Mr. Ventura, a vice president at the firm, joined Palladium in 1999. Previously, Mr. Ventura was an associate working on private equity investments at Bessemer Partners & Co. and a financial analyst in the mergers & acquisitions group at Merrill Lynch & Co. Mr. Ventura earned a B.A. in Political Science and Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences from Northwestern University and an M.B.A. at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.