David O. Zenker, Jr. has been a member of Brock Capital Group LLC since 2003. He is an investment banker, principal and advisor specializing in the conception, planning and funding of start-up and early-stage companies whose product or service represents a paradigm shift that offers a self-evident, marked improvement over current standards. Mr. Zenker’s particular areas of interest are biotech, medical devices, alternative energy and sustainable business models with commercial and social significance.
Mr. Zenker began his career in 1977 in the Investment Analysis and Research Department at J. Henry Schroder-Wagg in London. In 1978, he formed a partnership, Frith, Kirk & Zenker, providing management and marketing consulting services to European companies operating in the Arabian Gulf. He was based in Sharjah, U.A.E. where to complement his consulting work, he developed and managed under the direction of Frederick Pittera, an American pioneer in the exhibition industry, the Arabian Gulf’s leading exhibition, conference and entertainment center from 1978 – 1982. Following the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979, the assassination of Egyptian President Sadat in 1981 and the general economic downturn of the region, in mid-1982 Mr. Zenker returned to the U.S. where for two summer seasons he was the Executive Director of the Waterloo Foundation for the Arts, overseeing the foundation’s historic village and music festival in Stanhope, NJ. In 1983, Mr. Zenker joined the fixed income department at Bear Stearns in New York, working first in high yield bonds and then specializing in bankruptcies and restructurings. He subsequently worked in the same field at Oppenheimer & Co. from June 1988 to June 1991 and Jefferies & Co. from July 1991 to April 1993. Following Jefferies, he served as President of Van Beuren Capital Management where he acted as both principal and advisor in connection with private equity investments related to energy, life sciences, real estate, gaming, advertising and general industrial manufacturing. Mr. Zenker has a B.A. from Brown University and a M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business.