Northstar’s partners have extensive international experience in finance, operations and strategy. Northstar has offices in Boston, Munich and Zurich. We bring to every transaction the critical skills necessary for success – creative problem solving, technical expertise in structuring deals and superior negotiation skills derived from our experience in mediating and closing transactions. Our clients also rely on our marketing acumen, which results in the appropriate presentation of each client’s company.

As a boutique investment bank, we are able to provide personal attention to each client. Our principals are actively involved in each transaction, working with Northstar’s team of professionals to yield outstanding results for our clients.

Ed Mullen, Chairman

Ed Mullen is Chairman of Northstar Global Partners. Ed serves on several Boards of companies in the IT and healthcare sectors.  He is a Partner in Net Capital, a venture capital firm. He has been a President of a publicly traded company and has extensive business, investment banking and venture capital relationships in the United States, Asia and Europe.

Ed was President of MSGi (NASDAQ: MSGI) and served as a member of its Board from April 1999 to March 2000. During his involvement with MSGi the company's market cap increased from $65 million to $704 million.

Ed was President of CMG Direct Corp. from April 1997 to April 1999. CMG Direct is the original CMG Information Services (NASDAQ: CMGI) company. During this time, CMGI's market cap increased from $800 million to $13 billion.

He spent 17 years, as president, in the advertising industry.

Ed was the founding President of the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council (MIMC) and served on its Board. MIMC is a leading IT industry trade council with over 1,000 members including many leading companies in Massachusetts. As President of MIMC, he played an important role in the growth of the IT industry in Massachusetts.

He has served on the Boards of several non-profit organizations such as WGBH-TV's Business Executive Council, The Massachusetts Interactive Media Council, and Business and Technology for Schools and Technology (BEST). He is currently a Trustee of the Judge Baker Children’s Center, a Harvard University Medical School affiliate.

Ed is a frequent public speaker. In the past year he has given speeches in the US, Europe, South Africa and Kazakhstan. The topics range from globalization, investment banking, finance and industry specific speeches at conferences. In a speech for Fleet Bank’s Private Banking Group, Ed spoke on venture capital financing. He recently gave a speech to the President of Kazakhstan, senior government officials and other economic experts on economic development strategies for Kazakhstan.  He also recently participated, as an expert, in a live television program broadcast in Switzerland, about international finance.

In January 2003, officials from the National Republican Congressional Committee announced that Ed has been appointed to serve on the Business Advisory Council in recognition of his assistance and leadership in promoting a pro-business agenda. The Business Advisory Council is dedicated to making sure that business has a voice in Washington, DC.  Ed has long supported issues such as debt reduction, tax reform, and fiscal responsibility.  As Honorary Co-Chairman of the Council, he is expected to play a crucial role in the Party’s efforts to involve top businesspeople in the process of government reform.

Ed has been an Adjunct Professor at Boston College 's Graduate School of Management, where he has taught a course on Mergers & Acquisitions and has taught a course on venture capital and lectured on negotiations. Ed, age 51, is an avid sailor.

Email Ed

Christian Hostmann, Managing Director

Christian Hostmann is a Managing Director of Northstar Global Partners and manages the Munich office of Northstar. He has more than ten years of experience in venture capital, including being the founder of Venture Catalyst GmbH, a German incubator for IT businesses.

Before founding Venture Catalyst, Christian was an Investment Manager in the venture capital affiliate of HypoVereinsbank AG, Munich, where he was responsible for developing venture capital activities in Germany, making new investments, and managing existing portfolio investments.

From 1993 to 1995, he was the Vorstands-Assistant of a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank AG, Deutsche Beteiligungs AG in Frankfurt / Main, where he assisted in the reorganization of the business. In 1996 he became an Investment Manager in the group, managing private equity investments in mid-size companies in Germany and worldwide. Christian also helped create the concept for Deutsche Venture Capital GmbH (DVC) and joined the firm as Investment Manager.

In 1993, Christian earned his Master / Licenciate in Business Administration at University of St. Gallen (HSG), Switzerland. Prior to that, he worked with Crédit Lyonnais in France, and was a consultant for HBS Consulting Partners in Berlin. He earned his qualifications in banking with Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt/Main. Christian is 39 years old and lives in Munich, Germany.

Email Christian


Mark Slater, Managing Director

Mark is a managing director of Northstar Global Partners. He has spent the last 16 years working with entrepreneurial high technology companies as an investor and as an advisor on public offerings, private placements and mergers and acquisitions.

Prior to joining Northstar, Mark was head of the Boston investment banking office of Hambrecht & Quist (later acquired by JPMorgan Chase). While there, he successfully completed more than 40 equity and equity-linked financings and mergers for public and private clients, including: ComputerVision's secondary offering and merger with Parametric Technology Corporation (NASDAQ: PMTC); the secondary offering of Ansoft (NASDAQ: ANST); the going private transaction of Aavid Thermal Technology; and the public financing and subsequent sale of 4Front Technologies of London, England, to NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR).

He has worked with leading growth companies in a diverse range of high technology fields, including semiconductors and semiconductor capital equipment, computer hardware, and enterprise software and services companies. Mark was also an equity analyst for Fidelity Investments, where he provided research for all of Fidelity's equity funds.

Mark has given lectures and presentations about entrepreneurial finance to many groups, including the MIT Enterprise Forum, the Massachusetts Software Council, and to leading business schools.

Mark holds a BA degree in Classics and Physics from Brown University, and a Masters of Science in Management from the Sloan School at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with concentrations in Finance and Technological Innovation.

