ELIZABETH HIGASHI

Elizabeth M. Higashi, CFA, is a Principal in the Chicago office. She has had more than 25 years of experience in investor relations and corporate communications, heading those functions for three Fortune 500 companies and serving as counsel to companies in the housing, transportation, chemicals, energy, and healthcare industries. Her experience includes initial and secondary public offerings, acquisitions, spin-offs, mergers, restructuring, leveraged buyouts, and emergence from bankruptcy. She has also been involved in corporate branding and crisis communications.

Prior to joining Sard Verbinnen & Co., Ms. Higashi consulted with UAL Corporation on the development of the company’s investor relations messaging, procedures and programs after three years in bankruptcy. For many years, she counseled Champion Enterprises, Inc., a manufacturing housing company in Auburn Hills, MI through a period of several strategic acquisitions and initiatives. She has also advised several other corporate clients on development of new programs and strategic messaging in shareholder communications, including McWhorter Technologies, Mallinckrodt Inc. and IMCERA Group, Inc.

Ms. Higashi was previously Vice President, Corporate and Investor Relations for UNext Inc., an online business education company whose academic consortium included Columbia University, Stanford University, the University of Chicago, Carnegie-Mellon, and the London School of Economics.

As Vice President of Corporate Communications for International Minerals & Chemical Corporation, she oversaw the communications and investor relations program to promote the restructure of the company from fertilizers to a major healthcare and specialty chemical company. Ms. Higashi started her career as a financial analyst with Scudder, Stevens & Clark in Los Angeles and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Ms. Higashi graduated cum laude from the University of California with a B.A. in Political Science and received an M.A. in Urban Studies from Occidental College.

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