THE TUATARA TEAM

Our team of professionals are committed to helping our partners grow their businesses.

  • Al Foreman has over 25 years of professional experience in private equity, corporate finance, and financial technology. In his career he has amassed a broad range of transaction experience that spans the origination, structuring, and execution of debt, equity, and M&A transactions globally, as both a principal and an agent. Mr. Foreman is a Co-Founder, Managing Partner, and the Chief Investment Officer of Tuatara Capital. In this role, Al is responsible for formulating Tuatara’s macro investment strategy and for the structuring and oversight of portfolio investments, and he leads the Investment Committee.

    Prior to co-founding Tuatara in 2014, Al was a Managing Director with Highbridge Principal Strategies, LLC, an alternative investment management firm. Before Highbridge, Mr. Foreman worked in investment banking at J.P. Morgan Securities as a Managing Director in the Financial Sponsors Coverage Group, and he joined the bank as a Managing Director and a founding member of the management team for the J.P. Morgan Private Equity Fund Services business. Earlier, Al was a financial technology executive at Vitech Systems Group and Virtual Growth Incorporated, and he began his career as a Management Associate in Citigroup’s Private Bank, where he co-founded Citibank’s Professional Sports Group.

    Al earned a B.S. in Finance from the University of Connecticut where he was a United Technologies Finance Scholar and a two-time Scholar Athlete Award Winner. Al also holds a J.D. from the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, and an MBA from Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business. Mr. Foreman is an Emeterius Director for the University of Connecticut Foundation, where he previously served on the Foundation’s Investment Committee, Nominating and Board Governance Committee, and the Athletic’s Fundraising Steering Committee.

  • Marc has over 22 years of financial and Wall Street experience. His areas of professional experience include venture capital/private equity, fundraising, investor relations and alternative investment fund administration. Marc is a Managing Partner and the Chief Operating Officer of Tuatara Capital. In this role, Marc leads financial management, operations, vendor management, and overall administration of Tuatara Capital and its related entities; and he is also actively involved with the structuring and execution of new investments.

    Prior to co-founding Tuatara Capital in 2014, Marc was a Senior Director at SS&C Technologies where he led sales for a universe of private equity and hedge fund clients spanning a range of products and services including alternative investment fund formation, fund administration, regulatory compliance, investor relations, and a wide variety of supporting technologies. Before joining SS&C, Marc was a founding partner of Ilios Partners, a capital markets intelligence firm formed in 2001 and ultimately sold to MZ Group in 2010. While at Ilios, Marc built and managed the global sales team, and was a member of senior management tasked with management and oversight of the entire firm, a premier provider of data and intelligence services to the public company Investor Relations market.

    Prior to Ilios Partners, Marc was the founder of Next Venture Partners, a venture capital firm that provided capital to high growth telecom and entertainment companies globally. Before Next Venture Partners, Marc began his career in finance at Angel Partners, a NY-based investment advisor primarily focused on private placements in the technology, media, and telecom sectors. While at both Angel Partners and Next Venture Partners, he built and managed a large client base of high-net worth individuals who invested in over a dozen private placements structured by the firms. Marc earned a B.S. in Finance from the University of Connecticut.

  • Ivan joined Tuatara Capital in January 2018 as an Associate on the Investment Team. Ivan’s primary responsibilities include the identification and analysis of new investment opportunities, leading due diligence and execution for new investments, assisting with portfolio company monitoring, and tracking and analyzing cannabis industry trends.

    Prior to joining Tuatara, Ivan was an Investment Banking Associate in the Healthcare Group at Lazard Frères & Co. Based in New York, Ivan was responsible for mergers and acquisitions and strategic advisory services to large-cap companies within the healthcare services, medical technology, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology verticals. Prior to his tenure at Lazard, Ivan was an Investment Banking Associate at BNP Paribas where he worked on domestic and cross-border M&A assignments across the consumer/retail, industrials, healthcare, and financial institutions sectors. Ivan started his career at Wells Fargo as a financial analyst responsible for underwriting and executing leveraged loans for beer, wine and spirit distributors nationwide.

    Ivan earned a B.B.A degree in Finance and Accounting with a minor in Applied Mathematics from Emory University. In his free time, Ivan enjoys soccer, reading, and spending time with friends.

  • Brian Schwartz joined Tuatara as Chief Financial Officer in 2020. Prior to joining Tuatara, Brian was a Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of Fund Administration at Vestar Capital Partners. Brian currently serves as a Senior Advisor at Vestar. Prior to Vestar, Brian worked at international corporate law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, where he was responsible for all of the firm’s partnership accounting and tax issues, with a particular focus on their foreign offices.

    Brian holds a BBA in Accounting from New York’s Baruch College and an MBA in Tax and International Business from Pace University. He’s also a Certified Financial Planner and a member of the Private Equity CFO Association.

  • Sergey joined Tuatara in 2019 and is responsible for all aspects of the investment process including origination, transaction structuring, due diligence, financing and portfolio management. Sergey brings over 20 years of professional experience across investment banking and finance with expertise in private equity, mergers & acquisitions, leveraged finance and credit. He played leadership roles in executing over $50 billion M&A, debt and equity capital markets transactions.

    Prior to Tuatara, Sergey was a Managing Director at Societe Generale and led U.S. client coverage of middle market private equity firms. Previously he was in the Financial Sponsors Groups at RBC Capital Markets and in the Financial Sponsor Group and Financial Institutions Group at J.P. Morgan. Prior to investment banking, he was an executive in the business development/mergers & acquisitions group at GE Capital. Sergey started his career as a nuclear submarine officer in the U.S. Navy and was involved in a number of classified deployments.

