Morgan Battle | Managing Director

Morgan has worked as lead strategic advisor to both public and private companies. He addresses the challenging internal issues that many organizations are faced with, while also facilitating the type of long-term thinking that leads to actionable growth plans. In addition, he represents his clients in M&A processes and in the facilitation of strategic partnerships. His sector expertise focuses on educational publishing, educational technology, consumer products, and media. His clients have ranged from high growth companies such as Credly, Twig Education and Branching Minds, to more developed brands such as National Geographic, Battelle, Northeastern University, The American Council on Education, and PBS.

Morgan is passionate about working with business leaders that are willing to follow their own entrepreneurial pursuits and are committed to making a meaningful impact. As such, he is an Operating Partner at Zeal Capital Partners, an inclusive investment fund focused on supporting diverse management teams in the areas of Workforce and Fintech. He is a mentor to several accelerator programs, such as Village Capital, AT&T and Started. In addition, he has served as an advisor to Princeton University’s Keller Center for Entrepreneurship, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition. Morgan currently serves on the boards of ProLiteracy, the Princeton Historical Society, and the Arts Council of Princeton. Prior to Tucker, he was an executive at FOX Sports in New York. Morgan received his B.A. from Lafayette College where he played Division 1 Lacrosse.

contact: mbattle@tuckercapital.com ∙ (609) 865-9934

Taylor Smith | Managing Director

Taylor has worked in M&A and strategic advisory for 20 years, with a focus on education companies and non-profits. He helps leadership teams and investors navigate strategic crossroads and partnership transactions. His clients have ranged from high-growth companies such as Credly, Branching Minds and Twig Education, to more developed brands such as National Geographic, Battelle, Northeastern University, The American Council on Education, and PBS.

Taylor serves as a mentor to the Village Capital and AT&T Aspires Education Accelerator venture cohort, as well as NYU’s StartEd Accelerator. He is a guest lecturer for Princeton University's Bendheim Center for Finance. His past experience includes technology M&A investment banking at Morgan Stanley and private equity investing at The Carlyle Group. Taylor received a B.S.E. degree in Operations Research and Financial Engineering with high honors from Princeton University.

contact: tsmith@tuckercapital.com • (609) 924-5710 x102

Kemp Battle | Founding Partner

With extensive strategic advisory and investment banking experience, Kemp’s passion is to assist organizations incubate new and transformative revenue-enhancing initiatives. Working closely with CEOs and their management teams to identify opportunities and barriers, Battle has learned that good strategy is not enough; the execution of entrepreneurship--whatever an organization's size and scope--is always dependent on rigorous, open and innovative processes. Teams form and succeed when they are freed to focus on the calling of the work; when they are compelled to accomplish a strategy because they fully understand what is at stake. Whether helping to unlock the potential of a for-profit’s mission (through acquisitions, joint ventures or internal start-ups) or assisting in the development of the discipline required for a not-for-profit to extend its reach (including structuring innovative public-private partnerships), Kemp is focused on outcomes that sustain organizational capacity and promote profitable growth. His clients have ranged from The Walt Disney Company, Time-Life Books, Scholastic, Amazon, Torstar/Harlequin, Blair Corporation to The National Geographic Society, Sesame Workshop, Public Radio International, PBS, Northeastern, Smithsonian and The American Council on Education.

In addition to working with media and educational companies, Kemp is deeply involved in the emerging genomics/genetic testing industry. He is an investor/board member in GenomeWeb (www.genomeweb.com), the premier news and information provider to the genomics industry, council member and Treasurer of Genetic Alliance (www.geneticalliance.org) the world’s leading nonprofit health advocacy organization committed to transforming health through genetics. As an original investor/board chair of DNA DIrect (www.dnadirect.com), a San Francisco-based provider of guidance and decision support in genomic medicine, Kemp led negotiations with Medco (www.medcohealth.com ) a leading pharmacy benefit manager. In January 2010, the sale of the company was completed. He works actively with Leaders Quest (www.leadersquest.org) as an Associate specializing in quests to India and South Africa. Kemp is also the author of three non-fiction books.

Kemp graduated from Harvard University with honors.

contact: kbattle@tuckercapital.com • (609) 647-7243

Catherine Cahn | Strategic Advisor

Catherine co-founded Twig Education and led the company as CEO from 2017 until its acquisition by Imagine Learning in 2021. Under her leadership, Twig Education became the fastest growing core curriculum company in the US with the introduction of Twig Science - K8 Next Generation Science Program.

Post acquisition, Catherine became President, Core Curriculum for Imagine Learning before joining Tucker Capital as a strategic advisor focused on K12 education technology and publishing.

Catherine has two daughters, aged 10 and 13, who attend public school in Santa Cruz CA - so her commitment to equity and innovation in K12 education is both professional and personal.

contact: ccahn@tuckercapital.com • (609) 924-5710 x104

Tom Moore | Director of Operations

Tom Moore is an Australian military veteran and Co-founder of WithYouWithMe. Tom knows first-hand what it’s like to go from leading a 60-man combat team as an Infantry Officer in Afghanistan to getting knocked back from cold calling for entry level roles.  In 2015, he founded WithYouWithMe to fix veteran unemployment and discovered a much wider problem at play in the workforce. Tom and the team at WithYouWithMe now work to help individuals uncover what they’re good at and upskill for new digital careers.

