Cresswell Ventures Has A Seasoned Team
Kenny Greer, Managing Partner
Kenny Greer is an accomplished entrepreneur and business leader with extensive experience founding, financing, operating, and advising companies across diverse industries. With a background spanning investment banking, executive leadership, entrepreneurship, private equity, real estate development, board membership, and consulting, Kenny has the ideal credentials for acquiring and scaling a privately-held company. He thrives on intellectual curiosity and finding new business opportunities. Kenny aims to continue applying his decades of experience and passion for company building to drive sustainable growth.
As an executive, Kenny helped guide established companies before founding his own merchant bank, Blue Sage Advisory. He then started Green Sage, a cannabis real estate development and management firm, and managed numerous development projects over an 8 year period. Green Sage developed and managed properties in Denver, Las Vegas, Vancouver and Oakland, where it leased up and built out a 500,000 SF industrial cannabis production facility until the project ended in late 2022. Kenny founded Cresswell in 2023 to identify an exceptional company to acquire and grow.
Kenny matriculated from The Lawrenceville School and went on to graduate Summa Cum Laude from Cornell University with a degree in Sociology. He launched a career in Investment Banking at Wachovia Capital Markets in Charlotte & London before earning an MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Kenny lives between Denver, Colorado and La Jolla, California. In his spare time he enjoys playing squash and all racquet sports, skiing, cooking, playing guitar, live music, and traveling.
Jim Barnocky, Partner
Jim is a seasoned and effective operational and financial leader with 20+ years of experience working with a diverse set of companies ranging from entrepreneurial start-ups to Fortune 500 entities. As the founder of Wisdom Financial Partners, Jim has consulted with many small to mid-sized companies, fostering their financial and operational success. Jim utilizes his experience, business acumen, finance/accounting knowledge, leadership experience, and problem-solving abilities to create tremendous success for start-up and early-stage clients across numerous industries.
Prior to consulting, Jim enjoyed 15+ years of executive Director of Finance and CFO roles and has lead Finance, Accounting, HR and IT departments, excelling at leveraging IT solutions and technology. Jim has experience writing operational manuals, building models, forecasts, reports and budgets for dozens of business entities.
Jim earned his dual bachelor’s degree in Economics and Philosophy from Radford University and holds his MBA (with concentration in Strategic Management and Organizational Development) from the University of Colorado. He volunteers with Junior Achievement (teaching math and business to high school students) and has served on numerous boards as Director, Treasurer, and Finance Chair.
Elliot Rohde, Venture Partner
Oregon-based entrepreneur and investor, Elliot A. Rohde serves as CEO and board chair of Mab & Stoke and is the founder of Newpark Ventures, a private equity sponsor that brings together experienced capital and leadership in companies that positively impact people and the planet.
Prior to Mab & Stoke, Elliot co-founded and served as CEO of Earth Lab Holdings, a platform business in the Vitamins, Minerals & Supplements (VMS) industry. Earth Lab Holdings has three wholly owned subsidiaries, including; Wise Woman Herbals, Superior Labs, and Earth Lab Botanicals.
For over a decade, Elliot was a member and volunteer in YPO (Young Presidents Organization). Over the last two decades he has served as CEO, executive or director of multiple other businesses in food technology, public health, packaging manufacturing, consumer products and VMS. He began his career as a management consultant with the Monitor group (now part of Deloitte) where he advised private and public clients on economic development and export led growth strategies in Latin America. Elliot has lived and worked in multiple foreign countries and enjoys world travel. His businesses have designed, manufactured and distributed thousands of products, creating hundreds of jobs and positively impacting countless people.
Outside of his professional endeavors, Elliot A. Rohde has led nonprofit groups and social enterprises focused on reducing hunger and homelessness and promoting environmental conservation. Elliot is a volunteer ski patroller at Mt. Bachelor, in Bend Oregon. He holds bachelor's degrees in both economics and political science from the University of Utah and joint MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, and Columbia Business school where he focused his studies on finance and social enterprise.
John Maggio, Operating Partner
John has spent over 25 years founding, managing the development, launch and exponential growth of countless food and beverage consumer product brands, and hundreds of products within those brands. Of particular note, he founded and subsequently exited, Boulder Chips, currently the #1 non-Frito-Lay potato chip brand in the U.S. and owned by a public company, UTZ (NYSE; UTZ). Additionally, after joining both Justin’s and Thanasi as a Strategic Advisor in their early days, John was fortunate to work with the private equity firms for both companies through exits to Hormel and ConAgra, respectively - both deal structures netting nearly 4x net revenue. He has been a part of a wide range of capital raises and was a Founding Board Member and Operating Partner at AF Ventures for 9 years. John excels in growing teams and bringing the right people together to create focus, while maintaining the flexibility to create winning strategies. He is continually motivated by thoughtful innovation has led or participated in the exits of six companies, having been especially successful disrupting the status quo in the food and beverage industries.