CHARLES A. SCHLIEBS
Managing Director
Stone Pier Capital Advisors, LP
Charlie Schliebs has over 30 years of experience as a dealmaker and strategic advisor in a variety of industries, first as a lawyer and then as an investment, venture capital and private equity professional.
Following graduation from the Wharton School and Vanderbilt Law School, Charlie returned to his hometown of Kansas City and joined the firm of Blackwell Sanders Matheny Weary & Lombardi [now Husch Blackwell], a pre-eminent law firm in the Midwest with a premier corporate and securities practice. He advanced to partner at age 29, as the firm’s youngest ever partner. Following several years in the corporate world, Charlie was a partner from 1988 through 1999 in Jones Day, a 2,500-lawyer, international law firm. At both firms, his substantive expertise was as a securities/corporate finance/merger & acquisition partner, and at Jones Day he was also an international business law specialist, with his primary industry specialization being in the inter-related pharmaceutical, medical device/diagnostic, agricultural chemical, animal health and biotech fields, principally counseling multinational healthcare/life science companies. At Jones Day, he was the entrepreneurial founder of the highly successful Pittsburgh office in 1989. Charlie formed the Life Sciences Practice Group at Jones Day, and was the Group’s worldwide head until he left the firm to co-found iNetworks, a private investment/venture capital/private equity firm in late 1999.
While at Jones Day, Charlie was the lawyer responsible for all client service worldwide to Bayer AG, the international pharmaceutical and chemical conglomerate, for which Charlie acted not only as counsel but also as a trusted senior business advisor and dealmaker. For Bayer and many other multinational companies, Charlie directed all types of investment, acquisition and finance transactions, as well as the negotiation of research and collaboration agreements, product co-development agreements, co-promotion and co-marketing agreements, and license agreements.
In between his law firm partnerships at Blackwell Sanders and Jones Day, Charlie served in executive positions at NYSE companies including Hospital Corporation of America (“HCA”), where he co-founded HCA Venture Capital, the company’s in-house venture arm, investing in emerging healthcare companies. After concluding his legal career, Charlie joined the board of directors of Sunquest Information Systems, Inc., a Tucson, Arizona based healthcare information systems company (SUNQ: NASDAQ-NMS) for which he had served as outside counsel while at Jones Day. In his board role, he oversaw the sale of the company to Misys plc for three times the price of the company’s stock when he was appointed ($8 to $24 in 18 months).
In late 1999 Charlie co-founded iNetworks, LLC, and iNetworks Advisors, Inc., together with a highly-regarded, multi-billion dollar, family-owned multi-industry holding company. iNetworks and its affiliates have invested in numerous companies in the healthcare/life science and energy-related fields, and continue their investment activities today, with Charlie retaining a minor role as co-founder. Beginning in early 2008 and until January 2010, Charlie and iNetworks were retained by Chesapeake Energy Corporation, the nation’s second largest producer of natural gas, to facilitate the entry of Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC into the Pennsylvania portion of the Marcellus Shale. Following his retention by Chesapeake, he was trained at Chesapeake’s headquarters in Oklahoma City, OK, and elsewhere with respect to unconventional oil and natural gas exploration and development, shale geology, land and rights acquisition, hydraulic fracturing, domestic and foreign natural gas markets, CNG and LNG, etc.
In 2012, Charlie and Dale Killmeyer, his partner in an iNetworks affiliate, International Capital Networks, LLC, co-founded Stone Pier Capital Advisors, LP, to act as merger & acquisition, financial and strategic advisors across a variety of industries.
Charlie was the Elliot E. Cheatham Scholar in Law at, and received his J.D. from, the Vanderbilt University School of Law (receiving a full, merit-based scholarship award covering tuition, room and board, and other expenses, Vanderbilt’s largest scholar award at the time). He also holds undergraduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, a B.A. as well as a B.S. Econ. from the Wharton School (concentration and senior thesis in international business). He attended Penn/Wharton on a competitive merit scholarship for children of pipefitters, provided by the Pipe Fitting & Air Conditioning Council.
In addition to serving on the boards of for-profit companies, he serves or has served on a variety of boards involving entrepreneurship, social and ethical issues, including Pittsburgh’s Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship, Pittsburgh’s Institute for Cross-Cultural Ethics (Board Chair), and the President’s Visiting Committee on Social Justice at West Virginia University. He currently serves as a Board member of the Pittsburgh Energy Innovation Center and as a member of the National Executive Committee of the RAND Corporation’s Policy Circle.