LHC

Definitive Agreement

World View

Leo Holdings Corp. II

Raised
$350M
CIK
1824153
SPAC Ticker
LHC.U
Merger
World View
Merged Ticker
DMS
Focus
Consumer
External link: SEC Filings

SPAC Team

Leadership

Ed Forst, our Chairman , is Chairman, Partner, and member of the Investment Committee at Lion Capital. Mr. Forst previously served as Chief Executive Officer of Cushman & Wakefield, leading the commercial real estate firm across more than 60 countries. Prior to this, Mr. Forst was a Management Committee Partner of Goldman, Sachs & Co. where he served as the Co-CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and before that as the Chief Administrative Officer and Executive Vice President of the firm. Mr. Forst also served as the Chairman of Goldman’s Global Debt Underwriting Committee for seven years. Mr. Forst was also the Executive Vice President and Principal Operating Officer of Harvard University during the financial crisis, as well as Adviser to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Mr. Forst sits on the boards of The Feinstein Institute of Northwell Health and the Yale School of Management. Mr. Forst has also served on the board of the Harvard Management Company, as Treasurer of Carnegie Hall, and as the Chairman of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA). Mr. Forst earned his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his AB in Economics from Harvard University.

We believe Mr. Forst’s deep consumer industry background, coupled with broad operational and transactional experience, make him well qualified to serve as Chairman.

Lyndon Lea, our President and Chief Executive Officer , is a founder of Lion Capital and has served as its Managing Partner since its inception in 2004. Prior to founding Lion Capital, Mr. Lea was a partner of Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst where he co-founded its European operations in 1998. From 1994 to 1998, Mr. Lea served at Glenisla, the former European affiliate of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., prior to which he was an investment banker in London and New York with Schroders and Goldman Sachs. Mr. Lea graduated with a BA in Honors Business Administration from the University of Western Ontario in Canada in 1990.

Mr. Lea has been active in the investment arena for 30 years, 26 of which have been exclusively focused on private equity. Mr. Lea has led the acquisitions of over 30 investments. Mr. Lea also has extensive operating experience having served as interim CEO for AllSaints and having held executive positions in several portfolio investments over his career. Additionally, Mr. Lea has served on several public company boards including Yell plc, Premier Foods and Aber. Mr. Lea currently serves on the board of DMS (NYSE:DMS).

We believe Mr. Lea’s deep consumer industry background, coupled with broad operational and transactional experience, make him well qualified to serve as a Director.

Robert Darwent is our Chief Financial Officer. Alongside Mr. Lea, Mr. Darwent is a founder of Lion Capital where he sits on the Investment Committee and Operating Committee of the firm. Prior to founding Lion Capital in 2004, Mr. Darwent worked with Mr. Lea in the European operations of Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst since its formation in 1998. From 1995 to 1998, Mr. Darwent worked in the London office of Morgan Stanley in their investment banking and private equity groups. Mr. Darwent graduated from Cambridge University in 1995. Mr. Darwent currently serves on the public company boards of Loungers plc (LON:LGRS) and DMS (NYSE:DMS).

We believe Mr. Darwent’s deep consumer industry background, coupled with broad operational and transactional experience, make him well qualified to serve as a Director.

Lori Bush has agreed to serve on our board of directors and is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of Rodan + Fields, a US manufacturer and Social Commerce company specializing in skincare products, where she served from October 2007 until her retirement in January 2016. During Ms. Bush’s tenure as President and Chief Executive Officer, she led the company from a start-up to one of the largest premium skincare brands in the United States and a valuation of $1.5 billion. With more than 30 years’ experience in the consumer and health care products industries, Ms. Bush was responsible for overseeing the brand’s entrance into the direct selling arena. A seasoned direct selling leader, Ms. Bush previously served from February 2000 to March 2006 as President of the personal care segment of Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE:NUS), a global direct selling company operating in more than 40 markets around the world. During Ms. Bush’s tenure with the company, she acted as a global spokesperson for the brand while leading the marketing, operations and research and development functions. Ms. Bush has also held several leadership positions, from 1993 to 2000, within the skincare franchise of Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products Companies, including Worldwide Executive Director Skin Care Ventures and Vice President of Professional Marketing at Neutrogena. In 2020, Ms. Bush came out of retirement as the co-founder and CEO of Solvasa LLC, a beauty and wellness startup pioneering the concept of Integrative Beauty. Ms. Bush also served as a director of Leo Holdings Corp., a special purpose acquisition company formed for substantially similar purposes as our company and that completed its initial public offering in February 2018. Ms. Bush is also a current director of Viveve Medical, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIVE), where she has served since 2016. Ms. Bush has a Bachelor of Science in Medical Technology, which she received from Ohio State University in 1978 and an MBA from Fox School of Management at Temple University which she received in 1985 and where she currently serves as Director on the Board of Visitors.

We believe Ms. Bush’s deep consumer industry background, coupled with broad operational and transactional experience, make her well qualified to serve as a Director.

