Phil Bakes,
President,
Snapper Creek Equity Management, LLC
Phil Bakes is president of Snapper Creek Equity Management, LLC (www.snappercreek.com),
a post held since the company’s inception. Snapper Creek is a private equity
and advisory firm, investing in and acquiring diverse mid-market operating businesses
and engaging in various business advisory assignments. As a subsidiary of BFC
Financial Corporation, Snapper Creek actively monitors select BFC portfolio companies.
Mr. Bakes previously served from 2004-2008 as the Managing Director of Snapper
Creek’s parent company, BFC Financial Corporation, responsible for business
development and major financings.
Prior to BFC, Bakes
served as president from 1990 to 2004, of a boutique
advisory and merchant banking firm he founded with
offices in Miami and New York, with a wide spectrum
of engagements ranging from Fortune 100 companies
to lower-middle market private operating businesses.
During that time, Bakes co-founded in 1997 and led until its sale in
2003, a travel industry company which by its third year of operations had grown primarily through
numerous acquisitions to one of the nation’s
largest value-added leisure travel providers with
offices throughout the United States and overseas,
providing a wide variety of travel packages to over
90 countries.
In the 1980s Bakes
served as a top executive in the airline industry,
including president/CEO of Continental Airlines and
Eastern Airlines, positions from which he led and
oversaw all operations, helped engineer a major turnaround
and reorganization, as well as participated in numerous acquisitions,
mergers and divestitures during the airline industry’s decade of
post-deregulation adjustment and consolidation.
Bakes grew up in Chicago, Illinois, graduated from
Chicago’s Loyola University and received a law
degree from Harvard Law School where he was where he was
Articles Editor of the Harvard Law Review. After briefly practicing
law in Chicago, Bakes served in the public sector in Washington, D.C.,
including as a Watergate Special Prosecutor, general counsel to a
federal regulatory agency and counsel to the U.S. Senate Antitrust
Subcommittee. He also was Deputy Campaign Manager in 1979-1980
for the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s U.S. Presidential campaign.
In 2001, he was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award
and The Association of Travel Marketing Executives (ATME) honored Bakes
in May 2000 with their celebrated Atlas Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Bakes serves on
both corporate and non-profit boards, is a member
of World Presidents’ Organization (“WPO”)
and, prior to that, was a member since 1985 of Young
Presidents’ Organization (“YPO”)
He is co-founder and former chairman of the South Florida Strategic Forum,
a group of entrepreneurs, CEO’s and C-level executives who meet regularly
to share their networks, learn from other business
leaders and support the business pursuits
of fellow members. Bakes resides in Miami, Florida.
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