ICR announced that it has made significant incremental investments in its West Coast Technology Practice over the last few quarters. The firm has added Greg McDowell, Terry Quinn and Michael Bowen as Managing Directors to further expand the firm’s Transaction Advisory and Investor Relations Practices, and Sara Ball as Senior Vice President to drive ICR’s tech PR efforts with West Coast clients. Together, Greg, Terry, Michael and Sara join ICR’s dedicated technology group, which now exceeds 30 professionals.
Tom Ryan, CEO of ICR, said, “We are thrilled to expand our West Coast transaction advisory, investor relations and public relations practices with such high caliber professionals. We will continue to increase investments in this geography as we view the Silicon Valley area as critical to the success of our industry-leading tech franchise, and our overall firm.”
ICR’s services platform includes IPO advisory, investor relations, public relations, creative services/digital branding, IPO roadshow videos, and crisis/special situations management. ICR has advised more companies through the IPO process than any peer by a wide margin, and has built one of the largest strategic communications platforms in the world servicing more than 20 industries; technology being the largest.
Prior to joining ICR, McDowell spent 20+ years in and around the technology sector, including the last decade at JMP Securities, a boutique investment bank focused on growth companies. Greg was a Managing Director on the software equity research team, and became a top-rated analyst covering companies in infrastructure software, application software, data analytics, security, internet infrastructure, fintech, as well as e-commerce. Greg participated in over 20 IPO processes, including serving as the lead software analyst on IPOs such as Dropbox, Tableau, New Relic, Alteryx, SolarWinds and Cloudera. Greg also spent nearly a decade at Oracle, where he was responsible for selling both application solutions, including ERP, CRM, and HCM solutions, and core technology solutions, including database, analytics, and middleware.
Quinn has over three decades of experience in senior level capital markets roles. Prior to joining ICR, Terry was most recently with AGC Partners, a tech-focused investment bank focused on providing M&A and strategic advisory services. He also spent over 20 years as a tech portfolio manager, running hedge funds at ING Capital Management and Camelot Capital as well as a long-only mutual fund at Oak Ridge Investments that had several billion in tech-focused AUM. Terry began his career as a computer software and services sell-side research analyst, where he was II-rated for nearly a decade. Terry helped to take over a dozen companies public as a sell-side analyst, and he evaluated hundreds of technology IPOs during his portfolio manager career.
Bowen has more than 20 years of experience in the TMT sector, including the software, cloud services, internet infrastructure, and mobile/telecom sectors. Prior to joining ICR, Bowen was engaged by Newby Ventures to serve as CFO for one of its portfolio companies in the interconnection edge computing sector. Michael previously served as a lead equity research analyst and capital markets advisor to more than 60 public and private technology companies during his tenure at firms such as Alex, Brown/Deutsche Bank, SoundView Technology Group, and most recently Pacific Crest KeyBanc. He also gained buy-side experience as a tech-focused analyst with Rhombus Capital and Guggenheim Partners, and he spent seven years in operational roles at Hewlett Packard and General Electric.
Tim Dolan, Managing Partner and Head of ICR’s Technology Group, added “Our technology group has advised over 100 companies during their transition from the private to public markets, including over a dozen tech companies that have completed their IPO during the last 18 months. We are currently engaged with some of the largest and highest profile private software companies, and with meaningful activity levels we are very excited to add Greg, Terry and Michael to further expand our West Coast franchise.”
Ball brings more than 13 years of communications experience to ICR and has worked with a variety of top brands including, Microsoft, Line, Virgin Mobile and Sprint. She has an extensive background in media relations and has placed stories in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, WIRED, the TODAY show and many more. Prior to joining ICR, Sara held senior positions at Porter Novelli, Golin and Edelman. She also draws on her early career experience as a Senior Communications Specialist at Starbucks and award-winning radio news director and talk show host.
Bo Park, Partner and Head of ICR’s Tech PR Group, said “ICR has made tremendous progress building out one of the premier tech PR franchises, as evidenced by the O’Dwyer’s PR report ranking ICR as a top 10 provider of technology communications services. We are excited to have Sara join our team as we build upon our strong foundation, and take our West Coast tech PR efforts to the next level. We look forward to Sara’s contributions and will continue to increase our resources in this strategic area of our business.”