SHERI L. ORLOWITZ
Founding Partner
Founding Partner and President Artemis Holdings Group LLC
Artemis Holdings Group, LLC American University Washington College of Law
Washington, District Of Columbia
Sheri Orlowitz is both a visionary and a practical entrepreneur. She founded Artemis Holdings Group LLC (Artemis) to bring together a team of creative professionals and advisors, some of whom she has worked with in the past, who have hands-on experience in dealing with all stages of the lifecycle of a business. Sheri finds this experience to be essential to providing comprehensive advice on M&A, acquisitions, divestitures, restructuring, and growth. Sheri directs the strategy behind Artemis’ international private investment fund and travels extensively to Southern and Western Europe, using her wide network of international banks, funds, government officials, CEO’s, business owners and advisors to identify opportunities.
Founding Artemis is a natural progression of Sheri’s twenty-year history of successfully acquiring, running and divesting diverse companies, both domestically and internationally. During her career, Sheri raised well over $100 million, acquired or created a dozen companies from $6 million to $70 million and, importantly, was responsible for the companies and its employees, investors and the eventual successful divestitures.
Prior to Artemis, Sheri founded and operated Shan Industries LLC, an acquisition vehicle targeting manufacturing companies. Sheri financed and led Shan in identifying companies, raising capital, negotiating and conducting the associated due diligence. When Shan acquired two companies from Tyco International, Sheri operated them as the CEO and CFO, successfully prosecuting a company crippling environmental fraud by the seller and ultimately improving the EBITDA of the affected businesses by almost 320%. Shan exited through a sale to its minority partners, Prairie Capital, a mid-market private equity company.
Before Shan, Sheri was a Principal, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of DBI, a $70 million consortium of manufacturing companies with operations and sales offices throughout Europe, the US and in Shenzhen, China. Sheri was instrumental in securing the domestic and international financing to acquire the companies, Magnetic Data Technologies, Brumko Magnetics and AMBelgium. During Sheri’s tenure with DBI, she presided over several acquisitions, including the purchase of a disc drive operation from Quantum and a $55 million recording device company from Eastman Kodak whose chief customers were clandestine departments of the Department of Defense and the NSA.
Sheri operates ahead of the curve and sees opportunities well before others. For example, she created Shan to acquire manufacturing companies for low multiples when, until recently, manufacturing was out of favor. Sheri acquired a dilapidated tear down building in the then very un-gentrified part of Washington, DC, known as Adams Morgan and developed the first, highly successful condominium complex in the area. This creative thinking is also apparent in Sheri’s philanthropic leadership.
While Sheri is involved in many organizations focused on children and women she counts her most noteworthy accomplishment to be the creation of the 22,000 SQ. ft. Orlowitz-Lee Center in Miami. Established in 1999, the Center was Florida’s first and, indeed one of the few in the nation at that time, one-stop shops, providing comprehensive services for abused children and their families, who at that time were a chronically underserved, undervalued and largely ignored population. Sheri continued to push boundaries to extend the services to trafficked girls. In 2007, the Staff created Project GOLD, part of the initial and ongoing funding of which Sheri raised through a grant from the Queen of Sweden’s Childhood Foundation.
Sheri L. Orlowitz
202-518-5359
Sheri@artemisholdings.com
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Sheri is a creative, strategic and practical entrepreneur with close to 30 years of legal, business and functional experience in the C-suite as CEO, CFO, and COO of various companies. Ms. Orlowitz has taken those skills to create a new business practice area – CEGO- (Chief Exit and Growth Officer) and directs them to CEO’s she can guide to the next level by bringing connections, strategic advisory, capital investment (Artemis’ and others) and a time tested skill set in operational excellence to facilitate stability, organic and M&A growth. Artemis brings the wisdom and perspective of someone who has been there, learned from the failures and navigated into remarkable successes.
Selected summary highlights:
Business: Founded and/or acquired ten profitable domestic and international companies, employed over 1,000 people (companies ranging from 3 to 750 employees), and raised upwards of $100 million.
Founder: Orlowitz-Lee Child Advocacy Center, which provides comprehensive services for sexually abused children and a safe haven for trafficking victims.
Prior and Current Boards and Public Service: Appointee – President’s National Women’s Business Council; Magnetic Date, U.K.(Chair-Finance Committee), DBI,Inc., (Chair- Finance Committee), Shan Industries, LLC, (Chairman), Harvard University Women’s Leadership Board, Trustee, National Women’s History Museum; Various public and private company advisory boards including Enterprising Women, Capital One; MassMutual, Connected Living, Brilliant Factory and emerging cannabis companies.
Awards: Representative awards include, Leading Entrepreneur of the World; INC 5,000; 50 Most Influential Minorities in Business, WPO Business Star; and Enterprising Woman of the Year .
Teaching: Dar al Hekma, Saudi Arabia; University of Michigan and OSU as a guest lecturer speaking engagements and keynotes including United Way, International Leadership Forum and Office Depot.
Other: 7 yrs as stage and TV actor in NYC.
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Law School JD American College Washington School of Law Washington D.C.
