About Us

Mary has over 30 years of investment banking experience within the food industry specializing in financial restructurings, recapitalizations, turnarounds, private and public placements of debt and equity capital and providing corporate finance and strategic advisory services. She has been the advisor on more than 200 recapitalizations, placements, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures representing total consideration in excess of $15 billion. Mary is a founding partner of Lakeshore Food Advisors, LLC.

Previous to Lakeshore, Mary worked for a variety of companies all in the food sector. She was a partner at The Food Partners, a boutique investment firm specializing in the retail and wholesale sectors of the food industry. She was chair of the board and interim chief executive officer at Associated Grocers, Inc. of Seattle, a $1 billion cooperative grocery wholesaler. She was chief financial officer at Imperial Sugar Company, the largest refined sugar supplier in the United States, and helped the company grow through acquisitions from $400 million to $2 billion in sales. Mary was a managing director at Bank of Montreal/Harris Bank’s Food Group specializing in input, manufacturing, processing, distribution and retail companies.

Mary has a B.A. from Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana and a M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Derek is responsible for sourcing and executing investment banking assignments in the food and agribusiness sectors. His deal experience includes M&A transactions, financial restructurings, debt and equity capital raises, and corporate finance advisory engagements. Derek joined Lakeshore in 2009 and has since worked on more than 100 advisory and capital formation transactions ranging in size from several million to more than $250 million. Prior to joining Lakeshore Food Advisors, Derek worked for five years in the biotechnology industry as a research technician at Northwestern University.

Derek has a B.A. in Biology from Washington University in St. Louis, and a M.B.A. in Finance, Accounting, and Strategic Management from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Jim is responsible for the execution of investment banking engagements across the transaction life cycle and has been with the Lakeshore team since 2019. His deal experience spans over 20 transactions across the entire food chain including sell-side and buy-side mergers and acquisitions, equity capital raises, corporate finance advising, and valuation engagements. Prior to graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Jim worked as an Analyst for Bank of America-Merrill Lynch.

Jim has a B.B.A. in Finance, Investments and Banking; as well as Accounting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.