He grew the company as the CEO from 1 staff member to 400 globally winning the Deloitte Tech 500 in 2019 growing the company by 13,000% in revenue in one year and expanding the company to UK. Canada, PNG and the US. He recently moved on from the CEO and is the company's chair. Tom has a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Wollongong and is a graduate of the Royal Military College. He won Alumni of the Year for the Univeristy in 2018 for his work to solve underemployment. Tom is also a board director of the Australian Digital Skills Organization which drives the transformation of Australia's education system to fulfil digital skills crisis.

Tom has joined Tucker to help enterpreneurs and buyers do heroic deals. Deals with courageous products and teams that can shift the market.

contact: tmoore@tuckercapital.com • (609) 924-5710 x105

Craig Battle | Founding Partner

Craig Battle, a founding partner of Tucker Capital, has spent over 40 years in the investment banking business advising corporations on strategic financial issues, acquisitions, divestitures and capital raising. In 1982, he left Wall Street and founded Tucker Capital to bring a high level of corporate finance expertise to small and middle-market companies that were being passed over by the large NYC investment banks. During the 1980s, he worked with a wide range of companies in industries as varied as transportation, specialty chemicals, direct-mail, publishing and medical devices. In 1989, Craig led Tucker into an alliance with a leading consumer catalog consultant, Jim Alexander, to provide strategic advice and M&A services to the consumer catalog industry. Subsequently, he expanded those services into business-to-business catalogs, online retailers and large media companies.

Since the formation of Tucker Capital in 1982, Craig has advised some of America’s most prominent companies, such as Amazon, Disney, Williams-Sonoma, National Geographic, Saks Fifth Avenue, Brooks Brothers and Playboy Enterprises. Craig has been a frequent speaker at industry conferences including the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), the National Etailing and Mailing Organization of America (NEMOA), the Business Direct Group (BDG) and the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA). He has also been a guest lecturer at New York University’s Leonard Stern Graduate School of Business. Prior to founding Tucker Capital, he was a Senior Vice President at the investment banking firm of Warburg Paribas Becker/A.G. Becker in NYC. In his early career, Craig was a Managing Director at the investment banking firm of Wm. Sword & Company and a Senior Loan Officer at The Fidelity Bank in Philadelphia.

He earned his BA at St. Lawrence University and graduated from The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Management Program. Craig is currently on the board of Sea Bags, Gopher Sport, Coast of Maine Organic Products, Rocky Mount Cord Company and the Education Law Center.

contact: cbattle@tuckercapital.com • (609) 924-5710 x106

Cliff Nesbit | Leadership Development

Mr. Nesbit is a behavioral consultant who increases organizational effectiveness by enhancing communication, developing teamwork, and guiding culture change. He brings over forty years of diverse experience in communication technologies from his work as a psychotherapist, group therapist, trainer, and consultant.

His unique abilities and interests lie in being a catalyst for change that enhances the ability of individuals and groups to achieve their highest goals. He has the ability to establish a high level of rapport with a very wide range of people. He joins them in their work experience and is able to understand and articulate their strengths and their needs. He then becomes a catalyst for individual, group, and corporate best work.

The services he has provided have included: culture assessment, team building, executive coaching, communication skill assessment, design and implementation of unique training for individuals or groups, meeting facilitation, conflict management and modeling of excellence.

His client experience includes: Blair Corporation, Cardinal Business Media Inc., The Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, The Head Start Program of Bucks County, Independence Blue Cross of Philadelphia, ING Bank of North America, Keane, Kraft Foods, Maritrans Partners Ltd., Modern Group Ltd., Nationwide/Provident Financial Services, Numerous Episcopal Parishes, Osteotech, Pharmacia Deltec, Pocono Lake Preserve, Princeton University Press, Provident Mutual Insurance Company, Providian Insurance Company, Ronald McDonald House of Philadelphia, Schramm Inc., Sentinel Sprinkler Company, The State of Delaware, Valquip corporation, and We Love Country.

Mr. Nesbit earned a B.A. degree in Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is nationally certified as a practitioner of Group Psychotherapy, Sociometry, and Psychodrama. He is also nationally certified as a master practitioner and trainer of Neurolinguistic Programming.

David Baxendale | Founding Partner Emeritus

David Baxendale was a co-founding partner and served as Managing Director of Tucker Capital from 1985 to 2015. Mr. Baxendale has been engaged in managing acquisitions, divestitures and financial and strategic advisory activities for more than three decades. For ten years he was a key strategic advisor and the principal architect of Torstar Corporation's education initiative that resulted in the creation of one of the largest supplemental education companies in the US. He served as strategic and financial advisor to the National Geographic Society for over a decade.

He joined Tucker in 1985 after seven years as Managing Director of Tower Hall, Inc., a New York based investment banking firm. While at Tower Hall, he was a specialist in LBOs and management buyouts. He began his business career with Johnson & Johnson where he served as Director of Strategic Planning responsible for implementing new strategic planning initiatives in J&J's North American operations. Later he founded, and served as Vice President and Director of Johnson & Johnson's venture capital subsidiary, the J&J Development Corporation. In this capacity he oversaw investments in a large number of emerging medical technology enterprises. For 6 years he served on the Board of BioMedical Enterprises, a medical device company that was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 2016.

His interests include holistic health (he served on the board of Sojourns Integrative Health Center in Vermont); classical music (he has served on the Board of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra); and the preservation of historical properties and open spaces (he has served on the Board of Vermont-based Landmark Trust-USA).

He graduated with high honors in Economics from Harvard College and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.