Mark Wan, Executive Chairman and Director

Mr. Wan has over 30 years of successful private equity and venture investment experience. Mr. Wan co-founded Causeway, an investment fund focused on sports media, sports technology, fitness, and related industries, in 2013. Prior to forming Causeway, he was a co-founding partner of Three Arch Partners from 1993 to 2013, a healthcare-focused investment firm that raised over $1 billion of capital commitments across five funds. Prior to Three Arch Partners, Mr. Wan was a general partner at Brentwood Associates, a private equity firm headquartered in Los Angeles. Mr. Wan has served on numerous public and private company boards.

He currently sits on the boards of Tracksmith, Freeletics, FloSports, Stio, VenueNext, QuintEvents, and AcelRx (NASDAQ: ACRX). Prior public boards include Perclose acquired by Abbott Healthcare, Odyssey Healthcare acquired by Genitive, and epocrates acquired by AthenaHealth. Mr. Wan is a co-owner of the NBA’s Boston Celtics, NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, English Premier League’s Leeds United, and esports team, Team Liquid. Mr. Wan received his BS in electrical engineering from Yale University and his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Mr. Wan is well-qualified to serve on our Board of Directors because of his significant experience in private equity and venture financing.

Chris Hickey, Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Hickey is an established executive in the health, wellness and fitness consumer industry with 20 years of experience leading a range of companies and well-known brands. Mr. Hickey served as CEO and President of The Isopure Company a high-growth, private equity-backed sports nutrition company from 2013 to 2016. Mr. Hickey was recruited to Isopure to transition and grow a 25+ year old leading sports nutrition company from its founder legacy to a scalable business and team. In his first three years of leadership, Isopure doubled its revenue and sold to Glanbia plc, the Ireland-based global performance nutrition and ingredients company.

Prior to his experience at Isopure, Mr. Hickey was the Chief Marketing Officer of EXOS (formerly Athletes’ Performance) a private equity-backed human performance company focused on an integrated system of Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery. During Mr. Hickey’s tenure, EXOS successfully expanded its leadership in human performance from its roots as an elite athlete service-based performance provider to one that integrates coaching, methodology and technology to drive personalized program engagement and outcomes for large employers and their employees, scaling from a start-up to a successful sale to BDT Capital Partners and Madrone Capital Partners.

Prior to EXOS, Mr. Hickey was the Group Director for Performance Nutrition for Abbott Nutrition with responsibility of leading the EAS, Myoplex, and ZonePerfect brands. In this role, Mr. Hickey pioneered the concept of sports nutrition “supplierships” with professional sports leagues including the NFL/NFLPA, MLB/MLBPA, and NBPA through the NSF certified for sport program.

Prior to his experience at Abbott Nutrition, Mr. Hickey held various marketing leadership positions at Molson Coors, General Mills, and Proctor & Gamble. Mr. Hickey also previously served as CEO of No Cow, from April 2017 to October 2018, and as a board member and CEO of Kalahari Snacks from December 2018 to December 2020, which both operate in the health food space. Mr. Hickey also served as Operating Partner of AF Ventures, a venture capital fund investing in consumer product companies, from November 2018 to October 2020. Mr. Hickey received his MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia and his BS in accounting from Villanova University. Mr. Hickey currently sits on the boards for Onnit, a high-growth direct-to-consumer nutrition and fitness supplement brand, and Momentous, a premium active nutrition brand and platform with a customer base including over 100 professional teams. Mr. Hickey is well-qualified to serve on our Board of Directors because of his significant experience in the health, wellness and fitness consumer industry.

David Poltack, Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Poltack has over 20 years of private equity and venture capital experience. Mr. Poltack joined Causeway in 2017 as Chief Financial Officer where he is responsible for all financial, operational and administrative functions of the firm including financial reporting, human resources, facilities, IT and investor relations. From 2011 to 2017, he was the Chief Financial Officer and Managing Director at Globespan Capital Partners, an IT focused global venture capital firm that raised over $1 billion of capital across six fund generations. His earlier career included 11 years at TVM Capital, a global venture capital firm, as a general partner of corporate finance and six years at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Throughout his career, Mr. Poltack has been actively involved in hundreds of financing transactions, numerous merger and acquisitions and several IPOs.

He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Credit Sesame. Prior board experience includes Analogix Semiconductor (acquired by Shanhai Capital), CyDex Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Ligand), MarketLive (acquired by Vista Equity Partners), and Nantero. Mr. Poltack earned a bachelor’s degree in accountancy, with honors, from Boston College, an MBA, with honors, from Suffolk University and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Our Directors

Daniel Burns, Director

Mr. Burns served for over 10 years as the CEO of EXOS, where he currently sits on the board as Executive Chairman. Under his control, EXOS successfully expanded its leadership in human performance from its roots as an elite athlete service-based performance provider, to one that integrates coaching, methodology and technology to drive personalized program engagement and outcomes for large employers and their employees. As a market leader today in both sports and employer health and performance, EXOS has received accolades including Fast Company Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Sport, Fast Company Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Fitness, Inc. 5000 for four consecutive years, and the Presidential “E” Award for Export Service. In 2018, Mr. Burns led the sale of EXOS to Madrone Capital Partners and BDT Capital Partners.

