Our team

+ BIO

Geoff Swerdlin is Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Casimir Holdings which he started building with Jim Goetz in 2020. As CIO, Geoff oversees Casimir’s investment activities in listed and unlisted asset classes including public equity, private equity, limited partnerships and real estate. He has also been instrumental in building out Casimir’s financial and operational infrastructure alongside Chief Financial Officer Vadim Reingevurts.

Geoff has been investing in public markets for over 20 years. Prior to joining with Jim to build Casimir, Geoff founded and built Partes Capital, first as an equity long/short hedge fund and subsequently as an investment advisory consultancy. He was also an analyst and portfolio manager at Kingdon Capital, a multi-billion dollar equity long/short hedge fund founded by Mark Kingdon, and has held other investment management roles at Longview Asset Management, Arience Capital and Janus Capital.

Geoff was trained as a generalist, initially focusing on the financial, consumer, industrial, and information services sectors. A close look at the subprime mortgage ecosystem fascinated him and led him to specialize in financial services at Kingdon in 2007. While maintaining coverage of global banks and asset managers, Geoff spearheaded the team’s expansion into adjacencies including payment technology, exchanges/market structure, information services and real estate/building materials. In 2011, he was promoted to portfolio manager of non-bank financials, a category representing the coverage universe he cultivated.

Geoff’s private market investing experience was episodic until Manikay Partners retained Partes Capital to advise on its proposed demutualization of The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE). In 2018, Israeli Securities Law was amended with the goal of making TASE more competitive, efficient and profitable by changing its ownership structure, and Manikay, a New York/London based investment firm run by experienced market structure investor Shane Finemore, was brought in to execute the transaction. Partes helped Manikay analyze, benchmark and value TASE; recruit and secure regulatory approval for Manikay’s co-investors; and support the demutualization and IPO process. TASE’s corporate transformation has been an unqualified success and Manikay Partners still remains deeply involved. Subsequent to the TASE investment, Partes also advised Manikay on its investment in Members Exchange (MEMX), a market operator founded by leading institutional/retail brokers, asset managers and market makers to provide competition and innovation in the cash equities market.

Geoff was raised in Baltimore and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in Political Science from The College of Arts and Sciences and a B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School. Prior to embarking on his buyside career, he spent a summer at Goldman Sachs in the mergers and acquisitions group within the investment banking division.

+ Bio

Barb Izzo is Partner and General Counsel of Casimir Holdings and the President of Mae Philanthropies.

Barb is an accomplished executive with over two decades in high-tech legal and corporate leadership. Barb’s dynamic and empathetic leadership is guided by her commitment to responsible innovation, ethical corporate citizenship, and corporate social responsibility. She holds a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in Philosophy, summa cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame.

Early in her career, Barb worked at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and excelled in guiding tech giants and their founders through complex regulatory and transactional issues. Her clients included industry leaders such as Apple, setting a precedent for her focus on innovation and corporate integrity.

As General Counsel and Vice President of Corporate Development at Digital Chocolate, Ms. Izzo managed legal, finance, and corporate development, driving the company’s strategic initiatives alongside Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins. As Managing Director at Intel Capital, she oversaw significant global investments, exits, and joint ventures, including Intel’s $3.2 billion mission critical and highly accretive 2012 investment in ASML. As Chief Legal Officer and Chief Privacy Officer at Flurry, she successfully steered the company through its acquisition by Yahoo and was instrumental in defending and resolving high-profile privacy lawsuits and regulatory inquiries.

Due to her success at blending business acumen and legal expertise to resolve complex interdisciplinary issues, Ms. Izzo became a sought-after strategic advisor to multinational corporations and startups alike. Her work with WhatsApp as a leader of its global regulatory strategy was instrumental in WhatsApp’s $17 billion acquisition by Facebook; at AdMob, she used her regulatory expertise to help close the company’s acquisition by Google; and as an advisor to musical.ly, she helped to drive the company’s phenomenal growth and acquisition by ByteDance.

Over the course of her career, Ms. Izzo has played critical roles as an executive and an advisor to both venture capitalists and founders. She has used an innovative, multi-faceted, and integrated approach to resolve founder disputes, contribute to successful IPO/private market exits, resolve investigations and regulatory inquiries, manage investments, establish critical policy and safety committees, and create/support corporate foundations and other philanthropic initiatives. She has built and led teams in finance, legal, human resources, corporate development, and corporate responsibility to drive strategic growth as well as to shape and execute company vision.

In addition, Barb is dedicated to community service and advocacy. She currently serves on the board of directors of Muttville Senior Dog Rescue and the advisory board of Disability Rights Advocates. Barb also works as an animal care volunteer and trainer with various organizations such as Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA.

+ Bio

Vadim Reingevurts is Partner and Chief Financial Officer of Casimir Holdings and overseas its financial and operational infrastructure.

Prior to joining Casimir, Vadim served as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of Maritime Finance Company, a specialty finance company focused on the maritime space. As the original CFO, he established the financial reporting function, built out the capital structure and managed operational aspects of the business. Vadim joined Maritime from RenaissanceRe Holdings, Ltd., a Bermuda-based property catastrophe reinsurer, where he served as Vice President and was responsible for bank and rating agency relationships, as well as capital and liquidity management, including capital markets transactions and corporate credit facilities. He started his career as Equity Analyst at Janus Capital, where he focused on insurance, retail, and technology sectors.

Vadim was raised in Denver and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business and a B.S. in Business Administration and Economics from Carnegie Mellon University.