Mary E. Minnick has agreed to serve on our board of directors and was a Partner of Lion Capital from 2007 until 2017. Previously, Ms. Minnick served in various capacities at The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO), including as Chief Operating Officer of Asia and Global President of Marketing, Strategy and Innovation, from 1983 to 2007. During Ms. Minnick tenure at The Coca-Cola Company, she led the strategic planning process for all markets and held direct responsibility for strategic planning, marketing, new product development, product quality, advertising, media, environmental policies, sustainability, research and development, science and regulatory affairs, worldwide packaging and equipment. In Ms. Minnick role as Chief Operating Officer of Asia from 2002 to 2005, she was responsible for the management of 30 countries throughout Asia Ms. Minnick has also served as a member of the board of directors of the global brewer Heineken (AMS:HEIA) from 2008 to 2015 and the consumer packaged food and beverage company WhiteWave Foods Co. (NYSE:WWAV) from 2012 to 2016. Ms. Minnick currently is a member of the board of directors of the Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT), which she joined in 2005. Ms. Minnick also served as a director of Leo Holdings Corp., a special purpose acquisition company formed for substantially similar purposes as our company and that completed its initial public offering in February 2018. Ms. Minnick continues to serve as Chairman of DMS (NYSE:DMS). Ms. Minnick has an MBA from Duke University and a BA in Business from Bowling Green State University.

We believe Ms. Minnick’s deep consumer industry background, coupled with broad operational and transactional experience, make her well qualified to serve as a Director.

Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld has agreed to serve on our board of directors and is currently the senior associate dean of leadership programs, the Lester Crown Professor in the Practice of Management for the Yale School of Management and a member of the board of the new IEX exchange as well as Lennar, Atlas Merchant Capital and the Connecticut Economic Resource Council. Mr. Sonnenfeld is also the founder and president of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute, a nonprofit educational and research institute focused on Chief Executive Officer leadership and corporate governance. Previously, Mr. Sonnenfeld served as full tenured professor at Emory’s Goizueta Business School for a decade and a professor at the Harvard Business School for a decade. Mr. Sonnenfeld’s related research has been published in 100 scholarly articles which appeared in the leading academic journals in management such as Administrative Sciences Quarterly, the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, the Journal of Organizational Behavior, Social Forces, Human Relations, and Human Resource Management. Mr. Sonnenfeld has also authored eight books, including The Hero’s Farewell, an award-winning study of Chief Executive Officer succession, and another best seller, Firing Back, a study on leadership resilience in the face of adversity. Mr. Sonnenfeld earned the 2018 Ellis Island Medal of Honor from the US Ellis Island Foundation. He was Harvard’s first John Whitehead Faculty Fellow and won outstanding educator awards at Yale, Emory and the American Society for Training and Development. Mr. Sonnenfeld’s work is regularly cited by the general media in such outlets as: BusinessWeek, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Newsweek, Time, the Economist, the Financial Times, the Washington Post, CBS (60 Minutes), NBC (The Today Show), ABC (Nightline, Good Morning America), CNN, and Fox News, as well as PBS, where he is a regular commentator for Fortune and CNBC. BusinessWeek listed Mr. Sonnenfeld as one of the world’s 10 most influential business school professors and Directorship magazine has listed him among the 100 most influential figures in corporate governance. Mr. Sonnenfeld is the first academic to have rung the opening bells of both the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Exchange having done so ten times.

We believe Mr. Sonnenfeld’s deep academic and operational experience, make him well qualified to serve as a Director.

Naveen Agarwal has agreed to serve on our board of directors and is currently Chief Market Development Officer for Prudential Financial (NYSE:PRU), a Fortune 50 company with 50,000+ global employees, offering financial products and services and generating more than $50 billion in annual revenue. Previously, Mr. Agarwal served as Prudential Financial’s Chief Marketing Officer from 2019 to 2020, and Chief Customer Officer from 2015 to 2018. At Prudential Financial, Mr. Agarwal created the vision to drive income growth and operational efficiencies across its U.S. and international businesses leveraging digital technology, marketing and data analytics. He has led global brand, digital solutions, customer experience, customer marketing, and data science, and has been the catalyst behind company’s culture change and transformation from product centric to customer centric. Mr. Agarwal mobilized the adoption of technology, personalization, predictive modeling and artificial intelligence at scale, and is now helping company’s entry into new markets, products, capabilities, and distribution ecosystems. Prior to Prudential Financial, Mr. Agarwal worked for 20 years as a senior executive in several companies in Silicon Valley, most recently from 2012 to 2014 as Chief Executive Officer and Board Director and from 2009 to 2011 as Chief Operating Officer of Pricelock, an online marketplace for large energy buyers and sellers. Mr. Agarwal was instrumental in creating a unique brand in energy markets that helped Pricelock grow to more than a billion dollars in transaction volume. Before that, Mr. Agarwal served from 2006 to 2008 as President of E*Trade Capital Management, where he drove P/L growth via engaging company’s mass-affluent customers, and from 2002 to 2005, as Vice President of Engineering and Product at E*Trade Financial. Mr. Agarwal also served as Vice President, Engineering for Weave Innovations from 1999 to 2002, Vice President of Risk Solutions at SunGard from 1995 to 2001, and spent several years working in various global software development and product management positions in the health care, auto and finance sectors in London, India, and New York. Mr. Agarwal leverages his broad expertise to drive innovation, and seamlessly connect the dots between traditional and new digital economies, modern marketing and customer engagement at scale. Mr. Agarwal also serves as an external board member and advisor for Finovera and Knotch. Mr. Agarwal holds an MBA from Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Varanasi, India.

We believe Mr. Agarwal’s deep consumer industry background, coupled with broad operational and transactional experience, make him well qualified to serve as a Director.