Previously, he was a management consultant at Bain & Company and then in business operations at the National Basketball Association. He is a member of the Investment Committee for the Arizona Founders Fund and supports several portfolio companies with their business strategies. He also serves as an advisory board member of Arizona State University’s Sports Law and Business program. Mr. Burns has been honored by and served as a keynote speaker at the Economic Club of Phoenix, Arizona Business Leadership, and Arizona Growth and Leadership Forum. Mr. Burns earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and History from Amherst College, graduating magna cum laude, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Mr. Burns is well-qualified to serve on our Board of Directors because of his extensive leadership experience in the sports and fitness industries.

Daniel Gallagher, Director

Mr. Gallagher has over 15 years of leadership experience in the fitness industry. He currently is the CFO at Crunch Holdings LLC (“Crunch”), one of the fastest growing full-size health club franchise concepts in the U.S. Crunch was recently ranked the “Best in Fitness Category” by Franchise Business Review. Most recently, in the summer of 2019, Mr. Gallagher guided Crunch through a sale process resulting in a successful transaction with the TPG Growth Fund.

From 1999 through 2015, Mr. Gallagher served in various leadership roles at Town Sports International “TSI” (NASDAQ: CLUB), including the positions of CFO, President and CEO. During Mr. Gallagher’s tenure at TSI, he drove revenue growth largely through a successful M&A strategy and was instrumental in completing TSI’s initial public offering and numerous debt financings.

Previously, Mr. Gallagher was a CPA with almost a decade of experience starting his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a global accounting and consulting firm, where he led financial audits of multiple public and private companies. Mr. Gallagher’s tenure at PwC included a managerial role in the Transaction Services Group leading the due diligence process supporting the investment decisions of multiple strategic clients and private equity firms. Mr. Gallagher has a strong finance and accounting background and holds a BA from Villanova University. Mr. Gallagher is well-qualified to serve on our Board of Directors because of his extensive leadership experience in the fitness industry.

Paraag Marathe, Director

Mr. Marathe is in his 20th year with the San Francisco 49ers, an NFL team, concurrently serving as President of 49ers Enterprises and Executive Vice President of Football Operations. On the football side, Mr. Marathe continues in his long-respected role as the team’s chief contract negotiator and salary cap architect, while overseeing the team’s football analytics department, among other football duties.

While serving as San Francisco 49ers team president from 2014-16 and COO from 2010-13, Mr. Marathe oversaw the development of Levi’s Stadium and helped bring to life the vision of an unparalleled fan experience at the venue. Within 49ers Enterprises, he oversees outside business ventures, advisory efforts, and major investment opportunities for the club.

In 2018, Mr. Marathe led the effort to purchase a minority ownership stake in Leeds United Football Club of the English Championship League. Mr. Marathe holds a seat on the Leeds United Board of Directors. Mr. Marathe was named the Chairman of USA Cricket in October 2018 and moved quickly to ensure USA Cricket earned recognition by the International Cricket Council (ICC).

Prior to joining the San Francisco 49ers, Mr. Marathe spent three years at management consulting firm Bain & Company. Before that, he worked in the sports consulting group at the International Management Group (IMG). Mr. Marathe received his bachelor’s degree with high honors from the Haas School of Business at the University of California-Berkeley and his MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Mr. Marathe is well-qualified to serve on our Board of Directors because of his extensive leadership experience in the professional sports industry.

Jared Smith, Director

Mr. Smith is President of Ticketmaster and Executive Vice President of Live Nation (NYSE: LYV), overseeing the company’s leading live event technology and services platform. During his more than 17-year career with Ticketmaster and Live Nation, Mr. Smith’s efforts were responsible for the development of key industry advancements including Ticketmaster’s TM+, Presence, SafeTix and Verified Fan products.

Mr. Smith’s previous roles at Ticketmaster include, President of North America and Chief Operating Officer. In these roles, he reinvented Ticketmaster’s approach to client, artist, and fan engagement and transformed its sales, product, and support organizations. Mr. Smith has been honored on Billboard’s Power 100 list in 2020, 2019, 2017 and has been twice named to both Sports Business Journal and Billboard Magazine’s “40 Under 40” lists in 2014 and 2015.

Ticketmaster in 2003, Mr. Smith held various leadership roles in live event management and sports business sales and marketing. He holds a BA from The University of Iowa. Mr. Smith is well-qualified to serve on our Board of Directors because of his extensive leadership experience in the live event management industry.