JOEL S. KRESS, Chair
Joel S. Kress is the founder and managing member of Z to A Ventures, LLC, a strategic advisory and consulting firm, and a vice president of V&A Capital, a New York-based merchant bank focused on investing in and advising European and U.S. middle-market companies. Mr. Kress was previously a principal and senior managing director for ICON Investments, an alternative investment management group that manages and distributes a range of alternative investment products for individual and institutional investors. In that position, Mr. Kress was actively involved in all aspects of the firm’s business, including product development and capital raising, portfolio management and operations, risk management, compliance and investor relations.
Mr. Kress began his career at a multinational law firm where he practiced in both New York and London and focused primarily on the representation of public and private companies and investment funds in connection with mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and financing transactions (including debt and equity issuances), corporate governance and general corporate advice, and fund formation and other asset management matters.
Mr. Kress is a member of the Brooklyn Eagles, a group of young professionals that was formed to provide advice and committed support, including fundraising, to the Brooklyn Public Library. From October 2009 to May 2011, Mr. Kress was a member of the Board of Directors and Treasurer of Montessori Day School of Brooklyn, a Section 501(c)(3) non-profit pre-elementary day school licensed by the NYC Department of Health. Prior to his involvement with the Montessori Day School, Mr. Kress’ volunteer activities included pro bono legal services for death penalty cases, a volunteer for the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, staffing soup kitchens in New London, CT and Philadelphia, PA, and teaching literacy to inmates at the Niantic Correctional Institution in Niantic, CT.
Mr. Kress received a JD cum laude from Boston University School of Law and a BA with honors from Connecticut College. He was also a visiting student in the Masters of Jurisprudence program at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford University in Oxford, England.
As a lifetime lover of music and believer in the therapeutic and other benefits that music can bring, coupled with his desire to give back to the community in which he and his family live, Mr. Kress is pleased to be the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music so that he can help further its mission to provide access to music education and music therapy to individuals and organizations in underserved communities through its outreach programs as well as at its on-site location in Park Slope.
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