Miljenko Horvat

Miljenko Horvat (January 25, 1961) serves as a Senior Advisor of The Riverside Company. He began his career in corporate finance in 1985 with Citibank in New York, Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe. Citibank appointed him Country Head for Russia, where he established Citibank as a full service commercial bank and oversaw all of Citicorp's private equity investments in Russia until 1999.
Early life
Education
In 1979 Miljenko entered the University of Zagreb to study Political Science and in 1983 obtained his B.A. in Political Science. He completed a 4 ½ year program in 3 ½ years with a “First in Class” grade average.
In 1983 Miljenko entered Yale University and in 1985 graduated with an M.A. in International Relations with International Finance orientation. During his college studies he received the Academic Excellence Award (First in Class) and full Yale University Fellowship.
In addition to English and Croatian Miljenko speaks fluent Russian and has working knowledge of Spanish and German, and elementary French, Czech, Kiswahili.
Experience
In 1985 Mr. Horvat completed Credit Training program in Citibank N.A.. From 1986 to 1987 Mr. Horvat served as a Associate at Citibank (Nairobi, Kenya). He worked as Relationship Manager in Nairobi branch with additional product development and senior management support responsibilities, and had comprehensive exposure to all aspects of the operation of a medium size bank.
In 1987 Mr. Horvat served as a Vice President - Head of Eastern Europe Corporate Finance Desk - International Corporate Finance Division - at Citibank (New York). He initiated, structured and executed the first ever debt conversion transaction in then Yugoslavia ($95.6 million, September 1988). Mr. Horvat completed additional $350 million face value of debt conversion transactions during 1988 and 1989. Mr. Horvat had a supporting role on a variety of corporate finance/ project finance transactions in Brasil, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and Central America.
From 1991 to 1993 Mr. Horvat was self employed in Russia and Eastern Europe. He invested in a number of small enterprises in the Czech Republic, Croatia and Russia as a private investor. Investments were in a variety of areas - food production and processing, transportation services, warehousing, biotech and restaurants.
In 1993 Mr. Horvat led the establishment of Citibank's presence in Russia (Moscow) and served as its Country Head. He led the creation of Citibank from a Representative Office in 1993 to a full service commercial banking operation with 120 staff in 1996. Citibank was named “Best Foreign Bank in Russia” in 1995. Through 1997, Citibank’s opening in Russia was the single most successful new country opening ever for Citibank.
From 1996 to 1999 Mr. Horvat was a Managing Director (Russia Direct Equity) for Citigroup:
* Sole responsibility for $50 MM private equity program
* Sample investments: DellSystems - the exclusive distributor of Dell for Russia. Investment completed 6/96. Member of the Board of Directors, active involvement in positioning, setting of strategic objectives and development of corporate infrastructure
* IBS Systems Integration - leading Russian systems integration company with $50+ million in annual revenues at the time of investment.. Board member and actively involved in formulation of strategy, recruiting, and development of corporate infrastructure including principles of compensation, project management and CRM
* Other investments included a brokerage firm and a bottled water company
Mr. Horvat founded NewspaperDirect Inc. in 1999 and served as its President and CEO.
Also from 1999 to 2003 Mr. Horvat served as a Member of the Board of Directors at IBS Group Holdings - largest systems integrator in Russia and exclusive distributor of Dell for Russia through Dellsystems. Mr. Horvat was a board member for both the holding company and two of the subsidiaries initially via investment from Citigroup but remained on the Board as an independent Director after leaving Citigroup.
From 2003 to 2013 Miljenko served as a Chairman of the Board of CRAiLAR Inc. (Vancouver). CRAiLAR is a world leader in unlocking the potential of renewable and environmentally sustainable biomass resources from flax, fhemp and other bast fibers.
Mr. Horvat joined Riverside in 2005 - a global leader in middle market. He is an Investor and Member of the Investment Committee of RMCF funds I, II and III, with just under 1 Billion in total AUM focusing on fast growing private companies at the smaller end of the middle market ($5 - $25 Million in revenue). Current portfolio comprises 31 companies across the US and Canada.
Mr. Horvat has been serving as a Senior Advisor at The Riverside Company from 2008. to present. Riverside was named “Buyout Firm of the Year” for 2010 by Buyouts Magazine, “Private Equity Firm of the Year” for 2012 by Mergers & Acquisitions and “Best Global LBO Fund” by Private Equity Exchancge.
Other
Mr. Horvat is frequent visiting lecturer, speaker / panelist on topics of entrepreneurship, technology and doing business internationally at colleges and business schools in North America (Tuck; Wharton; Haas School of Business, Berkely; Stanford University; University of British Columbia; Yale University).
He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Entrepreneurship, guest lecturer in Corporate Finance at University of British Columbia, Mentor under BC Advantage Funds mentorship program, and Member of the Institute of Corporate Directors.
Personal life
In his free time Mr. Horvat plays tennis, loves running and skiing, and has a Private Pilot’s license. He is interested in dense books on evolutionary biology, complexity theory, physics and much less dense science fiction.

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