John Holsapple
With roots in Detroit and rural New Jersey, John moved overseas in 2006 and went on to co-found two companies in China. His first company, Culture Gateway, taught over 7,000 students at elite institutions ranging from China’s presidential complex to the country's best language schools.
After exiting, he formed Sterling Pacific Group (SPG) to help businesses access international markets and technology. Through SPG, he worked on large cross border M&A transactions, set up a research center, and secured $37.25m in commitments for his fund. He speaks Chinese and has an MBA from INSEAD. In his free time, John pretends to enjoy running, tries to find time to travel, and occasionally capsizes Greg’s boat.
Greg Shapiro
Before joining Penn Haven, Greg led a team at NGP VAN building the best available software for charities and political campaigns to find supporters, raise money, and win elections. Greg also led several open data projects at Harvard Growth Lab, creating novel data sets and applying them to help governors and finance ministers create effective growth policies.
Prior to politics Greg worked in Beijing and Detroit where he founded two companies with John, Culture Gateway and Sterling Pacific Group. At Culture Gateway Greg sold contracts to teach thousands of students. At Sterling Pacific Group Greg raised financing for early stage companies and worked on cross border M&A projects. Greg also enjoys mocking John for capsizing his boat, trail running, and traveling.
Zachary Cooper-Vastola
Zach is our self-taught software engineer who developed our custom data extraction and marketing tools. Prior to Penn Haven, Zach worked for two boutique wealth management firms which he helped organize a relocation post-merger, then built a platform that enabled FA’s to more efficiently execute trades. Zach also has experience working as a buy side M&A analyst for middle market firms looking to expand.
Zach is also fluent in Spanish and a graduate of Bentley University with a degree in Economics & Finance. In his free time, he enjoys skiing and losing at poker.