Whether you’re launching a new venture or reimagining an established enterprise, we understand the entrepreneurial journey so well because we’ve lived it ourselves.
Meet our team.
Joe Poulin
Founder and Managing Partner
Joe has been in business since an impossibly young age. At 15, he was designing websites for small businesses out of his bedroom. At 17, he launched Luxury Retreats, which he grew from a four-property startup into one of the largest, most successful specialty villa rental companies in the world. In 2012, Ernst & Young named him one of Canada’s Entrepreneurs of the Year. In 2017, his unmatched property portfolio, platform innovations and network of customer-friendly specialists and services caught the eye of Airbnb. The acquisition, then Airbnb’s largest to date, was conditional on Joe staying on to lead Luxury Retreats and Airbnb’s newly formed global luxury business. As VP of Luxury, Joe continued to revolutionize luxury travel until 2019, when he left to focus on JPK Capital, his family investment office.
JPK specializes in providing the long-term capital, strategy and tech expertise consumer businesses need to scale and grow their operations. True to form, JPK has a heavy focus on customer experience, and has been an early investor in a number of leading high-growth companies.
Vassilis Stachtos
Senior Partner
.png)
Vicky Bathija
Senior Partner
Vassilis brings over 18 years of investment banking, private equity, and operational experience to the team. Vassilis joined JPK Capital in 2017 as a Partner and has played a leadership role across the firm’s investment origination, deal execution and portfolio management functions. In addition, he has provided strategic and operational expertise to several JPK Capital portfolio companies.
Prior to joining JPK Capital, Vassilis was Head of Private Investments at Dromeus Capital, an alternative investment manager focused on special situations. Before his role at Dromeus, Vassilis worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Investment Banking Division as a Vice President in the Global Leveraged Finance Group in New York and London. While at Merrill Lynch, Vassilis led several complex transactions including Mergers & Acquisitions, Leveraged Buyouts and Leveraged Recapitalizations across the US and Europe with aggregate transaction value in excess of $15 billion. Vassilis started his career at Credit Suisse in New York developing trading systems and quantitative models.
Vassilis holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an MS in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University and a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens.
Vicky has over 14 years of investing and operating experience. Before joining JPK Capital in March 2020, Vicky was Head of Hospitality at Airbnb’s luxury division, where he led a 180+ person global operations team, closely overseeing product, engineering, design, and data science to drive scale and efficiency.
Before his role at Airbnb, Vicky was EVP, Corporate Development & Investor Relations at Hemisphere Media Group, Inc from 2015 to 2017. He was responsible for identifying investment opportunities and managing all capital market activities and investor relation policies. From 2008 through 2015, Vicky worked with InterMedia Partners, L.P., responsible for all aspects of deal execution, oversight of existing portfolio companies and evaluating potential new investments.
Prior to joining InterMedia Partners, Vicky was an Investment Banker in the Healthcare group at BanK of America Securities in New York, where he provided capital raising and advisory services to a broad range of public and private healthcare clients.
Vicky holds a BS from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University and is a CFA® charterholder.
.png)
Justin Fridman
Senior Associate
Justin calls on over 10 years of accounting and financial operations experience. Prior to joining JPK in 2020, Justin worked as the Finance Manager at Luxury Retreats, a market leader in luxury villa rentals, where he was instrumental to the 2017 sale of the company to Airbnb. Justin went on to oversee the strategy and finance team for Airbnb’s luxury division, where he worked closely with product and operations to drive growth and profitability.
Before his time at Luxury Retreats, Justin was a manager in the assurance practice of Ernst & Young in Montreal and Los Angeles. During his four years there, he specialized in the manufacturing, distribution and retail sectors for companies located in North America and Europe.
Justin holds a BComm from Concordia University in Montreal and is a registered CPA, CA in Canada.
.png)
Rory Shepard
Associate
Rory draws on 6 years of specialized investment banking, private equity/credit and impact investing experience. Before joining JPK Capital, Rory worked at PG Impact Investments as an Investment Professional, making direct equity and debt investments across global emerging markets.
Before his time at PG Impact Investments, Rory spent a brief period working as a Fellow at Impact Amplifier in South Africa, where he advised large foundations on investment selection of social enterprises. Before his role at Impact Amplifier, Rory was an M&A Analyst with Lazard's Global Power, Energy & Infrastructure Group, where he advised on over $35B of transactions across the regulated utility, merchant generation and renewable energy verticals.
Rory serves as the Finance Chair on the Associate Board of Impact Network, a nonprofit focused on providing quality education to children in rural Zambia.
Rory holds a BSBA in Finance and Management from Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business.
