Board of Directors

Gregg Lemkau is currently the CEO and a Partner of MSD Partners. Prior to joining MSD Partners, Mr. Lemkau spent 28 years at Goldman Sachs, where he was most recently Co-Head of the Investment Banking Division. While at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Lemkau advised on hundreds of transactions representing over $1 trillion of deal value across sectors globally and spent significant time in high-growth sectors such as technology, media, and healthcare. During his tenure at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Lemkau held several leadership roles, including Co-Head of Global Mergers & Acquisitions; Co-Head of the Technology, Media and Telecom Group; Co-Head of the Healthcare Group; and Chief Operating Officer of the Investment Banking Division, while working in offices in both the U.S. and Europe. At Goldman Sachs, Mr. Lemkau was a member of the Firmwide Management Committee, the Partnership Committee, the Investment Banking Division Executive Committee, and served as Chairman of the Firmwide Commitments Committee. 

Mr. Lemkau is a member of the Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College and the Board of Advisors for Team Rubicon, a nonprofit whose mission is to unite military veterans’ skills and experiences with first responders to provide impactful service across the world to communities affected by a disaster. Mr. Lemkau previously served as Chairman of the Board of Directors for Grassroot Soccer, a nonprofit using the power of soccer to fight against HIV and AIDS in Africa.

Mr. Lemkau holds a Bachelor of Arts in Government and Economics from Dartmouth College. 

  John Phelan is the Co-Founding Partner and Chief Investment Officer of MSD Partners and MSD Capital and is responsible for overseeing investment strategy. Prior to co-founding MSD Capital in 1998, Mr. Phelan was a Principal at ESL Partners (“ESL”), a Greenwich, Connecticut-based investment firm. At ESL, he was responsible for Special Situation and Distressed Investments and helped grow the firm from $50 million to over $2 billion in assets under management. Mr. Phelan was previously a Vice President at the Equity Group: Zell-Merrill Lynch Real Estate Opportunity Funds, where he oversaw Acquisitions (Western Region). Mr. Phelan began his career as an Analyst in the Investment Banking Division of Goldman Sachs.

Mr. Phelan serves on several charitable boards, including the Whitney Museum of Art, Spirit of America, and Third Option Foundation. He also serves as a member of Harvard Business School’s Board of Dean’s Advisors, the Investment Committee for the SMU Endowment, and is a Global Insight Partner and member of the North American Advisory Board for the London School of Economics.

Mr. Phelan has over 30 years of investment and transactional experience across asset classes and geographies. He is responsible for building and developing integrated cross-asset platforms, various investment strategies, and has overseen a substantial increase in assets under management at MSD Capital and MSD Partners.
He is Chairman of MSD Partners’ Investment Committee, and we believe MSDAC will benefit from his diverse experience investing in businesses at different growth stages through several economic cycles.
Mr. Phelan received his Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science, Phi Beta Kappa and cum laude with distinction, from Southern Methodist University. Mr. Phelan also holds a General Course degree with an emphasis in Economics and International Relations from The London School of Economics. 

James Breyer has been a member of our board of directors since March 2021. Mr. Breyer is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Breyer Capital, a premier venture capital firm based in Austin, Texas, and Menlo Park, California. Mr. Breyer has been an early investor in over 40 technology companies that have completed successful public offerings or mergers. He served as Partner at Accel Partners from 1990 to 2016 and Managing Partner from 1995 to 2011. Mr. Breyer also has a long record of investing in China and partnering with Chinese entrepreneurs. He is Co-Chairman of IDG Capital, based in Beijing, the first firm to bring venture capital into China. Over the past several years, Mr. Breyer has developed a deep personal and investment interest in long-term oriented entrepreneurs and teams working in artificial/augmented intelligence and human-assisted intelligence and has made numerous investments in this space.

Mr. Breyer has served on the board of directors of The Blackstone Group Inc. since 2016 and previously served on the board of directors of Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. from 2011 to 2019; Facebook, Inc. from 2005 to 2013; Etsy, Inc. from 2008 to 2016; Dell, Inc. from 2009 to 2013; and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. from 2001 to 2013, as well as several other technology companies.

Mr. Breyer is a Fellow Emeritus of the Harvard Corporation, Harvard University’s senior governing board. Mr. Breyer is also a Board Member and is Chairman Emeritus of the Advisory Board at the Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management in Beijing. Mr. Breyer is a long-time active volunteer as a Trustee of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the American Film Institute, and Stanford’s Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society. 

Edith Cooper has been a member of our board of directors since March 2021. Ms. Cooper is the co-founder of Medley, a membership-based community that fosters personal and professional growth, which she launched with her daughter in July 2020. Previously, Ms. Cooper served as Executive Vice President, Global Head of Human Capital Management of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. from March 2008 to December 2017, and, prior to that, she held various leadership positions in Goldman Sachs’ Securities Division from 1996 to 2008. Ms. Cooper began her career in derivative sales at Bankers Trust and Morgan Stanley.
Ms. Cooper has served on the Board of Etsy, Inc., a publicly-traded e-commerce company, since 2018. She has also served on the board of Slack Technologies, Inc., a publicly-traded provider of cloud-based professional collaboration tools, since 2018. She has also served on the board of EQT, a publicly-traded purpose-driven global investment firm, since 2018. Ms. Cooper also currently serves on the board of directors of the Museum of Modern Art and Mt. Sinai Hospital.
Ms. Cooper holds a Masters of Business Administration from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management and a Bachelor of Arts in American History from Harvard University. 

Allen Shim has been a member of our board of directors since March 2022.  Mr. Shim has served as the Chief Financial Officer of Slack Technologies, Inc. (“Slack”) and previously as its SVP of Finance from 2014 through 2021. While at Slack, Mr. Shim was responsible for Slack’s financial management strategy, which included overseeing global operations, finance, administration, and IT. Mr. Shim led the company’s direct listing offering in June 2019 and oversaw its acquisition by Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) which closed in July 2021. Prior to Slack, from 2008 to 2014, Mr. Shim served as Vice President of Finance and Treasurer at YuMe, Inc., a data analysis company for television advertising that was acquired by RhythmOne in 2017. Prior to this, Mr. Shim worked at Yahoo and began his career in investment research. Mr. Shim is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder and holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.