Prior to forming Fifth Oak, C.J. was a Senior Managing Director at Blackstone and a Partner of its spin-off, PJT Partners, where he served for 13 years as an investment banker focusing on restructuring and capital raising transactions for large multi-national corporations.

Prior to Blackstone, C.J. worked as an investment banker at Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. from 2003 to 2005 where he worked on capital raising and M&A transactions

C.J. received a Master of Business Administration with distinction from New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business in 2003 and a B.A. in accounting from Moravian College in 1996

• C.J. has extensive experience in restructuring situations where he designed, negotiated, and implemented corporate restructurings both in and out of bankruptcy court
• Performed business planning for companies which included providing insights into liquidity, debt capacity, and valuation used in the design of Plans of Reorganization
• Raised capital for distressed companies despite limited covenant flexibility to take on additional debt in existing debt documents
• Conducted all facets of M&A sale processes including coordinating due diligence, negotiating terms, and drafting purchase agreements
• Negotiated covenant amendments that involved providing unsecured creditors collateral in exchange for covenant relief