Management Bios
Keith Bank - Chief Executive Officer / Founder
Keith Bank is the co-founder and Managing Director at KB Partners, and has a diverse background in start-up companies, real estate, and other entrepreneurial ventures. Keith has been a very "hands on" venture capital and angel investor in a wide variety of industries, including the semiconductor, computer hardware and software, medical device, internet, consumer and retail, cable TV and social media arenas.
Keith serves as a board member for Kirtas Technologies, SteadyMed, Ltd., Versatile Sports Partners and Club Champion Golf. He also oversees the firm’s investments in PixelOptics, Inc., Fusion Risk Management and Buddy Media. Keith is a founding board member of the Illinois Venture Capital Association, and served as its Chairman for 2005-2006. He was the recipient of the IVCA’s prestigious Fellows Medal in 2006. Keith founded, and for 15 years served as the Chairman of the Chicago Select Golf Invitational, the largest American Cancer Society golf fundraising event in the country, which raised over $6.5 million during his tenure. Keith has been honored by Crain’s Chicago Business as a “40 Under 40”, a Who’s Who of Chicago Executives and as one of the 100 most prominent members of Chicago’s technology economy. Keith is active in CEO’s against Cancer and NU Wave, an athletic fundraising vehicle for Northwestern University.
Prior to forming KB Partners in 1996, Keith was a Principal at Hiffman Shaffer Associates, a Chicago based national real estate development, investment, management and brokerage firm. There he was instrumental in the development, acquisition, financing, sale, and leasing of over three million square feet with a value in excess of $650 million. Other career highlights include co-founding a discount retail chain, the turnaround of a women’s apparel manufacturing company, and the procuring of equity and debt financing for, and producing a feature film entitled Heaven is a Playground.
Keith is a Magna Cum Laude graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Economics degree from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and holds an MBA in Finance with honors from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. He is 90% of the way towards achieving his goal of playing the Top 100 golf courses in the United States.
E: keith@versp.com
T: 847-681-1631
Joe Lee - Principal/Founder
Joe Lee is a founder of Versatile Sports Partners and is responsible for both identifying new projects and partnerships for the firm, as well as conducting due diligence on technology and development opportunities. He is also the CEO of VSP’s initial investment, Club Champion, a premium custom golf club fitting company. Joe Lee has over 18 years of leadership experience ranging from successful entrepreneurial companies to international program management for Fortune 500 corporations. Most recently, he held the role of Director of Sales for Cognizant, a Nasdaq 100 IT consulting and services company with a worldwide presence and practices covering almost every major industry. While at Cognizant, Joe personally drove client acquisition for major accounts while leading a team of 10 sales executives across two divisions – communications & information and media & entertainment. Joe held this role for approximately 3 years after his prior company, Fathom Solutions, was acquired by Cognizant.
Joe was co-owner of Fathom Solutions, an IT consulting company focused primarily on the telecommunications and financial services markets. During 5+ years with Fathom, Joe helped grow the firm from a handful of employees to more than 180 consultants with revenues exceeding $24M. As Vice President of Sales, Joe’s efforts were spent acquiring new clients as well as leading the sales team, but also included responsibilities in marketing, HR, finance, and accounting through the early growth years of the company.
Joe began his climb into management at Conxus Communications, a start-up voice paging company in Greenville, SC, where he initially engineered and designed large, metro area paging systems. After the systems were planned, he then moved to oversee the installation and operations of over 300+ paging sites in 4 major metro markets.
Joe started his career at Motorola as a systems engineer in both the cellular and international paging divisions. He holds a BSEE from Marquette University and has partially completed his MBA requirements at Clemson and Seattle University. While at Marquette, Joe competed on their Div I men’s golf team and continues to pursue his passion for golf. He currently resides in Chicago, IL and sits on the board of St. Francis de Sales high school.
E: joe@versp.com
T: 847-681-1631
