Ralph Norwood has 30 years of financial management experience in global companies. He has the rare perspective of having served in the Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer, and Corporate Controller roles for public companies. Since the late 1980s, while working as a financial officer for Polaroid Corporation and SatCon Technology, he has led the raising of over $2 billion of capital using PIPEs and private and public offerings. During this period he led:
- numerous bank transactions, including term loans and credit lines totaling in excess of $1 billion
- public bond issues totaling over $700 million
- a $300 million private placement of Preferred Stock
- the formation of a $300 million ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan)
- 3 PIPE (Private Investment in Public Equity) transactions including both Convertible Securities and Common Stock totaling $20 million.
He has worked with major commercial and investment banks, law firms and accounting firms including J.P. Morgan, ABN-ARMO, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers, Burnham-Hill Capital, Silicon Valley Bank, Wilmer/Hale, Cravath, Swain and Moore, Simpson-Thacher, KPMG, Arthur Andersen, Grant-Thornton, and others. As a result of this experience, he has developed an approach for public companies to successfully navigate the capital-raising process.
Ralph is a CPA, having worked for a Big-5 public accounting firm early in his career. He earned his MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia after receiving his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of New Hampshire. He is also a U.S. Army veteran, having completed his ROTC commitment after graduating from U.N.H. His outside activities include having served on the Board of Trustees of the ESOP Association in Washington, D.C., the Massachusetts Taxpayers Association, and on the Board of Advisors of a local start-up company.