Born in Kiev, Ukraine,
Dina grew up under the Soviet regime. She graduated Kiev University in
1992 with a bachelor degree in Micro Biology.
Dina always knew
that US was a great place for commerce with endless business
opportunities. She also wanted to expand her skill set. In 1993 Dina
made a transition to the Western world by immigrating to US, where she
was hired as a lab assistant for Idexx Labs., in Westbrook, Maine.
Idexx Labs (IDXX: Nasdaq) was a successful publicly trading company
with generous employee’s benefit plan. There, the concept of
stockmarket was introduced to her on a day when she received Idexx’s
stock options as a part of her total compensation package. That was the
beginning to what turned into the next true passion: financial markets.
Born in Seattle, Washington, Stephen Gjolme grew up in Southern California. In the mid-70’s, Stephen went to work for the Account-A-Call Corporation, selling telecommunication data processing, online inventory control, and a host of related products. Stephen was quickly promoted to Regional Sales Manager and moved to Houston Texas, where he oversaw the sales efforts in the Central U.S. for the Major Accounts Division, dealing with Fortune 500 companies. Here, Stephen recognized that there was a great need for venture capital for start-up fledging companies.
In 1985, Stephen moved back to California and began to help numerous emerging companies with seed capital, primarily from high net worth individuals. Mr. Gjolme has held a Series 7, 22, 63, and 6 licenses, and hasbeen instrumental for raising millions of dollars.
In 2001, Stephen joined Private Investors Equity Group, where he helped to form new relationships with broker/dealers, financial institutions, financial planners, fund managers/CFA’s and provided them with new wholesale products for their clients.
In 2002,
Stephen joined The IBIS Group as a Partner; assisting clients with
their individual needs, while garnering institutional exposure and
broadening the IBIS network both here and abroad.
After
moving to Southern California, Dina enrolled in a MBA program at
Chapman University in Orange, CA, while working at various trading,
M&A and securities firms to gain real first hand knowledge of
Securities Business. She held a series 7 license from 1997 through
1999, although she has never being engaged in a retail side of stock
brokerage business. Instead she joined institutional trading desk at
Meridian Capital (now a part of e-Offering), where she became appointed
with institutional side of the business and developed relationships
with fund managers and annalists on Buy and Sell side alike.
It was
only natural to leverage connections with institutional clients which
included mutual funds, hedge funds, private equity managers, in order
to start an independent consulting firm which could provide small
publicly trading companies with consulting services related to
navigating public markets, as well as obtaining institutional
shareholder base.
IBIS Group, LLC was born in 2000 amidst the major downturn of the stock
market and a recessionary economy. Regardless of market conditions,
some small and micro cap companies performed well, because of their
market neach, favorable sector and generally improved fundamentals. By
finding such companies as Amedisys, BJ Restaurants ( former Chicago
Pizza ), MicroGeneral, etc. early on, IBIS was able not only to
withstand the turbulent markets, but also to build a reputation among
selected group of institutional investors who focus on micro cap
companies.
We appreciate your interest in our services and our history. For more information on this topic, please click on the "Testimonials" button and take a look at some of the testimonial letters.
