Who We Are

Russ Smyth is the Chairman and General Partner for both Morgan Street Holdings and the HAVI Group, which owns and operates HAVI Supply Chain, tms and Stanley. From 2011 through 2014, Russ served as CEO of HAVI before acquiring the organization from its Founder. Prior to joining HAVI, Russ was the CEO of H&R Block from 2008 to 2010 and spent over 20 years at McDonald’s where he held a variety of executive leadership roles including President of McDonald’s Europe and President of Partner Brands, where he oversaw the development of Chipotle and Boston Market. Russ began his career at PWC in Chicago and after earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northern Illinois University. Russ lives in Chicago with his wife, Dawn, and their 4 children.

Howard Katz is a Partner at Morgan Street Holdings. Since 2008, he has been with the HAVI Group and most recently led the M&A and Corporate Development function across the HAVI businesses. Previously, Howard was the Chief Strategy Officer for HAVI and joined the company as the Chief Operating Officer of tms. Prior to HAVI, Howard held executive positions in venture and private equity backed businesses in the Student Lending, Internet Music and Healthcare Technology industries. Howard earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Northwestern University. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Rachel, and their 3 boys.

Chris Smyth is a Partner at Morgan Street Holdings. Prior to Morgan Street, Chris spent 29 years at Ernst & Young where he was the Americas Private Equity Leader responsible for EY’s services to private equity funds and their portfolio companies. Chris held a variety of Partner level roles across EY, including Central Region Managing Partner of Strategy and Transactions, and worked in both London and San Francisco throughout his tenure there. Chris holds his CPA and earned a bachelor’s degree from Purdue University. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Susie, and their 6 children.

As the Chief Transformation Officer and head of Corporate Strategy, Jill steers strategic processes and practices across HAVI’s global business units and leads key strategic cross-business initiatives. She brings to the role nearly 25 years of experience directing collaborative business initiatives including business development teams, corporate events, product launches, and joint ventures.

Since joining HAVI in 2012, Jill has held leadership roles in both the Packaging and Advanced Analytics & Consulting businesses in the areas of market and consumer insight, innovation, and strategy. Prior to HAVI, she was a Principal of Promentum, a business strategy and implementation consulting firm, and Strategic Development Officer at VerticalXchange, where she launched and led numerous successful business-to-business trade ventures in diverse industries including food and beverage, cosmetics, discrete manufacturing and consumer packaging.

Throughout her career, Jill has served a diverse client list including more than one hundred Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies, non-profit organizations, governmental agencies, publishing companies and entrepreneurs, which has honed her passion for creating cultures of innovation and inclusivity.

She holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota, and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Carlson School of Management.

As President of HAVI’s Supply Chain business unit, Neil provides strategic direction and oversight of HAVI’s global supply chain services, including supply chain management, analytics and logistics. These services are provided by more than 8,000 employees in approximately 50 countries globally. Neil joined HAVI in August 2017 and assumed the role of President, Logistics in January 2018.

Neil comes to HAVI from Unilever, one of the world’s leading suppliers of food, home care, personal care and refreshment products with sales in over 190 countries and reaching 2.5 billion consumers a day. In his more than 30-year career with Unilever, Neil served in a variety of sales and supply chain operations and leadership roles, most recently as EVP Supply Chain Europe and Chairman, Unilever Supply Chain Company, where he had executive responsibility for the total supply chain for all Unilever businesses in Europe.

During his five years in this role, Neil led an end-to-end team responsible for the manufacturing, planning, logistics and customer service delivery for a 13-billion-euro European business. He established a new direction and vision, creating a truly business-driven supply chain, and drove significant innovation within the supply chain, such as the implementation of an operational “control tower” approach globally. Improvements made under his leadership played a key role in Unilever being named Gartner’s number one supply chain in the world in 2016.

Born in the U.K., Neil holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southampton.

Mark Landolt provides strategic direction and oversight to tms, a HAVI affiliated company that provides customer engagement and marketing services across the globe. Mark has served in this capacity since January 2008.

Prior to joining tms, he was President of Creata – McDonald’s, where he was responsible for overseeing the global McDonald’s strategy, promotional activities and business. From 2002 to 2005, Mark was President of IDM Matrix, a venture capital funded company engaged in intellectual property design and development. In this capacity, he had a team of marketers, engineers, and manufacturing experts in the U.S. and Asia focused on bringing a variety of diverse intellectual properties to market.