    Sergey received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from The George Washington University.

  • Young joined Tuatara Capital’s investment team in April 2017. Young is responsible for the identification and analyses of new investment opportunities, leading due diligence and execution of new investments, leading and assisting with portfolio company monitoring, and tracking and analyzing cannabis industry trends.

    Prior to joining Tuatara, Young was an Associate at China Momentum Fund, L.P., a $1.1 billion private equity fund managed by Fosun International, one of China’s largest investment conglomerates with over $80 billion in assets under management. In that role, Young was responsible for analyzing and executing North American private equity investments across a broad spectrum of industries including consumer retail, media & entertainment, travel & hospitality, and food & beverage. Young began his career as a scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, where he conducted research in biochemistry and genetic engineering, and he also worked in pharmaceutical vaccine production at Merck & Co., an international developer, manufacturer and distributor of pharmaceuticals.

    Young earned a B.S. in Chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University, where he was on the Dean’s List with High Honors and was one of two students that graduated with the Mellon College of Science Departmental Honors for excellence in scientific research. In his free time, Young enjoys basketball and piano.

  • Mark has over 30 years of professional experience, with most of that time having been spent in structured finance and private investments. His professional experience has centered on sales, account management, structuring, and execution of structured products in fixed income. Mark is a co-founding Partner and the former Chairman of Tuatara Capital. Prior to co-founding Tuatara Capital in 2014, Mark spent over 15 years as a Senior Managing Director and was a top salesperson in Guggenheim Partners Capital Markets Group, a global investment and advisory firm with more than $220 billion in assets under management. At Guggenheim, Mark provided customized services to hedge funds, mutual funds, insurance companies and other financial institutions who invested in products such as mortgage-backed securities (residential and commercial), collateralized debt obligations, collateralized loan obligations, hybrid securities, investment grade debt, high-yield debt, U.S. Treasury and Federal agency securities, municipal bonds, asset-backed securities, emerging markets debt, structured notes, insurance-linked securities and repo transactions.

    Prior to Guggenheim, Mark spent three years at Greenwich Capital and specialized in structured products and other fixed income securities. In this role, Mark provided a full range of debt financing, risk management and investment services to major corporations and financial and governmental institutions around the world. Earlier in his career, Mark worked at Morgan Stanley in mortgage and asset backed securities, and Kidder Peabody in their mortgage-backed securities sales department. At Kidder, Mark completed his fixed income training program and ranked as the top producer from his class of over 30 professionals. Mark began his tenure on Wall Street at Merrill Lynch in their Fixed Income Futures and Options Group (FF&O). Prior to Wall Street, Mark started his professional career at Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in their Accounting and Financial Development training program, and worked in a variety of finance and accounting roles in various locations in the U.S. and Europe.

    Mark earned a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Florida where he graduated Magna Cum Laude with High Honors and made the President’s Honor Roll. Mark also holds an MBA in Finance and Marketing from Columbia Business School, where he was on the Dean’s List and graduated Magna Cum Laude. Mark was part of the original Founding Family Council at Avenues School in NYC, and provides financial support to Hobart College, the University of Florida, and Columbia University. He was also the liaison between the Teach for America program and Guggenheim Partners.

    Mark is currently the Founder and Managing Partner of The Zittman Family Office (“ZFO”), a single-family office managing a sophisticated portfolio of direct and fund investments across private and public markets. ZFO allocates across all stages and industries with a particular focus on cannabis, psychedelics, biotech, longevity, AI/ML, crypto/blockchain, and real estate.

    Mark is a passionate investor in fine art and real estate, and an avid fan of Florida Gator athletics, live music, and travel.

  • A brand leader, an integrated strategist, and one of the advertising industry’s pioneer digital content practitioners, Todd’s breadth of agency and blue-chip-to-startup client roles have provided him with deep marketing experience in over 20 categories – including Cannabis/CBD, Tobacco, Beer & Spirits, CPG, Health & Wellness, Entertainment/Media, financial services, and many more.

    Currently serving as the Chief Marketing Officer at Bingeable, a Web3 startup marketing & distribution platform for premium entertainment, Todd’s client-side engagements included: Avant Gardner, where he led B2C marketing for one of the country’s highest-grossing live entertainment venues; Mattel, where he led Digital Engagement for core brands, established a Center of Excellence for Influencer Marketing and drove overall marketing transformation; MTV, where he delivered brand & digital product strategy in addition to leading a marketing solutions team responsible for $200MM+ in ad sales.

    Todd’s agency-side experience is equally diverse. Before launching his own consultancy, Todd started as one of the industry’s first content directors/strategists at AtmosphereBBDO, the digital arm of BBDONY. Later, he returned to the BBDO family to lead Omnichannel Strategy & Planning at ProximityBBDO NY. In addition, Todd served at WPP’s flagship media and PR firms: Mindshare and BCW. At Mindshare, he was the Managing Director and Co-Leader of Communications Planning. And as the EVP of Integrated Strategy at BCW, Todd drove the firm’s B2B marketing strategy as well as strategic solutions for brands across cross-functional teams.

    Todd graduated from New York University with a BA in Media Studies. While at university, he was a Founders Day Award winner, was twice awarded Shimkin Scholarship for academic achievement, was an Honors Scholar; was offered membership in Alpha Sigma Lambda honors society, and was named to the Dean’s List in four consecutive semesters.