Chairman and CEO, ShareNett; Founder and Chief Investment Officer, Cold Spring Ventures (SFO)
Clifford H. Friedman has filled roles ranging from Chairman, CEO, Founder, Board Member, Lead Investor, in addition to serving in various senior executive operational roles. Demonstrated history of just under 40 years of private equity, venture capital, investment management, financial, and various senior operational roles with a focus on Media, Communications, Technology and FinTech. Served on over 30 private and public corporate Boards, raised capital and, supported strategic negotiations in a variety of countries globally ranging from United States, UK, Italy, Spain, Japan, Sweden, Germany, France, Brazil, Mexico and 7 GCC (Gulf Cooperation Counsel) countries. Skilled in value creation through a systematic process of working with management teams, board members, customers, creating and negotiating strategic partnerships globally to drive revenue and profitability that positions companies for successful liquidity events for all stakeholders.
Friedman is the Chairman and CEO of ShareNett, a fully regulated private/closed global co-investment platform, providing 360 degree solutions for family offices, that brings highly curated investment opportunities across multiple assets classes, geographies and industries. hareNett was created by a family office, for family offices and owned by family offices.
Prior to ShareNett, Mr. Friedman was a Managing Director and Member of the Management Committee of Raptor Group Holdings. Raptor Group Holdings is a private investment company backed by the Family Office of Jim Pallotta. Jim, former Vice Chairman of Tudor Investments, is a world class and, highly successful professional investor for over 30 years.
Mr. Friedman was Managing Director and Founding Partner, responsible for Partnership investment activities at Highbridge Principle Strategies, Constellation Growth Capital. Mr. Friedman has served as a director, chairman of, and/or advisor to the following companies: Hibernia Networks, Widevine Technology, Savvis Communications, Net Insight AB, College Sports Television (CSTV), TVONE, Capital IQ, Active Health Management, The Street.com, Network 24, Origin Digital, Vivid Logic, TV Azteca (Mexico’s second largest broadcast network), Netscape and InterTrust. He also supported Highbridge Principal Strategies media based investments which includes; Digital Cinema Implementation Partners (DCIP).
Mr. Friedman served as a Senior Vice President of Universal Studios where he was responsible for the creation and development of the Studio’s New Media Group. Mr. Friedman’s responsibilities at Universal Studios included working with all of Universal’s divisions to develop, execute and create investments, acquisitions, strategic alliances, multimedia applications, international expansion and other new business opportunities.
Mr. Friedman served as Vice President--Strategic Development at NBC, where his responsibilities involved leveraging existing franchises to create new business opportunities. While at NBC, he helped to form the joint venture between NBC and Microsoft (MSNBC) and formulated NBC’s Latin American strategy.
Mr. Friedman was a Senior Managing Director in the Media and Technology Group at Bear Stearns. During this period he was ranked an “All American Analyst” by the Institutional Investor Magazine poll of Wall Street institutional clients. While at Bear Stearns, he published “New Age Media--The Merging of Media, Communications, Computing and Consumer Electronics” in 1993 and a follow-on publication, “New Age Media II,” in 1994. During this period, Mr. Friedman also led Bear Stearns’ efforts to raise $225M to launch the New Age Media Fund, Inc. and helped advise several major media and technology companies.
Concurrent with his time spent at Bear Stearns in the early 1990’s, Mr. Friedman launched a self-funded, private venture capital and consulting company in 1992 called Cold Spring Ventures. Investments included early stage, seed investments in Netscape Communications, InterTrust Technologies, Scoop, FFE Intellectual Property-AS Roma, Volta Industries, PingThings, DriveWealth, Revolt TV and Media, Verance, Potamus, Phase, ShareNett Holdings, Liquid Markets Group, Templum, Fusion Telecom.
Mr. Friedman was a Senior Securities Analyst in the High Technology Group at Cyrus J. Lawrence Inc. From 1981 - 1985 he was a Senior Engineer at Hazeltine Corporation’s Wheeler Research Laboratory where he was involved in the analysis, design, and fabrication and testing of advanced communications systems, designed simulation software and developed new business areas.
Mr. Friedman earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from NYU Tandon School of Engineering (Polytechnic University), a Masters of Science in Electrophysics from NYU Tandon School of Engineering (Polytechnic University) and a Masters of Business Administration in Finance and Investments from Adelphi University. He has been awarded two patents in the field of communications and has been published in various international technical and financial journals. He is also a co-inventor of a patent pending: Systems and Methods for trading, clearing, and settling securities transactions using blockchain technology. Additionally, he also taught several Undergraduate and Graduate Engineering classes as an Adjunct Professor at SUNY Stony Brook.
Mr. Friedman is a Director/Member of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Board of Trustees-North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System (He is on Board of Trustee’s for Huntington Hospital, chairman of the Private Equity sub-committee and member of the Investment Committee on the Northwell Health System (formerly North Shore/LIJ). He is also the recipient of the 2002 Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and holds a Series 7, Series 63, and Series 82 set of securities licenses with Morningside Securities LLC (a subsidiary of ShareNett Holdings, LLC)