Mark, 42, enjoys all forms of racquets sports, including squash and real tennis.

Email Mark

James Sullivan, Managing Director

James Sullivan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Northstar Global Partners. He specializes in assessing and evaluating the potential of ventures for investment companies, and in establishing strategic partnerships for portfolio companies. He has a track record of discovering investment and partnership opportunities, as well as assisting start-ups in Northstar's U.S. and European network.

Jim is also a Founder and Managing Director of Alpine Window Partners, a venture fund and network of angel investors. As manager of the investment company, he worked with portfolio companies to enhance value through creation of strategic partnerships with both technology and industrial companies.

Jim has extensive experience in both finance and consulting. He began his career in securities trading and investment advisor for Adams, Harkness, and Hill, a Boston-based investment bank. He then joined the sales and marketing team for a financial software company, Saddlebrook Corporation, in Cambridge, MA, where he contributed to building the company into one of Digital Equipment Corporation's largest OEMs. Jim has also worked as a Senior Investment Broker for Peter Elliot and Company in Boston, and as a Senior Consultant for Keystone Consulting in the role of business and real property advisory and valuation, where he worked with clients including Fleet Bank, Lehman Brothers and Fidelity Investments.

Jim also serves on the Boards of several technology companies, and is on the Advisory Board of a prominent Munich, Germany-based venture fund. He holds a BA degree in Government from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Jim, 47, is an experienced skiier and mountain biker.

Email Jim

Joe Bradley, Principal

Joe Bradley is a Principal at Northstar Global Partners. Joe has ten years of operating and transaction experience working with technology companies. Most recently he led business development for Guardian Solutions, a security software company that specializes in automated perimeter protection of critical infrastructure using proprietary digital signal processing technology.

Prior to Guardian, Joe spent four years as a technology investment banker in New York and Boston with Hambrecht & Quist, which was acquired by Chase Manhattan Bank and then merged with JP Morgan. During that time, Joe executed a wide variety of transactions including public equity offerings, private equity placements, and mergers and acquisitions. The majority of Joe's transactions were focused in the software and security sectors.

Joe has a BA in Chemistry from the College of the Holy Cross, an MS in Environmental Engineering from Northeastern University, and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University. Joe is 35 and lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Email Joe

Daniel Sullivan, Principal

Daniel Sullivan is a Principal at Northstar Global Partners. Daniel has 15 years of corporate legal experience working as senior counsel in the areas of M&A and joint ventures.

Most recently he was Vice President, Senior Corporate counsel at Lycos, Inc. where he structured, negotiated and drafted agreements for twenty of Lycos’s M&A transactions which ranged in size from $30 million to several billion dollars. He also established international joint ventures in connection with the exploitation of Lycos Search service worldwide. He was lead counsel on three public offerings including two in the US and one in Germany. He was responsible for securities law compliance and corporate governance. Daniel negotiated equity investments by Lycos and its affiliates in more than thirty start-up transactions and was the lead lawyer on the creation of a $75 million venture fund that invested in internet related entities. In his time with Lycos, Daniel had extensive international experience, negotiating transactions in China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, HK, Australia, UK, France, Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Israel, US and Canada. Additionally, the last two years of his time with Lycos, he was resident in Spain.

Prior to Lycos, Daniel was Associate General Counsel of Fresenius Medical Care where he was head M&A counsel as well as counsel to the Medical Products Division from 1996 to 1998.

Daniel was Corporate Associate specializing in M&A, corporate finance and general corporate matters for Peabody & Brown (now Nixon Peabody, LLP) from 1993 to 1996. Daniel was also Corporate Associate in the M&A group at Hutchins Wheeler and Dittmar from 1993 to 1996.

Daniel has a JD from Columbia University Law School and a BA in Chinese and Asian Studies from Connecticut College. He is fluent in both Chinese and Spanish and is a triathlete.

Email Daniel

Daniel R. Pfau, Executive-in-Residence

Daniel Pfau is an Executive-in-Residence with Northstar Global Partners. He has spent more than 25 years advising business and information technology (IT) executives on business strategy and the strategic use and management of IT. His clients have included numerous members of the Fortune 500 as well as emerging and startup companies. Representative clients include DB Alex. Brown, ABN AMRO, Bank of America, Lend Lease, Liberty Mutual Insurance and John Hancock. Dan's areas of expertise include IT strategy, eCommerce strategy, business reengineering and IT effectiveness.

Dan spent more than eight years as a partner at Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting, first as the head of the Financial Services sector of the Information & Technology Strategy (I&TS) practice and then within the Strategic Information Technology Effectiveness domain. Dan organized the Financial Services practice within I&TS, and led its growth to more than $10 million over three years. In addition to his leadership responsibilities, Dan was a frequent contributor as subject matter expert, speaker and facilitator. In his final assignment at Accenture, he operated as the 'chief of staff ' to lead the design and implementation for the global repositioning of Accenture's Strategy & Business Architecture service line.

Prior to joining Accenture, Dan was a vice president at CSC Index, where he was responsible for business reengineering and IT management and strategy engagements across a broad set of industries.

In addition to his responsibilities at Northstar, Dan is a member of the Dean's Global Business Council at Brandeis University's International Business School.

Dan holds a B.A. in Mathematics from Brandeis University (Magna Cum Laude) and an M.S. in Computer Science and M.E. in Information Sciences from Harvard University. Dan, 52, enjoys running, bicycling, skiing and boating in his spare time.

Email Dan