Erskine Bowles, Campaign to Fix the Debt Co-Founder, to Deliver Keynote Address at SBIA’s National Summit for Middle Market Funds

The Small Business Investor Alliance (SBIA), the leading association for lower middle market private equity funds and investors, today announced that Erskine Bowles will be delivering the keynote address at its annual National Summit for Middle Market Funds conference, taking place on October 19-21, 2014 at The Breakers in Palm Beach.

The National Summit will bring more than 450 chief decision makers from leading private equity funds, intermediaries, investment banks and limited partners together to address a wide range of issues facing this critical segment of the American economy with a particular focus this year on the role small business investing plays in the nation’s fiscal health as well as the role Washington plays in the success of America’s small businesses. To learn more about this year’s conference and to review the complete event agenda please visit: http://www.PESummit.org/

“Erskine Bowles is one of our industry’s most distinguished luminaries, with considerable experience in private equity, investment banking, public policy and promoting investment in America’s small businesses. We are honored Mr. Bowles will be joining us at the National Summit for Middle Market Funds, where he will share his insights on the Washington Beltway and small business investment,” said Michael Blackburn, Managing Partner, Petra Capital Partners and National Summit Conference Chair.

Mr. Bowles will address America’s current spending and deficit problems and what leaders from both sides of the political aisle can be doing to bring these problems under control before the consequences for future generations of Americans become dire.

Brett Palmer, President of SBIA, said, “We are pleased that Erskine Bowles will deliver the keynote presentation at our annual National Summit. With his dual experience in the private and public sectors and track record of providing critical solutions to economic and budgetary issues, Mr. Bowles will share his perspective on the relationship between private investing and public policy. As the former director of the Small Business Administration, he is also particularly suited to speak to the role of small business investing in that relationship.”

Erskine Bowles is a native North Carolinian, born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina and received his MBA from Columbia University in New York. After serving as an enlisted man in the Coast Guard, Erskine began his financial service career at Morgan Stanley in New York as an associate in their corporate finance group. While at Morgan Stanley, he saw what he believed was a void in the financial services market place and left to form a middle-market investment bank. This firm, Bowles, Hollowell, Conner, became the preeminent mergers and acquisition firm in the middle market. Bowles would later go on to form a venture capital firm, Kitty Hawk Capital; co-found a middle-market private equity firm, Carousel Capital and serve as a partner in the New York private equity firm of Forstmann Little. During Bowles’ business career, he is or served on the boards of various companies including Morgan Stanley, First Union Corporation, Merck, VF, Cousins Properties, Norfolk Southern Corporation, General Motors, Belk and Facebook.

Bowles has also followed his father’s example of public service. In 1991, he joined the administration of President Bill Clinton as Administrator of the Small Business Administration. In 1993, he was brought to the White House to serve as President Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff and later as Chief of Staff. As Chief of Staff, he served as a member of the President’s Cabinet and on both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council. Working at the direction of the President and with the Republican House of Representatives and Senate, Bowles negotiated the first balanced budget in a generation. During his tenure in the White House, he also coordinated the Federal response to the Oklahoma City bombing. Erskine tried his hand at running for public office in 2002 and 2004. In both elections for the U.S. Senate, he won the Democratic Party nomination and lost in the general election. Later, Bowles was brought back into public service several times. In response to the terrible tsunami that struck Southeast Asia in December, 2004, Bowles was asked to join the United Nations as Deputy Special Envoy, with the rank of Under Secretary General, to coordinate the global response to the tsunami. In this regard, he once again worked with and for President Clinton. In 2010, President Barack Obama asked Bowles to co-chair with former Senator Alan Simpson the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. This bipartisan commission produced a plan to reduce the Nation’s deficits by $4 trillion over the next decade. The plan was supported by a supermajority of the commission with equal support from both Republican and Democrat members. He is also the co-Founder, with former Senator Alan Simpson, of The Campaign to Fix the Debt, a non-partisan movement to put America on a better fiscal and economic path.

Bowles has also served his home State of North Carolina in numerous ways. From 2005 to 2011, Bowles served as president of the University of North Carolina. The University is composed of 17 campuses, 220,000 students, 40,000 employees and has an annual budget of approximately $8 billion. Bowles also served at Governor Jim Hunt’s request as chairman of the NC Rural Prosperity Task Force charged with developing ways to bring economic development to rural North Carolina. He also served on the Board of the Golden Leaf Foundation and founded a private equity company to bring investment capital to rural North Carolina.

Bowles has also found time to be actively involved in not-for-profit organizations. After seeing firsthand how his two sons dealt with juvenile diabetes, Bowles threw himself into the work of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, ultimately becoming the National President of the Foundation. After seeing his father and sister deal with the effects of Lou Gehrig’s Disease, Bowles and his wife raised the funds to start an ALS Center in Charlotte to provide a facility to care for all families in the Carolinas affected by this disease. Bowles has also served as vice chairman of Carolinas Medical Center and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Duke Endowment.

About the Small Business Investor Alliance (SBIA)

The Small Business Investor Alliance (SBIA) is the premier organization of lower middle market private equity funds and investors. SBIA members provide vital capital to small businesses nationwide, resulting in economic growth and job creation. SBIA has been playing a pivotal role in promoting the growth and vitality of the private equity industry for more than 50 years. For more information, visit www.sbia.org or call 202-628-5055.