Author: Michael Rudnick
Publisher: The Deal Magazine
October 28, 2011

Less than a year-and-a-half after launching a middle-market investment bank, James Cassel and Scott Salpeter are entering the venture capital advisory business. In October, Miami’s Cassel ­Salpeter & Co. LLC hired Judit Fabian as a director to help companies raise first- and second-round venture capital.

“There is nobody down here that does this,” says Cassel, 56, the firm’s chairman and co-founder. Florida’s aging retiree population is fertile ground for upstart biotech, medical equipment and healthcare IT companies, and establishing early relationships with these young ventures will allow Cassel Salpeter to sell them investment banking services as they grow and mature, adds Fabian.

A native of Hungary, Fabian, 38, has been in and around startups her entire career. She came to the U.S. in 1991 as a high school exchange student in Decorah, Iowa, and later enrolled at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minn. After transferring to Mount Vernon College for Women in Washington and earning her master’s degree at American University in 1998, Fabian became an independent consultant to IT and Internet companies in McLean, Va., helping them prepare financial projections and analyze their business models as they sought funding.  Read more here.