Salvatore Massaro

Sal Massaro has been a partner at EGL since he and David Ellis founded the EGL venture capital and private equity business in 1988. Mr. Massaro has had responsibility for growth capital investments in a broad range of industries including information technology, telecommunications, instrumentation, and healthcare. As a board member of several EGL portfolio companies, Mr. Massaro has provided advice on strategic, financial and operational challenges to companies at all stages of development.

Sal began his career in the management consulting group of Price Waterhouse in New York City in 1978. In this role, he advised clients on their financial management information systems, and on mergers and acquisition activities. Representative clients included Corning Glass Works, Drexel Burnham Lambert, and The Ford Foundation.

In 1982, he took an operational role as CFO of Telesphere International, a supplier of long-distance and operator-assisted telephone service and telecommunications equipment to the hotel industry. He was responsible for all finance, accounting, tax, and investor affairs of the company, completing a mezzanine round of venture capital and managing the company’s initial public offering through D.H. Blair & Co. At the time, he was the youngest CFO of a publicly-traded company in the United States. Before leaving Telesphere, Mr. Massaro financed the company’s entry into the long-distance business by raising secured debt capital through Chemical Bank and through a secondary public offering managed by Smith Barney & Co.

In 1985, Mr. Massaro moved to Atlanta to join Prudential-Bache Venture Capital, Inc. (“PBVC”) as Vice President, Business Development. PBVC was the venture capital arm of Prudential-Bache Securities, organized as a public limited partnership. PBVC was an early attempt to provide venture capital returns to the individual retail investor. Sal joined David at CFA in 1986. In 1988, he and David launched EGL’s private equity business.

He has served as a board member of the Atlanta Venture Forum since 1990, where he is heavily involved in the State of Georgia’s public policy debate concerning economic development, venture capital and high technology. Mr. Massaro was president of SORASBIC (Southern Regional Association of SBICs) from 1998 to 1999, and is a former member of the Board of Governors of NASBIC (the National Association of SBICs). His professional memberships include the Association for Corporate Growth, the Business & Technology Alliance, IEEE, Institute of Management Accountants, MIT Enterprise Forum, NASBIC, SORASBIC, the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), Southeastern Software Association, and the Technology Association of Georgia.

Sal earned his BSBA degree magna cum laude from Georgetown University in 1976, and his MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in 1978.