THE VAN RENSALEER COMPANY (VR)

Leesa Speer-Barish

Founder & Managing Partner


Leesa Speer-Barish, Managing Partner and Founder of Van Rensaleer, has a 30 year history of providing public policy strategies for her clients. Joe Barish, her partner, has served as an issues management consultant to public and private institutions including Anheuser-Busch, Bayer U.S.A., Bechtel Group, Marriott, Arco-Alaska, the City and County of San Francisco, and currently as a consultant to the Dean, U.C. Davis School of Medicine.

In 1986, Leesa Speer-Barish founded the Van Rensaleer Company to provide marketing advisory services for financial institutions and other business entities competing for contracts with state and local government retirement systems. Van Rensaleer clients have generated over $1.5 billion in contracts from these sources. The firm now operates throughout the U.S. and targets those public funds, foundations and endowments with significant allocations to alternative investments.

Operating Philosophy
In over a decade of representing clients, we have concluded that a strong performance record and a superior investment team cannot always assure success. A client's likelihood for success is significantly enhanced, however, when these organizational strengths are reinforced by an historical and current perspective of the funds' decision making process and a working knowledge of the key players who impact this process.

We emphasize our experience with California state retirement funds for several reasons. First, their combined assets of over $300 billion have a well-deserved reputation within the U.S. investment community, second, the funds' aggressive incursion into corporate governance has increased their respect with other public funds and regulators, and finally, the California funds healthy regard for private equity have become a benchmark for retirement systems, endowments and foundations.

Moreover, because these public fund investment strategies, asset allocation and due diligence process are well regarded within the pension fund community, we find it helpful to focus on these funds when describing our general business philosophy and advisory services. This approach we extend to all Van Rensaleer planning efforts on behalf of its clients and our professional dealings with corporate, labor and public pension funds.

Each of the major public retirement funds has its distinctive style of governance including the discretion extended to consultants. For this reason we consider it important to attend regular public board meetings for insights as to board, staff and consultant perceptions, bias, etc. regarding the various asset allocations. We evaluate and help shape client marketing strategies predicated on this analysis and other information we systematically develop. We believe that for intelligence-gathering to be effective it must be organized, persistent and not relegated to occasional drop-by visits.

Van Rensaleer focuses its activities on these public and private institutions where it maintains senior level relationships and has established a level of confidence. We consider our relationships and credibility with the public funds as unique assets to be deployed on our client's behalf.

Simply stated, Van Rensaleer's mission is to help our clients identify opportunities, avoid land mines and then to provide useful information in a timely manner to the right parties.
THE VAN RENSALEER COMPANY
(Past and Present)

Dresdner Kleinwort Capital (UK - Germany)
Dresdner RCM Global Investors
Kleinwort Benson Investment Management, Inc.
Kleinwort Benson Mezzanine Fund
Kleinwort Benson European Mezzanine Fund
Kleinwort Benson Development Capital
Energy Investors Fund
La Salle Realty Advisors
Waddell and Reed Asset Management
Alex Brown, Kleinwort Benson Realty Advisors
Bear Stearns
MAGNA Securities
National Venture Capital Association
Newberry Ventures
Vision Capital
The Fine Arts Fund (UK)
ADVOCACY SERVICES (AS)
(Past and Present)

Ms. Speer-Barish also owns and operates a Legislative advocacy firm in Sacramento. Major clients have historically enjoyed a relationship with Great Britain.

Counsul General's Office of Great Britain (San Francisco)
Pearson Education (UK)
State Bar Association of California
Beverly Hills Bar Association