Charbel Zreik
Having very successfully sold his most recent business mid-2018, Charbel has embarked on this new stage of his career, where his spiritual life and his entrepreneurial/investor skills merge together into one – Manifestations, LLC.
Charbel is a self-made successful entrepreneur and investor. His family escaped the Lebanese Civil War and immigrated to the U.S. when he was 8 years old. Through hard work, grit, discipline, empathy with others, and some great people along the way who believed in him and took chances on him, Charbel has achieved the highest levels of professional and academic success.
Charbel values presence and stillness in all things. He enjoys nature, especially the redwood trees of Northern California that capture his heart so dearly. In addition to regular meditation and yoga, Charbel enjoys drumming, getting better at tennis, harnessing the wind as he kiteboards, biking, running, and lifting weights. He keeps a paleo/Whole 30 diet except for cheating on sugar consumption in dark chocolate. He loves great coffee and a variety of teas.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
MOST RECENT OPERATING EXPERIENCE
CEO and board member of IT services company, DCI Design, 2012–2018
Doubled company in 4 years to 37M revenue, 8+M EBITDA and 130 employees
Sold company to large private equity firm with 48% IRR return to owners, including original founders
Main value creation levers:
New product launches
Scaled sales organization
Two acquisitions, including a public company
New senior team recruiting
Creating a service-focused culture
World-class training and experience in building great companies:
Light Beam Capital 2012–2014, Managing Principal, middle market financial sponsor
McKinsey and Company 2006–2011, Senior Engagement Manager: growth strategy, cultural turnarounds
JPMorgan 1998–2002, venture investing and incubation
Osage Venture Partners founding member, venture capital, 2005–2006
TRG Hedge Fund founding member, 2002–2003
Charbel has a BS in mechanical engineering from Cornell University and an MBA in finance and entrepreneurship from Wharton
MORE DETAILS
Industry Expertise
Information Technology
Business Services
Alternative Healthcare/Wellness
Software (Vertical, Niche)
FinTech
Functional & Situational Specialities
Mentoring/coaching of CEOs
Building sales function
Difficult cultural turnarounds
Acquisition Integration
Top team recruiting
Optimization of board effectiveness
CEO Mentorship & Board Experience
2021-Present: Board member and audit committee member at Axero, software solution allowing organizations to collaborate through a cutting edge intranet platform.
2014–2018: Led DCI’s five-member Board of Directors from acquisition through exit. Board included private equity investors and leading industry executives.
2000–2003: Mentor at Minds Matter of NYC, a nonprofit working with inner city kids.
2017–Present: Mentor to five startup CEOs and twenty lower-middle-market CEOs.
Teaching Experience
2023-Present: Adjunct Professor at Wharton Business School, lecturing on Entrepreneurship through Acquisition to MBA students, covering the full cycle of capital raising, acquiring a business, and stepping into the CEO role to grow it.
IN THE NEWS
SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
Charbel has always carried inside him a burning desire to come to know God, to constantly evolve and grow on all dimensions, and to live a life that is closer to the truth of who we are as human beings. This journey started out in a traditional devout Catholic context, influenced by his Maronite Christian faith and by the Jesuits. It has evolved to include various of the world’s spiritual traditions, which, at their core, all point to the same truth. Today, Charbel has a daily meditation practice, a weekly yoga practice, and continues to evolve toward living a fully liberated authentic life, with minimal ego and maximum togetherness with all others.
T R A I N I N G S
Yoga Teacher Training
Yoga Alliance - Mindful Motion, Jackonsville, FL, expected May 2020
Certified level III Thai Yoga Massage and Chi Nei Tsang
ITM School, Chaing Mai, Thailand, May 2019
Nalanda Institute - Boundless Leadership
Neuroscience and Buddhist meditation in self growth to empower business leadership, Expected June 2020
Sivananda Yoga tradition
Regular practitioner and ashram guest, workshops on mystical traditions of all the world religions inluding Kabbala, Sufi, Hindu, and other traditions, 2006-present
Eckhart Tolle
School of Awakening, January–June 2019
Conscious Manifestation Course, September–December 2019
I N F L U E N C E S
Dharma Punx
Brooklyn NY, Buddhist insight tradition meditation group, 2015–2018
Avid Roman Catholic practitioner
(Birth through age 27)
Ongoing devotion to Jesus Christ and Saint Charbel
The Writings of:
• Kahlil Gibran
• Michael Singer (Author of Untethered Soul) Participant in Temple of the Universe services
• Stephen Covey
• Gary Zukav
WE ARE REAL PEOPLE MAKING A
POSITIVE IMPACT
The Manifestations team is committed to the growth of healing and consciousness ventures. Together, we combine over a hundred years of experience in over 500 companies in various service, technology, and healthcare sectors. As a team, we work together to help businesses scale fast and make greater change in the world.
