People

Lewis “Lee” Bird has joined The Gores Group as managing director, the firm announced. Bird will based in Los Angeles and will be Gores’ operations group practice leader for the consumer and retail industry. Previously, Bird was group president at Nike, where he led Nike’s portfolio of affiliate brands, the company’s M&A efforts and was a member of Nike’s executive committee.

Kevin Chan has joined Changsha, China-based HQ Global Education Inc., a publicly traded company, as a non-executive director. Chan is a partner at SEAVI Advent Private Equity, a spinoff of middle-market buyout fund Advent International. Chan helped open the firm’s China offices in 2004. With the addition of Chan, HQ Global Education now has six board members, three of whom are independent directors.

Drew Crawford has joined Benecard Services Inc. as president and chief executive officer of its prescription benefit facilitator, Benecard PBF. Crawford is assuming the role at the administrator of prescription benefits and services to public and private plan sponsors. Crawford, 37 years old, was most recently a principal with Crawford-Ross, which is a health care private equity joint venture.

Peter Crowley has been named senior managing director and operating partner at MTS Health Partners, a New York-based health care merchant bank. In addition to his new role at MTS, Crowley will remain an operating partner at JH Partners, a private equity firm managing close to $1 billion of institutional funds. Previously, Crowley spend 23 years at CIBC World Markets.

Stephen Cummings is joining UBS Investment Bank as a managing director and chairman of Americas investment banking. He will be based in New York and report to the joint global heads of IBD, Jimmy Neissa, Matthew Grounds and Simon Warshaw. Cummings, previously senior executive vice president and head of corporate and investment banking at Wachovia Bank, joins UBS on April 18.

James Dunleavy has joined the senior lending team of the private equity and debt capital firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson as a managing director. Dunleavy has held senior-level positions at Merrill Lynch Capital and IBJ Whitehall. New York-based Veronis Suhler Stevenson provides flexible debt capital, including senior and subordinated debt, to small and middle-market companies in the information, education, media, communications and business services industries.

Private equity attorney Marcia Ellis has joined Ropes & Gray as a partner based in Hong Kong. Ellis joins from D. E. Shaw & Co., where she was its Hong Kong-based chief legal officer for all of Asia. In her former role, Ellis assisted the firm with making, restructuring and exiting investments throughout Asia, including a number of investments in China and India.

Craig Elson has joined Star Avenue Capital, the growth equity firm formed by Irving Place Capital and Creative Artists Agency, as a managing director. Elson’s experience includes working with Banc of America Capital Investors, the predecessor to Ridgemont Equity Partners, and the Turner Broadcasting System.

HarbourVest Partners has promoted Jeff Keay, Karin Lagerlund, Sebastiaan van den Berg, and Scott Voss to managing director. HarbourVest said Monday it is also in the process of establishing a team in Bogota, Colombia, and expanding the team in Asia. Also, Philip Bilden, an MD with HarbourVet Partners in Asia, is transitioning to a senior adviser role in 2012.

Matt Hardy has been named chief financial officer at Torrance, Calif.-based LiveOffice, a provider of cloud-based e-mail archiving and other e-mail services. Hardy worked previously for Digital Insight, a developer of financial software for small- and medium-sized banks and credit unions. Digital Insight was acquired by Intuit in 2007. Earlier in his career, Hardy worked in investment banking for Credit Suisse and served as controller in the printing industry. LiveOffice is backed by Summit Partners.

Chip Hornsby has joined its operating partner program at Advent International, Advent said. Hornsby will advise on opportunities in the industrial sector, with a focus on distribution and building products investments. He is the former president and chief executive of industrial distribution company Wolseley plc. Hornsby worked previously as president and CEO of plumbing supply distributor Ferguson Enterprises.

Kirkland & Ellis, a 1,500-attorney law firm with offices around the globe, has added capital markets attorneys Ward McKimm and William Burke to its London office. Burke already worked for Kirkland & Ellis in its Chicago headquarters; McKimm joins from the London office of Shearman & Sterling LLP, where he led the capital markets team and was co-head of the corporate group.

Michel Léonard, the former CEO of the Bongrain Group, has joined Trilantic Capital Partners as an operating partner. Léonard will advise on investments in the food and consumer goods sectors. He will be the sixth operating partner to join Trilantic Capital, which is the former Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking.

Bolstering its intellectual property practice, Lowenstein Sandler has added an eight-person patent prosecution team led by Dan Ovanezian and Marina Portnova. The group, which recently left the firm of Blakely Sokoloff Taylor & Zafman to join Lowenstein, will be based in Palo Alto, Calif.

Peter Martin has been named chief executive officer of Holmdel, N.J.-based Cosmetic Essence, which is backed by Littlejohn & Co. Martin served in various roles at Captive Plastics from 1996 to 2008, most recently as president and CEO. Cosmetic Essence provides contract manufacturing and supply chain management services for the cosmetics, personal care and household products industries. Littlejohn is based in Greenwich, Conn.

David Pauluzzi has been appointed CEO at PLUS Diagnostics, which is backed by Water Street Healthcare Partners. Pauluzzi has been PLUS Diagnostics’s president and COO since 2008. Tim Brodnik, who has been serving as PLUS’s executive chairman, will continue in that role.

Raymond Strong III has been named to the investment banking business at Evercore Partners as a senior managing director. In the role, he will advise companies in the energy industry, with a focus on midstream, downstream, upstream and integrated oil sectors. Strong was most recently a managing director in Goldman Sachs’s Global Natural Resources Group. Evercore Partners, an independent investment banking advisory firm, has offices in New York, Boston, London, and in other cities around the world.

Jay Wilkins has been promoted to managing director at New York-based mid-market firm Harvest Partners. Wilkins was previously a principal with the firm. Wilkins joined Harvest in 2010 from DLJ Merchant Banking Partners. Harvest Partners has approximately $1.4 billion of capital under management.