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Chairman Shan Industries LLC from 2000-2010
Led a group of investors and identified manufacturing companies to be acquired from Tyco International. Arranged senior lending from ABN Amro and mezzanine and minority equity from Prairie Capital. Acquired majority interest in companies and created Shan Industries, LLC as the holding company/ acquiring entity. Chaired the Board and presided over operations of the two unrelated manufacturing companies (metal stamping and rotational molding) located in New Jersey, Georgia and Oklahoma as CEO. Reconstituted management in both companies. Oversaw three year environmental remediation program and identified and replaced all non-compliant equipment in metal stamping plant. Successfully negotiated remediation with state and federal government.
Negotiated multi year R&D project for US Transcom to take logistics concept into working prototype and worked with generals and admirals and across the services on its adoption including General Norton Schwartz (Ret. Chief of Staff of Air Force) and LTG Robert Dail (Director DLA). Developed new products for diverse clientele from Lillly to Fisher Space Pen.
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Appointee – National Womens Business Council 2003-2006
Advisor to the President and the Small Business Administration on issues related to small business, SBA loan criteria, grant and disaster Relief Programs, private equity and entrepreneurship
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Member – Women Corporate Directors Foundation
We are 3,500 women who sit on 9,000 public and private boards and own family businesses around the world and share best practices and top level educational experiences provided by KPMG, Spencer Stuart and others.
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As a modern day renaissance woman with over 30 years of experience, Ms. Orlowitz’s ability to create tailored strategies achieves the best outcome for her clients and their businesses. Her success can be attributed to well practiced functional experience; time-tested financial and legal acumen; the right connections; a reputation for integrity and outstanding client service.
Her portfolio includes acquiring, running and divesting diverse companies both domestically and internationally. Ms. Orlowitz has raised $100 million for her family office to acquire or create a dozen manufacturing, services and real estate companies with revenues ranging from $6 million to $70 million. Perhaps most importantly, she was responsible for the companies themselves, from their employees and investors to successful divestitures.
Under her guidance, the Artemis team serves small and medium size businesses and emerging business with a focus on the cannabis industry. Her experience as a former Justice Department prosecutor ensures Artemis’ services, investments and clients are organized to meet federal as well as state compliance.
In addition, she created a critical offering – CEGO – Chief Exit and Growth Officer, which can give clients an edge in growth, diversification, and their endgame by providing clients with comprehensive advice on M&A, financing, divestitures, restructuring, growth and exit planning to optimize the business life cycle from start up to exit.
Her civic service is highlighted by her work as an official U.S. delegate to Latvia, Greece, Portugal, an appointment to the National Women’s Business Counsel which advises the President and SBA, and as one of the first U.S. women invited by the government of Saudi Arabia to teach entrepreneurship at Dar Al-Hekma University.
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Delphi Economic Forum: Sheri L. Orlowitz, Founding Partner, ARTEMIS Holdings Group LLC
0:10hey thank you for being a speaker on
0:12this panel sherry when I came to
0:16eleftheria and to several people in this
0:19country with an idea the first thing
0:21that I had to deal with was getting her
0:25to understand that I didn’t want to do
0:27it in Albania and I didn’t want to do it
0:29in the Balkans and I didn’t want to do
0:31it in Portugal I wanted to do it in
0:33Greece and she said but sherry it’s so
0:36hard and I said it doesn’t matter
0:39because we’ll make it happen and let’s
0:41start taking that positive attitude that
0:44it will indeed happen we are done I am
0:48NOT agreed but I feel almost like one
0:50and we are ready to turn the corner and
0:54move on you can do it you will do it and
0:58I will try to help in any small way I
1:00can the topic injecting entrepreneurship
1:06in Greece in the Greek economy it’s here
1:08I came here as at the request of the
1:12united states department of state to
1:14help mentor entrepreneurs to help bring
1:17breaths practices to help bring
1:20knowledge of how to access Capital and
1:23how to access the United States and the
1:26United States is market I came here in
1:302014 in April and over that period of
1:34time I have developed some clients that
1:37I work with and I’m thrilled to have the
1:39opportunity today to tell you that guile
1:44or geia as you say we say gaya in the
1:46United States is happily ensconced in
1:51the United States and doing very well
1:54and i’m going to share a quickie study
1:56with you and the second thing I sit here
1:59today to tell you about is an
2:00opportunity that I’m going to try to
2:02bring to grease it is somewhat
2:04revolutionary and cutting edge and it’s
2:07medical cannabis and the opportunity for
2:10Greece to be a hub for the rest of the
2:14EU to do research and development on
2:18medical cannabis to provide excellent
2:21remedies and drugs for here 24 uncurable
2:27and onion on diseases that can not have
2:32been without any kind of remedy and I’m
2:37going to also introduce to you the
2:39investor that I brought here today I’ve
