Transaction Insights: Unlocking the Secrets to Successful Business Deals in Animal Health
Presented by Brakke Consulting
August 28, 2024

Westin Kansas City at Crown Center

Biographies of Speakers

Paul Casady
Senior Consultant
Brakke Consulting

Paul Casady brings over 35 years of animal health experience with broad knowledge of both the US and International markets- along with involvement in all species and product groups. He has held senior roles for over 20 years in both Merck and Merial in both country and regional management, including living abroad for over 10 years. He is uniquely experienced in the emerging markets such as Latin America, Asia, and Oceania. Paul helps Brakke clients with mergers and acquisitions, strategic planning and execution, business development, and operational excellence. Paul also works extensively in leadership and talent development.

Prior to joining Brakke Consulting, Paul held senior positions at both Merck and Merial (now part of Boehringer Ingelheim) where he held roles in both country and regional management and served on their global leadership teams. Through the years Paul has had over 20 years involved in international animal health. This included living abroad for over 10 years in The Netherlands, Australia and the UK. And the experience includes almost all segments of animal health, both from a product and specie segment. His knowledge and experience also include heading the USA business for over 6 years, during which he led the integration of the Intervet and Schering Plough animal health businesses (now Merck Animal Health).

Paul recently retired from Kansas State University where he held a faculty position as Professor and Executive in Residence.

Jim Kroman
Senior Consultant
Brakke Consulting

Jim Kroman brings over 40 years of experience in the Animal Health Industry to Brakke Consulting. Jim’s experience in animal health includes focus on selling and sales management and training, as well as general management and leadership experience in several global animal health organizations.

During his 20 years at Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc., Jim tackled assignments as diverse as leading acquisition teams for large and small acquisitions, divesting manufacturing sites and product lines, successfully leading the company-wide project to implement an SAP system in the biologics manufacturing environment and leading the effort to make all needed divestitures to satisfy the US Federal Trade Commission’s approval of Boehringer Ingelheim’s acquisition of Merial Ltd. in 2017.

In addition, Jim spent time living and working in Germany as part of the Boehringer Ingelheim Business Development team and worked extensively on several joint venture opportunities in Asia. Jim retired from his role as Executive Director, Business Development and Licensing and Project Management from Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica in January 2017.  Jim is a graduate of Creighton University in Omaha, NE. Jim and his wife Deborah live in Charleston, South Carolina.

Randy Freides
Senior Consultant
Brakke Consulting

Randy joined Brakke Consulting in July 2019 after a long and distinguished career at Merck & Co., Inc. Randy worked at Merck for 29 years all in the Finance organization primarily focused on providing financial support to sales and marketing organizations.

From 2011 until his retirement in 2018, Randy served as the North America Commercial Finance lead for Merck Animal Health (MAH). During his tenure supporting MAH, Randy helped drive a doubling of the North America business in a 7-year period in terms of revenue, operating income, and organization size. He assisted the North America commercial business develop and implement strategic plans, go-to-market strategies, product launch plans, promotion programs, pricing proposals and evaluate external growth opportunities. He assisted the sales and marketing teams with the development of long-range operating plans, annual budgets, quarterly forecasts at the species (companion animal, ruminant, swine, poultry, equine and aqua) and product levels. He helped Merck’s North America business launch one of the industry’s greatest product successes, Bravecto, the only extended duration oral flea and tick product, into the single largest animal health market segment.

Randy also has extensive international experience on the human health side of Merck’s business. Prior to supporting MAH, Randy supported Merck’s human health operations in Japan, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Canada.

Randy earned a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University and an MBA in Finance and Operations Management from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business in New York City

Mark L. Stoneman
Partner
Armstrong Teasdale, LLP, St. Louis, Mo

A member of the firm’s Corporate Services practice group, Mark Stoneman facilitates the structuring, financing and completion of acquisitions, mergers, divestitures, joint ventures and partnerships. His background in accounting and finance helps him to ensure that the agreements related to these transactions are consistent with his client’s goals and expectations with respect to financial matters, which can be of critical importance in transactions of this nature.

For large, national and international, privately held businesses—often in the industrial, pharmaceutical or biotechnology industries—Mark brings a constructive and imaginative outlook to highly successful transactional combinations. He advises from front-end strategic planning to managing the deal process through favorable execution and closing. Mark’s acquisition experience extends to transactions where real estate is a primary or sole asset.

When counseling clients in the preparation and negotiation of agreements, Mark translates the goals of his clients into “plain English” documents, which can be both understood by the parties and respected by the courts. During the course of such efforts, he finds that he is frequently able to uncover and resolve potential conflicts before they progress to litigation. Not only does this help to avoid the prospect of costly disputes, but it can ensure that clients’ expectations with respect to the agreements will be met or exceeded.

Mark serves large, privately held companies and smaller startups as outsourced corporate counsel. He helps as an on-call resource with daily affairs or when things go awry.

Active in firm management, Mark is a member of the firm’s Executive and Pension Committees. He previously served on the firm’s Opinion and Compensation Committees, and was chair of the Pension and Hiring Committees. In addition, he served as leader of the Corporate Services practice group from 2018 to 2020.

Mark is a frequent author and speaker on transactional law matters with numerous presentations to business and legal groups.