesses and commercial real estate developers. Her corporate background includes various leadership and functional roles in Fortune 1,000 and middle market companies.  Her additional entrepreneurial activities include owning and operating high end boutique

She graduated with a Masters of Management degree from Kellogg Graduate School of Management of Northwestern University. She is a Certified Public Accountant and a recipient of the Elijah Watts Sells Award from the American Institute of Certified Public Accounts (AICPA), an award granted to less than top 5% of all CPA exam candidates.

John is a senior business executive with a career that spans over 40 years growing and existing businesses in both private and public markets. He possesses a unique ability to spot industry trends that others miss and developing and implementing plans to successfully identify and give dimension to new growth and revenue stream opportunities and to effectively align resources and execute against them. His background spans diverse industries which includes consumer package goods, manufacturing, early education, and digital educational content, and others.

Jon started his career with the Colgate-Palmolive Company in various sales, brand management and senior level positions. After Colgate-Palmolive, he became Chairman, CEO and President pf CoActive Marketing Group, which he led through leveraged buyout and a successful IPO traded in the NASDAQ exchange. He subsequently led CoActive to become a Top 20 marketing and sales promotion agency in the U.S., with 250+ employees and $130m in revenue.

After his departure, he founded Wall & Madison, LLC, a management consulting firm dedicated to assisting start-ups and turn-arounds by providing founders with expertise and hands on support necessary to grow their companies. While with Wall & Madison, John co-founded StarWalk Kids Media, a digital publisher creating eBooks for children served on a streaming software platform. In December 2015, he helped lead a transaction that resulted in Starwalk Kids Media's sale to Isabella Products, Inc.

As a co-founder and Managing Partner of Paley Madison Partners, he is a pioneer in leading one of the first ESOP programs under the Wall Main Street Employee Ownership Act.

Bob is an entrepreneur and mergers and acquisitions executive with over thirty years of business startup, growth and management experience.

He founded Paley Advisors in 2014. From 2002 to 2014, Bob served as one of three Managing Partners at Paley Dixon, Inc., the New York City-based buy-side intermediary and advisory firm, founded in 1979. There, he and partners Sarah Cooke and Richard Paley grew Paley Dixon into one of the top five buy-side intermediaries and advisory firms of its size in the US and Canada.

Previous to Paley Dixon, Bob held senior-level sales and sales management positions at Hummingbird, BrightStar, NetEra and ADP. In the early 1990’s, Bob and partners founded Cable Channels, the cable television electronic program guide software firm.

Bob currently serves as Treasurer and member of the Board of Directors of Kensington House Corporation. He previously served as Treasurer and member of the Board of Directors of The Salmagundi Club, as Treasurer and member of the Board of Directors of the Ali Forney Center and as a member of the Advisory Board of the Peccadillo Theater Company.

Bob holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the College of Engineering at the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Business Administration degree from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.