Jay B. Hunt
6423 Faustino Way
Sacramento, CA 95831
(916) 421-2401 (916) 421-4387 fax
jbhunt@thedevelopmentgroup.com

Jay is an expert at working with companies and families facing a business crisis. He has successfully helped many closely held companies work through issues ranging from intergenerational conflict to operating conflicts arising from the underperformance of family owned assets. Jay is also an expert at identifying core competencies and marketing leverage to reposition a company and its products and services.

Jay founded The Development Group in 1991 to concentrate on providing advisory services to companies and families in crisis or wrestling with difficult issues. He has been involved in development activities and turnarounds of a wide range of companies, many controlled by wealthy families.

Corporate Governance

Jay has over 30 years of governance experience including service as Non-Executive Chair of DDi Corp., Inc. (NASDAQ:DDIC, www.ddiglobal.com) since 2003 and a member of its Audit and Compensation Committees. DDi is a leading provider of time-critical, technologically advanced electronics manufacturing services for the electronics industry. Under his leadership, DDi has completely realigned its management team, refinanced its balance sheet, sharpened its strategic focus, disposed of unproductive operating assets and done an accretive acquisition. Since 1994, he has also been a Member of the Advisory Board for Joie de Vivre Hospitality (JDV). JDV (www.jdvhospitality.com) owns and/or manages 40 businesses including hotels, spas and restaurants and has revenues of $250 million. The Advisory Board has been involved in advising the CEO and Founder on every important decision during that time. These have included: capital and organizational structure and focus to responding to the events of September 11 and the telecom implosion in 2001-2002 to the most recent economic crisis as well as the development of a strategic plan that has moved the company to a dominant position in its market. He was also a Director of Gentiae Clinical Research, Inc., a venture capital backed global specialty clinical research organization for cardiac safety monitoring, imaging and cardiovascular clinical research in drug and device development.

Jay was also a Director of Electronic Medical Management, Inc. (EMMI). EMMI, prior to his involvement, had entered into a reverse merger with a public shell company which was found to be tainted resulting in an SEC enforcement action requiring the establishment of a rescission fund for shareholders. Under Jay’s guidance, the company retained counsel and went private. Jay was a Director Nominee on a slate for F. Hoffman-La Roche (Roche Pharmaceuticals) in connection with Roche’s hostile tender offer for Ventana Medical Systems, Inc. (VMA). Roche commenced an unsolicited all-cash tender offer for all of VMA’s outstanding shares of common stock for approximately $3 billion in June 2007. The parties entered into a friendly acquisition agreement for approximately $3.5 billion cash in early 2008, and Roche subsequently completed its acquisition of VMA.

Management Experience

Jay served FM Productions as Executive Vice President and a member of its Executive Management Committee and Board of Directors. He was responsible for all functions except manufacturing and creative services for this premier entertainment services company. Prior to that, Jay formed a joint venture with First Nationwide Bank to purchase a subsidiary of Wells Fargo & Co. that provided asset management and administrative services to developers throughout the United States and Mexico and to over 100 financial institutions in the U. S; he served the company as Chairman & CEO. Immediately prior to this acquisition, Jay was a Vice President of The Bank of California where he had marketing and sales responsibility for five operating units.

Jay also served in several sales, product development, marketing and division management capacities for the Simmons Company over a nine year period including general management responsibility for a division headquartered in San Francisco with accountability for sales in thirteen western states. He directed sales relationships with most of the major hotel and resort chains, cruise ship operators based on the Atlantic seaboard and federally funded Model City housing projects. Jay's professional career began with Caterpillar Tractor Co. where he managed accounts representing over $125 million of revenue annually.

Consulting Engagements

Jay has experience in these industries: Real Estate and Real Estate Services, Contract Furnishings, Financial Services, Healthcare, Entertainment Production and Services, Private Trusts, Food Processing and Packaging, Transportation, Professional Service Firms, Wine and Spirits Distribution, Paper Products, Hospitality (hotels, vacation ownership and restaurants), Specialty Distribution, Retail, Venture Capital, Technology, and Mediating Family “Fights”.

Specific assignments have included: a specialty distribution company with $225 million of revenue which was in violation of its loan covenants with Wells Fargo Bank and experiencing a liquidity crisis. With Jay’s guidance, the company reduced its working capital line to zero for the first time in 20 years and recorded record profit; a company in the leisure and hospitality services business with an immediate need to restructure and to help it deal with its lender, Bank of America; a testamentary trust which found itself in an impaired collateral position with illiquid assets and a position in a public company which went bankrupt. Other assignments have included a company controlled by two families with much different perspectives on value creation which resulted in the liquidation of the company; a conflict between siblings over the performance of various real estate assets bequeathed to them by their parents; another family with significant differences about managing a variety of commercial property; a company (private) with over a billion dollars of revenue with a “disconnect” within the family and between the family and management over the acquisition strategy then in place and the family’s needs, and, a private company with substantial unencumbered real estate assets but a specialty retail business in trouble with its bank.

Community Involvement and Education

He is a Director of the Indiana University Foundation and former Chair of the Ischemia Research & Education Foundation. Jay is a former Director and Treasurer of the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation, a former Director and President of the Phi Gamma Delta Educational Foundation, a former Director of the American Resort Development Association and a member of the Connecticut and American Bar Associations. Jay received his BA in Political Science from Indiana University and his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School. He has attended Harvard Business School’s program, “Making Corporate Boards More Effective”.