2:41spent the last three or four days which
2:44was going to be a vacation visiting with
2:46your various officials and business
2:50people and I have to say I am very
2:52pleased at what I’ve heard what Artemis
2:57does as I say is we’re small group but
3:01we’re a very strategic group we try to
3:03help companies to access the United
3:06States market either through green
3:07fields or which is starting a new
3:10business or mergers and acquisitions and
3:14we have very deep connections both in
3:16the United States and in Greece with
3:19Gaia I met Ari’s keV luciana’s and
3:23during my time here at the ambassador’s
3:26house we had a lovely breakfast together
3:28where he told me he wanted to expand his
3:31business and I tried to encourage him to
3:33come to the United States he told me he
3:35had a distributor and actually one of
3:38the largest distributors in the United
3:40States and he was very unhappy with his
3:43progress instead of his business growing
3:45his business was was starting to fall
3:48off more and more what we did over that
3:52period of time as I introduced him to a
3:54potential acquisition the name of a
3:56company you’ll smile peloponnese which
3:59is owned by was owned by hormel and
4:02eight billion dollar company in the
4:05united states of food conglomerate and
4:07we positioned ourselves after doing due
4:11diligence we positioned ourselves to be
4:13the likely acquire and then as we
4:15continue the due diligence we recognized
4:18that Peloponnese well a lovely Greek
4:20name was a tarnish brand and we should
4:23take a different strategy unfortunately
4:27unfortunately all that work was done but
4:30it was work that was done with very very
4:32good care we started a new company in
4:34North America we opened offices Ferraris
4:37and we hired and helped him to hire his
4:41people did all the legal work and
4:43everything that was necessary for Aris
4:46to have a business and I’m happy to say
4:48that in the eight nine months he’s been
4:50operating he’s on a five-million-dollar
4:52run rate which is pretty amazing when he
4:55left his distributor which shall remain
4:58on it’s mentioned in here his business
5:02had fallen off to a million and a half
5:04so really the biggest is not often the
5:08best in the United States and people who
5:10care can do a lot for you the idea of
5:14medical cannabis was one that was pretty
5:16revolutionary to my friend eleftheria to
5:19my friend Ulysses kira accomplice and to
5:22many other people that I spoke to hear
5:24about it I am grateful that a reporter
5:28by the name of Katerina soku told me
5:31about this opportunity to speak and it
5:34started the ball rolling the ball
5:37rolling the medical cannabis business in
5:39the United States is a huge business
5:43today the business is estimated at five
5:47billion dollars we have 23 states that
5:50have legalized cannabis medical cannabis
5:53and the diseases that are addressed by
5:57it are multiple sclerosis pain PTSD
6:04Parkinson’s and certainly certain kinds
6:08of cancer as well as the nausea caused
6:10by chemotherapy there are studies going
6:13on throughout the world amazing studies
6:16I don’t have the time to get into why
6:20cannabis got the tar at the tart the
6:23tarring that it did but it’s worth
6:25looking into
6:27again back in the 30s and then was
6:29actually codified by the UN and a treaty
6:32in 1961 but we’re throwing off the
6:35shackles of misinformation with regard
6:39to this and the opportunity here for for
6:44for Greece is pretty big 1999 was the
6:49year Israel legalized medical cannabis
6:53Canada legalized medical cannabis and
6:56just a few days ago Australia has
6:58legalized medical cannabis this is quite
7:02remarkable and there are several
7:04countries right now in the UAE you I
7:07believe it’s somewhere between six and
7:10eight where medical cannabis is legal I
7:13and there’s a list in South America but
7:16I think this is enough this is that this
7:20is the company that after a lot of
7:22research I went after I looked at a lot
7:25of companies throughout the world and I
7:29am the most impressed with till ray till
7:31array is owned by an American company
7:33and the CEO has a vision to build the
7:37greatest cannabis business in the world
7:40and till ray was built in Canada it’s a
7:4560,000 square foot state-of-the-art
7:48facility it’s a biotech facility it
7:51embraces GMP good manufacturing
7:54practices they spend a lot of money and
7:57time on RD collaborating with various
8:00universities they just announced a
8:03collaboration with several companies in
8:06Australia they have also announced a
8:10collaboration with the University of
8:12British Columbia I see this opportunity
8:15as an opportunity for Greece to become a
8:18hub a hub for medical cannabis and for
8:23the rd that needs to go behind it and
8:25for distribution into the EU it has
8:29nothing to do with having to be
8:32distributed within Greece it is solely
8:34in my vision
8:36a facility that we would like to bring
8:39to Greece and build to employ your
8:43scientists your laborers your academics
8:49and this is just a little brief case
8:54study of what till ray has done for a
8:56little town outside of British Columbia
8:57right outside of excuse me Vancouver to
9:02date indirect and direct jobs are 395
9:06they eight and a half million dollars in
9:08taxes and forty 8.1 million is the
9:15economic impact
INJECTING ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE GREEK ECONOMY
Entrepreneurship can play a vital role in Greek economy. There is an urgent need for political and economic reform in
order to support entrepreneurship and secure the valuable contribution to the economy.
Sheri L. Orlowitz,
Founding Partner, ARTEMIS Holdings Group LLC
Chair: Eleftheria K. Mamidakis,
former Vice President, Mamidoil-Jetoil S.A., Greece