From 1988 to 2002, Mark worked at Simon Marketing in Los Angeles, California and Chicago, Illinois where he held various leadership roles. Over the course of his career at Simon Marketing, Mark was an essential part of the company’s explosive growth and development, building revenues from $100 million to $750 million. During this time, he was responsible for developing many precedent-setting campaigns that impacted the entire industry, including McDonald’s Monopoly Game promotion and the evolution of McDonald’s Happy Meal programs.

Mark received his Bachelor’s of Science degree in Business Administration from Western Illinois University. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago.

Dan Musachia oversees all aspects of financial governance, internal controls and resource allocation for HAVI and its three business units. Prior to becoming CFO in January 2016, Dan served as President of HAVI Global Solutions, one of the HAVI companies combined under the single brand HAVI in 2016.

Dan started his career with HAVI in 1989, progressing from Finance Manager to Controller and Director of Finance for The HAVI Group, LP. He joined Perseco in June of 1995 as Chief Financial Officer, then in June 2004, was promoted to President of Perseco Americas, responsible for operations in the United States, Canada and Latin America, as well as Perseco’s global financial and human resource functions. In July 2005, Dan was promoted to President and Chief Operating Officer of HAVI Global Solutions. Two years later, his responsibilities were expanded to include all of HAVI Global Solutions’ businesses globally.

Dan received his Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Northern Illinois University, and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Chicago and is a Certified Public Accountant.

As Chief Information Officer, Allison is responsible for the information and digital technology functions globally, including strategic planning, product delivery, operations, security, controls and compliance. She is charged with leading the team to be a competitive asset for the company by focusing resources and prioritizing initiatives that deliver the greatest opportunities for revenue growth and improved business performance.

Prior to joining HAVI, Allison served has Chief Information Officer for Beam Suntory Inc., a world leader in premium spirits, Senior Director of Information Systems for Mondelēz International and spent 10 years at GS1 US as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer.

Allison began her career in management consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers where she spent ten years specializing in supply chain management process re-engineering and information systems implementation for the consumer products industry.

Allison received her Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She lives in Chicago and enjoys running, cooking, spending time with her husband, Steve, their three daughters and their Golden Retriever, Hazel.

As Chief Executive Officer, Frank drives HAVI’s strategic focus on growth, supports customer relationships and oversees key talent decisions to ensure optimal performance of HAVI’s three business units: Supply Chain, tms and Stanley. Frank joined HAVI in April 2019 as President, The HAVI Group.

Prior to joining HAVI, Frank served for six years as President and CEO of Keystone Foods, a $2.7 billion global food services company that supplies the world’s best food service, retail and convenience brands with high-quality, fresh and frozen products including poultry, beef, fish and pork. Keystone Foods is a strategic global supplier to McDonald’s and employs more than 11,000 employees globally. The company was acquired by Tyson Foods at the end of 2018.

Before joining Keystone Foods, Frank worked for more than 16 years in senior positions at Cargill, Inc. spanning the Financial Markets, Grain Merchandising & Trading, and Energy sectors. Prior to Cargill, he was a partner at a financial advisory firm based in Caracas, Venezuela specializing in mergers and acquisitions transactions. He began his career at the Bank of Boston and spent eight years in different roles in the International area, most of which focused on emerging markets with an emphasis on Latin America.

Frank holds a Bachelor’s degree from Hobart College and Master’s degree in Business Administration from The Pennsylvania State University. He has lived in Peru, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela and the U.S.

As President of Stanley, Terence is responsible for the $500 million global consumer products business within HAVI. He brings three decades of varied experience building brands, businesses, and people.

Since joining Stanley in 2020, Terence has led the transformative growth of the Stanley business as it makes progress towards its goal of becoming a leading lifestyle brand. Prior to HAVI, he was Chief Marketing Officer of Crocs, the leading global footwear brand and was instrumental in the re-positioning of the brand.

Throughout his career, Terence has worked for leading companies like American Express, Prudential and Famous Footwear which has allowed him a broad range of experiences from financial services to consumer products to retail and consumer goods.

He holds a B.A. in Journalism from Rider University.

Renee Sotos serves as HAVI’s General Counsel, responsible for all corporate legal activities. She works closely with the business unit legal teams as well as supporting the corporate functions and leadership teams.

Prior to joining HAVI, Renee was with Molson Coors Beverage Company, where, for nearly 10 years, she was legal partner to numerous divisions across the commercial organization, ranging from brand marketing to sales and regulatory.

Before going in-house, Renee practiced litigation at the law firm of Winston and Strawn after completing a federal judicial clerkship at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Renee holds a B.A. in History and Political Science from Loyola University Chicago, and a J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law.