MEET OUR TEAM:
Brandon Cope
Brandon Cope is an investor in small, profitable and growing businesses with a focus on B2B Services, Software / SaaS, and Consumer Products. He is currently Chairman of the Board or Director of several companies of which he was the independent sponsor. Mr. Cope served as CEO of Angoss Software Corporation, a predictive analytics software company, where he grew the business and sold it in 2018 to a NASDAQ company. He previously served as a Partner at Peterson Partners, a lower-middle-market private equity firm, where he also launched their early-stage platform (Peterson Ventures). Brandon received an MBA from The Kellogg School of Management and M.S. and B.S. degrees in Accounting from Brigham Young University.
Brent Zettel
Brent has spent a decade investing across private equity and venture capital, with a focus on supporting exceptional entrepreneurs with innovations that improve people’s lives. At Unitus Ventures, a leading emerging market venture fund, he worked on early-stage investments in companies leveraging technology in digital health, fintech, education and other sectors. He previously advised US companies on mergers and acquisitions, including more than $1 billion in successful transactions for growing healthcare companies as part of Nexus Health Capital. Brent also served as Vice President at Light Beam Capital, where he helped lead sourcing and analysis of private equity investment opportunities across numerous sectors and generated industry leading returns. Brent holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.
Michael-Kevin O’Connell
Michael-Kevin (M-K) O'Connell is responsible for sourcing and reviewing new investment opportunities as well as monitoring the performance of portfolio companies. His projects included the strategic due diligence of a $1 billion building materials company, the development of a customer contact and support strategy for a legacy airline, the strategic realignment and long-term plan for a major Los Angeles attraction, and the strategic due diligence of a leading equipment supplier to solar cell manufacturers. He received his B.S. magna cum laude, from Boston College and his M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania where he was the recipient of the Thomas P. Gerrity Leadership Award.
Michael O’Connell
Michael F. O'Connell is the head Managing Director at M2O, Inc. He oversees the assessment of investment opportunities and reviews the ongoing performance of portfolio companies. Michael also sits on the board of American Biosurgical, Inc. For most of his career, Michael was President and Managing Director of Anhalt, O'Connell & Steffanci Inc., a Los Angeles-based investment management firm with almost $1 billion under management. In 1992, Michael purchased the National Lines Bureau, a ship mooring company operating at the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors, the largest commercial port in America. Michael holds a B.A. with high honors from Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Dr. Mark Sivieri,
Thrive Tribe Medical Advisor
As an innovator, a physician, and an athlete, Mark serves on our team as Medical Advisor, bringing with him years of experience in integrative medicine. Mark founded the Sivieri Wellness Center, which eventually expanded to three locations. There, he practices as a primary care physician, acupuncturist, and integrative medicine expert, and he has developed a reputation for his restorative care. Mark earned his medical degree from the highly-distinguished Georgetown University School of Medicine and earned the distinction as Chief Resident during his final year at the University of Arizona Family Practice Medicine Program.
Kent Weaver
In addition to Manifestations, Kent is currently Executive Chairman and former CEO at a Northern California-based home health care company acquired using a self-funded search fund model. Previously, Mr. Weaver held executive positions in marketing and product management for a VC-backed marketing automation startup, as a regional CFO and business analyst in Pepsico’s Pizza Hut Division, and as a management consultant at Ernst & Young. He received his M.B.A. at the University of California, Los Angeles and B.S. in finance from the University of Southern California.
Daryl Lontz
Daryl leads our entrepreneur outreach efforts, including our industry and company research. She has over 20 years of experience in specialized research and search services and excels in making relevant and actionable connections between people. She joined Manifestations in 2020 and is passionate about accelerating our mission by connecting us with owners in our targeted industries who are ready to partner. She also will ensure that our companies are operated by top notch talent.
Previous to executive search, Daryl gained corporate and startup recruiting experience working onsite with technology companies to help manage their talent acquisition and succession planning needs. She has a strong internal perspective of the challenges faced by small, high-growth companies and the talent it takes to help them succeed. Daryl holds a Business Administration degree from Northeastern University in Boston, MA. She and her husband have three children and live in the Philadelphia area.
SANDRO MINA
Sandro leads the team at Relay Investments, which he co-founded with Martin Steber in 2013.
In 1991, Sandro earned his MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. At Stanford, Sandro took Prof. Irv Grousbeck’s course on search funds, which inspired his career choice. Upon graduation, Sandro joined up with Martin and two other individuals to form Sverica International, which was initially based on the search fund model. Through that entity, Sandro sourced the acquisition of CameraWorld.com in Portland, Oregon, a catalog business selling cameras and camcorders nationwide, and sold by its retiring founder. Under his tenure, the company became the leading e-commerce company in the photography market and was acquired by a group of private equity funds.
Sandro began individually investing in search funds in 2001 and, starting in 2013, institutionally through Relay. To date, Sandro has invested in over 200 search funds and search fund-sourced companies.
Sandro holds an MBA from Stanford GSB and a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Imperial College at the University of London. He is a native Swedish speaker, and is conversational in Italian, French and German.
