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Meet Our Team

Sara Hanks
 Founding Partner

Sara Hanks, Founding Partner

"Sara Hanks brought discipline to the crowdfunding industry. View the rest of our talented team below!"

Sara Hanks, co-founder and CEO of CrowdCheck, is an attorney with over 30 years of experience in the corporate and securities field. Sara brings a wealth of legal expertise in securities law and start-ups to the emerging marketplace for crowdfunding and online capital formation. CrowdCheck provides due diligence, disclosure and compliance services for online capital formation, helping investors get the information they need to avoid fraud and make informed investment decisions, and helping entrepreneurs and intermediaries avoid liability.

Her position prior to founding CrowdCheck was General Counsel of the bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel, the overseer of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), chaired by now-Senator Elizabeth Warren. At the Congressional Oversight Panel, Sara spent 18 months on Capitol Hill investigating the implementation and consequences of the TARP in depth. She examined the government’s intervention in the automotive companies, the execution of the banking “stress tests,” the rescue of AIG, and the international aspects of the financial crisis.

Sara began her legal career in the London office of Norton Rose Fulbright. She later joined the Division of Corporation Finance of the Securities and Exchange Commission and as Chief of the Office of International Corporate Finance led the team drafting the regulations that put into place a new generation of rules governing the capital-raising process and the way in which non-U.S. companies accessed the U.S. capital markets.

In 1990, Sara returned to private practice at one of the law firms that became Clifford Chance, and in 2002, was elected to the first of three terms on the firm’s Partnership Council. During two of those terms, she served on the firm’s Audit Committee. While at Clifford Chance, she advised on capital markets transactions and corporate matters for companies throughout Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America.

Sara received her law degree from Oxford University and is a member of the New York and DC bars and a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales. Sara served several terms on the Steering Committee of the Corporation, Finance and Securities Section of the DC Bar, is the Vice-Chair of the International Securities SubCommittee of the ABA Business Law Section and Co-Chair of the SEC Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies. She holds a Series 65 securities license as a registered investment adviser. Sara is an Army wife, aunt, skier, cyclist, gardener and animal lover.

Jeanne Campanelli, Partner

Heidi Mortensen, Partner

Jamie Ostrow, Partner

Andrew Stephenson, Partner

Geoffrey Ashburne, Esq. - Counsel

Kylie McNamara, Counsel

Jill M. Wallach, Counsel

The Law Firm For Crowdfunding

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Jeanne Campanelli, Partner

Jeanne has more than 25 years’ experience as a corporate and securities attorney in private and in-house practice. Jeanne commenced her legal career at Shearman & Sterling. As a Managing Director at Citigroup, she advised the equity capital markets and investment banking departments in structuring and executing public and private securities offerings and headed the equities legal team in London. Jeanne also spent 3 years working at the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy estate unwinding and settling derivatives claims filed by the largest financial industry counterparties. Most recently, she was the general counsel and head of corporate affairs of Mitsubishi UFJ Securities (USA), Inc., in charge of the legal team and corporate governance. Jeanne received a BSFS and a JD from Georgetown University. She is a member of the New York and District of Columbia bars.

Heidi Mortensen - Head of Control Room

Heidi is a corporate and securities attorney with a career spanning over 25 years’ and in major law firms, as general counsel of a public company, and in the asset management and compliance groups of major financial institutions. Heidi commenced her legal career first at Clifford Chance and then Shearman & Sterling in the capital market group. She left Shearman in 2004, joining the Macquarie Group to help establish its US funds management business, structuring and taking public a newly-formed Macquarie-managed company, Macquarie Infrastructure Corporation (NYSE:MIC) for which she served as General Counsel through 2010. During that time, she also was senior counsel for Macquarie’s private equity group, forming Macquarie’s first private infrastructure fund and guiding its establishment as a US registered investment advisor. In 2010, she joined Macquarie’s global compliance group to form its US control room team and integrate newly-acquired U.S. and Canadian broker dealers and a U.S. asset management business with $250B of assets under management. Most recently, Heidi was the global head of the control room for Guggenheim Capital. Heidi received a BA in Economics from Tufts University and a JD from Columbia University. She is a member of the New York bar.

Andrew Stephenson, VP of Product Management and Strategy

Andrew D. Stephenson, Vice President of Product Management and Strategy for CrowdCheck, has a wealth of experience assisting companies with understanding and taking advantage of the new landscape of online capital raising —including reward based crowdfunding, securities crowdfunding, offerings to accredited investors, and exempt public offerings of securities under Regulation A.  With CrowdCheck, Andrew assists companies through the due diligence and disclosures required when listing their securities with registered broker-dealers and other online securities intermediaries.  That effort includes helping companies identify and work through significant oversights and issues with their corporate governance and securities law compliance.  Andrew leads a team of CrowdCheck due diligence analysts and regularly contributes to the national dialog surrounding innovation in capital formation

Prior to joining CrowdCheck, Andrew was involved with evaluating internal company communications and reports as part of complex civil litigation matters. Andrew has also worked for the United States Congress. While there, Andrew evaluated and drafted policy on a range of issue areas.

Andrew received his B.A. from Claremont McKenna College and graduated, cum laude, from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Andrew is a member of the State Bar of California and the District of Columbia Bar.  Andrew is also a happy husband, father, San Francisco Giants fan, and music lover.

Geoffrey Ashburne, Esq. - Counsel

Geoffrey Ashburne, a securities and corporate attorney at CrowdCheck, possesses a strong emphasis on the emerging landscape of online capital raising. Geoffrey’s practice at CrowdCheck is centered on empowering startups and established businesses through pivotal capital raising initiatives, including Regulation A+, Regulation Crowdfunding, and registered Initial Public Offerings. Geoffrey also manages ongoing compliance for CrowdCheck clients, for both Exchange Act reporting companies (10-K’s, 10-Q’s, 8-K’s, etc.) and for Regulation A and/or Regulation Crowdfunding issuers.

Prior to joining CrowdCheck in 2018, Geoffrey practiced at a corporate and securities law firm where he prepared companies for public offerings, handled ongoing SEC and FINRA compliance matters for public companies, and assisted in merger and acquisition transactions.

Geoffrey is admitted to the State Bar of California, and is an Alumnus of UCLA and Pepperdine University School of Law. He is a husband, father, and has a penchant for classic video games.

Kylie McNamara - Counsel at CrowdCheck, Inc.

Kylie is a corporate and securities attorney who began her career in the New York office of Greenberg Traurig, LLP. She has worked at Lowenstein Sandler LLP in New York as an associate. She received her B.A from Georgetown University and received her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. She is a member of the New York bar.

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