.png)
.png)
Gian Carlo Di Tommaso
CFO & Partner
Gian Carlo serves as the accomplished CFO of JPK Capital, drawing on over 15 years of expertise. Previously, he was CFO of La Presse, a leading French-language news media organization founded in 1880 that is considered the newspaper of record for Canada. During his tenure he oversaw their Finance Operations and Digital Innovations teams. Prior to joining La Presse, Gian Carlo was CFO of Luxury Retreats, a recognized leader in the luxury vacation rental industry. At Luxury Retreats, Gian Carlo built and led various teams, including the Performance Marketing teams, Data Science team and Operations team. When Airbnb acquired Luxury Retreats in 2017, Gian Carlo was a key player in overseeing the transaction.
Gian Carlo has held various COO roles with scale ups like Tracktik and Stradigi AI. Between the two tech scale ups, he contributed to raising a combined +$90M in growth capital. At Tracktik, Gian Carlo helped aggressively expand the USA operations and launch the European market.
Gian Carlo is actively involved in the Montreal tech ecosystem, acting as a mentor with Founder Institute and as a limited partner with iNovia Capital, where he supports various founders with their scale ups.
Gian Carlo holds a BBA from HEC Montreal and is a registered CPA, CA in Canada.
Mark Coleman
General Counsel & Partner
Mark draws on over 30 years of widespread experience in media, technology, and private equity. As General Counsel of JPK Capital, he serves as EVP and General Counsel of JPK’s SOAR Technology Acquisition Corp. SPAC. Previously, he was a member of the founding management team of the Trine Acquisition Corp. series of SPACs, and continues to serve as EVP and General Counsel. Earlier in his career, Mark was EVP and General Counsel of InterMedia Partners, a private equity fund that debuted in 1988 and was among the world’s first private equity firms specializing in disruptive media and communications investing. The firm wound up its seventh-in-the-series fund in 2019.
Mark remains EVP and General Counsel of the fund that manages the control shareholder of Hemisphere Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HMTV), itself the result of a SPAC merger transaction with one of InterMedia’s portfolio companies in 2013. Prior to that, Mark was a co-founder and EVP and General Counsel of The YES Network, the regional sports network home of the New York Yankees.
Notably, Mark has also been a partner at two San Francisco law firms, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP and Pillsbury Madison & Sutro LLP, and continues to serve on the board of directors of TILT Holdings Inc. (NEO: TILT). He has a JD from the University of California, Berkeley and a BA from Pomona College, and is admitted to practice in California, the District of Columbia and New York.
Jared Cordover
Associate
Jared calls on over 2 years of technology investment banking experience. Prior to joining JPK, Jared worked at RBC Capital Markets as an Investment Banking Associate, focusing on technology M&A and capital raises and serving as editor of RBC's Blockchain Weekly Newsletter.
Jared serves on the Youth Executive Board of Behind the Book, a non-profit focused on developing engaged readers and writers in underserved NYC public schools. He's also a member of the Director's Circle for the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY), a museum that strives to preserve and present the history of New York City and its people.
Jared holds a BS in Economics from Duke's Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.
Aja Kuczma
Head of People
Aja has over 15 years of experience in leading and driving HR strategy and teams. Before joining JPK Capital, Aja led the HR Services group at Gray Scalable, a people and talent consulting firm supporting growth stage tech companies. In this role, she partnered closely with start-up executives and board teams across numerous verticals to evaluate HR needs and organizational gaps. Aja specializes in building HR functions and solutions, from strategy and organizational planning to program and policy development, as well as supporting and developing founders and leadership teams.
Before her time at Gray Scalable, Aja held HR leadership roles at Rent the Runway, Patch and Razorfish. She helped to build foundational HR and Talent practices and teams in these high growth organizations.
Aja holds an MA in Counseling from Hunter College and a BA in Psychology from Penn State.
.png)
Adriel Lovell
Controller
Adriel has been a CPA since 2015. His professional membership extends to both Canada and Barbados, giving him diverse cross-cultural reach and knowledge. He joined the team at JPK Capital in 2020, bringing work experiences that span multiple disciplines and sectors to the table.
Adriel has previously worked in Financial Analysis and Planning roles in the Canadian apparel and retail industry, as well as serving as Financial Controller in the beverage industry.
In his limited spare time, Adriel can be found enjoying any activities that take place on or beneath the sea.
Adriel received his BS in Accounting from the University of the West Indies in 2009. He then completed the Strategic Leadership Program with CMA Canada, where he received his CPA, CMA professional designation in 2015.
Kimberly Small
Executive Assistant
Supporting others is a passion for Kimberly, and it shows in the caliber of her work, most recently in her role as Executive Assistant to Joe Poulin. Born in Tokyo, raised in Connecticut and a long-time resident of New York City, Kimberly now resides in Miami. A world traveler, her background is rich in cultural explorations and discoveries. She fostered her love of art and design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, founding a resort wear line from 2013 to 2016.
Kimberly then transitioned to supporting top executives in the fashion industry, most recently transferring to JPK from Stuart Weitzman/Tapestry.
Kimberly is active in the spaces of philanthropy, health, wellness and energy healing modalities such as Reiki, exploring alternative as well as traditional interpretations of support.