Jim Eckles

Mr. Eckles is the managing director of BDA which he established in 1998.  Prior to BDA, Mr. Eckles worked for 17 years in various business development and management positions for multinational companies in the US, EU and South America, including positions at Cargill, ICI and Zeneca.    His passion is creating successful business ventures and creative business transactions. He is a certified merger and acquisition advisor (CM&AA) and holds a Masters degree in Agricultural Economics from Texas A&M University and a Bachelors degree from the University of Texas, Austin.  

Bill Dickheiser

Mr. Dickheiser is an experienced transactional intellectual property attorneyand business development manager. Hehas a BA in Biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and a JD from Fordham University, and is admitted to practice before the US Patent and Trademark Office as well as in New York and Connecticut. Mr. Dickheiser drafted and successfully prosecuted more than 100 US Patents and negotiated several licensing transactions at Union Carbide Corporation, Uniroyal, Inc. and ICI Americas/Zeneca before becoming Manager of Legal Affairs and Intellectual Property for Zeneca Plant Science in 1993.  In 2000, Mr. Dickheiser became Global Head of Ventures for Syngenta, with responsibility for the negotiation of new ventures as well as for the operation of existing ventures.  Mr. Dickheiser has been working with BDA since he left Syngenta in 2003.

Todd Silva

Mr. Silva is an independent advisor supporting BDA on mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, and various business development initiatives.  His expertise is in financial analysis (including credit and equity), valuation, and corporate actions such as mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, spin-offs, and balance sheet recapitalizations.  Mr Silva worked in the hedge fund industry starting in 2000 when he co-founded the $1 billion asset fund, Candlewood Capital Management in Princeton, NJ.  At Candlewood, he focused on smaller capitalization deep value, special situations, and turnaround investing, and advised a number of investee management teams on ways to maximize value for shareholders.  He also held an operational role in a distressed services company.   Over the span of his career, Mr. Silva worked for several large institutional fund management companies where he was responsible for investments in a wide variety of industries including automotive, aerospace, financial services, media, telecom, energy, natural resources, retail, and construction.  Mr. Silva received his BS in Economics and Finance from Lehigh University and his MBA from Columbia Business School, where he later served as a guest lecturer and adjunct professor of finance.

Paul Frank Poulsen

Mr. Poulsen is an expert on Financial Operations, Business Process Improvement and supporting distressed organizations through Turnaround, Workout and Restructuring activities.  He acts as interim CFO & CEO of senior advisor for key clients through the pre and post merger and acquisition activities, as well as through the restructuring process.  Mr. Poulsen is a Certified Hackett Advisor with key knowledge of best practice business process Improvement.  He is an alumni from KPMG and IBM Global Services where he provided financial, HR and Technical due diligence to companies through acquisition, divestiture and sale.

Throughout his more than 20 years, he has provided Fortune 500 and Global 1000 corporations, advice on areas of Supply Chain, Procurement, Working Capital Management, Best Practice Financial Process Optimization, Business Strategy and Change Management.  He is a known expert and speaker in the areas of Procurement, Capital Management, Supply Chain Trends and Technology.  He is a member of the TMA and ACG.  He has a Masters Degree in Economics and Commercial Law from the University of Aalborg, Denmark.

Philip H. Talbert

For forty years Phil Talbert has been a financial, business and management consultant to private sector companies, pension plans and public employee retirement systems.  He has broad experience in business finance, with a specialty in employee stock option plans (ESOPs) and the use of ESOPs as a financing vehicle and attractive exit strategy for business owners.  In 1967 Mr. Talbert founded the actuarial and financial consulting firm, Talbert Financial Services, Inc. Over the years he has contributed to many professional programs, including Purdue University Pensions and Profit Sharing Institute and the Lewis and Clark Law School.  He has written for the Oregon State Bar Continuing Education Program, the Idaho State Bar Association and the Alaska Bar Association. Mr. Talbert primarily provides support to BDA in the area of ESOPs.