Alchemy’s experienced team partners with investors and management to instill critical focus to an Enterprise, to do so impactfully by compressing the decision time frame, and to ensure the Enterprise adheres to its re-focused agenda following our initial engagement.
Alchemy provides an objective lens developed from many years of experience working across a wide array of business sectors and company stages. We’re able to employ this accumulated “pattern recognition” quickly to identify what works and what doesn’t, and to remediate the common pitfalls preventing an Enterprise from achieving its full potential, regardless of whether the Enterprises is attempting to accelerate its growth or trying to optimize an exit or wind-down.
​
We believe the key determinant of success for growth-stage companies that have yet to achieve “orbital velocity” is less the specific business objectives or approaches a company is pursuing, but rather the extent to which they’ve identified and have remained intensely focused on pursuing only those activities which contribute directly to achieving their objectives.
Accordingly, while we work with firms across an array of engagement types, many of our engagements involve bringing renewed focus to an organization and putting in place methods to ensure that focus continues post the initial planning phase, through the Alchemy Value Focus Process.
THE ALCHEMISTS
Alchemy’s Team has significant experience working across all stages, sizes, and types of companies both as financial & general management executives and as institutional investors:
​
-
Held leadership positions, (including as Founder, CEO, Managing Partner, CFO, CMO, and VP Business Development), in all sizes and stages of operating and investment companies, including Fortune 500’s, corporate joint ventures, venture, and private equity-backed growth-stage companies and turnarounds, venture capital firms and family offices.
-
Developed deep subject-matter expertise working across most large industry sectors including Healthcare, Media & Entertainment, Financial Services & FinTech, State and City Government, Real Estate, Energy, Environmental Services, Technology, Marketing Services, e-Commerce, and Not-for-Profits.
-
Led transactions valued in excess of $1 billion including equity and debt investments, mergers and acquisitions, strategic financings, and exits for start-ups, growth companies, and turnarounds.
-
Worked for, consulted to, and partnered with companies including Merrill Lynch, Allen & Co., Independence, Rushcard, United Preference, Medagate, Americare, eCaring, Samsung, The New York Academy of Medicine, Mount Sinai, Verizon, Granite Films, Kaiser Permanente, HealthBox, Reed Elsevier, City Winery.
Josh Grotstein
Josh is a highly experienced executive with significant expertise as an investor (venture capital & private equity) and as an operating executive across a wide range of company stages (Early Stage, Family Office, and Fortune 500). His experience spans diverse industries, including Financial Services, Media, Real Estate, Healthcare Services, Internet Services, and Advanced “Core” Technologies.
Josh has held leadership, operating, and investing roles across the spectrum of company sizes, types, and stages, including: Director of Business and Corporate Development for FJManagement, a multi-billion Utah-based private holding company, leading strategic investing and diversification into Healthcare and Senior Housing and services; Managing Partner and Co-Founder of SAS Investors, a $40 million NYC-based early-stage technology venture fund; turn-around CEO for Motionbox, a venture-backed video memories company acquired by Hewlett-Packard; Division Executive for Citigroup, overseeing global electronic banking, Internet and e-Commerce programs, managing a staff of 500+ employees; NBC, where he founded and ran the Digital Unit, and was part of the team that negotiated NBC’s partnership with Microsoft to form MSNBC; VP Business Development for CNBC, including serving as NBC’s Board representative for their joint venture with the AMA, American Medical Television; SVP at Prodigy, where he led all Content and e-Commerce programs; and VP at J. Walter Thompson advertising.
Josh has served on the Boards of Directors, Investment Committees and Advisory Boards for over 20 private equity and venture capital backed companies and funds, and currently serves on the investment committee of the NYC Seed Fund.
Josh graduated phi beta kappa and magna cum laude from Brown University and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is an avid cyclist, fairly okay skier, and proud father of a son (Max) and daughter (Margot).
Robert M. Herzog
Robert M. Herzog has substantial experience developing companies and solutions in technology, healthcare, media, Internet utilization, hospitality, energy, and the environment. He has led or managed over $450 million in deals, financings, acquisitions, and exits, working with VC, PE, investment banks, and companies including Allen & Co., Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Omnicom, Oppenheimer, Microsoft, Hewitt Packard, Verizon, and Samsung. He has worked as CEO, CFO, and consultant on strategy, financing, business development, and marketing. As Founder and CEO of eCaring, he created an innovative Web-based home healthcare management system that was acquired by a major home healthcare company.
​
Mr. Herzog has experience in deal development, planning, M&A, and financial advisory services in healthcare, technology, media, environment, energy, hospitality, and other sectors, for companies that went on to successful development and/or exits. He has managed all aspects of deal-making, including: due diligence; business and strategic planning; market analysis; negotiations; strategic partnering; hiring; licensing and sponsorships; project management; mergers, acquisitions, and asset sales.
​
Mr. Herzog has worked with major corporations including JPMorgan Chase, Cahners Communications, and the David Sarnoff Research Center, where he helped commercialize new technologies, and has been a pioneer in exploiting technology for new media, entertainment, and business opportunities. At Remtech he built advanced energy and environmental facilities, owning several companies in four states. As an entrepreneur, he has worked with startup and early-stage companies such as Motionbox, Diva, ON2 Corp, Softcom/IVT, Granite Films, and City Winery. He has worked with not-for-profits including New Jersey Appleseed and Ecotrust, a major environmental organization in the Pacific Northwest, in public service as Director of the NYC Energy Office, where he assessed over $3 billion in projects, and served on several not-for-profit boards.
​
He is a published author and filmmaker, and received his B.A. from Williams College and his MA in Management and Urban Affairs from the New School. Mr. Herzog has climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Aconcagua, and still remembers the first great bottle of wine he drank.
Pamela Hall
Pamela is a performance-focused operations leader who has specialized in launching companies and driving revenue growth through strategic enterprise partnerships, new client acquisition, building dynamic teams, and developing profit-generating strategic program initiatives. She has over 20 years operations, product strategy, marketing, and business development experience with a passion for innovation and industry expertise in health & wellness, SaaS/IT infrastructure and mobile device technology, entertainment/digital media, and financial services/fin-tech.
Working as a business consultant, executive team member, and operations/co-founder, Pamela has extensive start-up through mid-market enterprise experience, successfully launching over 30 companies, realizing 12 significant exits, including participation in two IPOs, and played a pivotal role seeing several of these companies from pre-institutional financing through exit. Her clients were featured on 60 Minutes, Oprah, Today Show, and the covers of BusinessWeek, Fast Company, and Inc. Magazine among others.
She managed an international team of business development consultants, market researchers, IT programmers, digital display advertising/marketing experts, graphic designers, SEO/SEM specialists, copywriters, publicists, and major event planners.
Among these companies, Pamela launched the first-ever general purpose prepaid card – the Prepaid Visa RushCard -- with hip hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons, growing customer deposits from zero to $2+ billion in three years via integrated marketing campaigns and strong partnerships with companies such as Visa, NBC Universal, Gateway Computers, Jackson-Hewitt, and Intuit. 

She developed the Anheuser Busch-sponsored “Hip Hop Summits on Financial Empowerment”; toured major cities nationally with celebrities Jay-Z, P-Diddy, Eminem, and headline Suze Orman to educate inner-city youth on personal finance. Pamela also spearheaded and oversaw the media/marketing launch of direct-to-consumer how-to-video website ExpertVillage, which was acquired in 15 months by Demand Media (NYSE: DMD). She has also launched multiple large-scaled programs with several leading health plans including: Kaiser, Independence Blue Cross, and Universal American.