Investment Team

Venture Partners

Strategic Advisors

Team

The members of the OCA Ventures team have a passion for building early-stage companies into market leaders, have long histories working with one another, and share common core personal and professional beliefs, while at the same time contributing different skills and perspectives.

This cohesive group has close business and personal relationships dating back more than 25 years.  John Dugan, Peter Ianello and Marc Berman were partners in the 1980s when they led O’Connor & Associates. Jim Dugan is John Dugan’s third son, Jason Heltzer joined the team in 2001, Joe Dwyer joined in 2009, David Zyer joined in 2009 and Gabe Greenbaum joined in 2011.




Ralph Protsik - 

Ralph Protsik (BS, Yale) manages Boston Search Group's (BSG) Team Venture's Education and Media sectors, working nationally with many of the country's leading eLearning and education companies, online publishers, web service providers, research and consulting firms, and interactive agencies.
 
 
Over the past thirteen years Ralph has established himself and BSG Team Ventures as the preeminent global executive search firm with focus on the education and media industries. During this time he and his team have completed more than 125 searches at the VP level and above, for a range of clients that includes venture capitalists and private equity firms, their portfolio companies, and both public companies and not-for-profits with a strong commitment to entrepreneurship and technology. The BSG-Team Ventures partnership provides particular expertise to European and American companies as they expand abroad.
 
Ralph entered the executive search industry in 1994 after more than two decades in educational publishing, eighteen as president of his own company. In three years with Management Recruiters International (MRI), the nation's largest executive search firm, he established his reputation in the fields of new media and educational technology, completing senior assignments for Simon & Schuster, Scholastic, Discovery Communications, International Thomson, CondeNast/Advance Publications, and Pearson Education, among others.
 
Ralph was MRI's National Rookie of the Year in 1994, a Top 20 biller nationally in 1994, 1995, and 1996, and MR Boston Account Executive of the Year in 1995 and 1996.
 
Since co-founding BSG in July 1997 Ralph has continued to evolve his practice in education and media, including senior management assignments for both large organizations (Sylvan Learning, Discovery Channel, PBS, ITT/ESI, The Princeton Review, ETS, ProQuest, Riverdeep, Thomson Prometric, Fidelity Investments, Inc. Magazine, et al) and smaller, VC-backed firms (Blackboard, 4GL Schools, TetraData, Zoesis Studios, Experience.com). In addition, he has completed search assignments for educational not-for-profits that include the National Education Association (NEA) and the IMS/Global Learning Consortium.

BSG Team Ventures includes among its education affiliates the Education Industry Association (EIA), Career College Association (CCA), Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), and the Greater Boston Education Industry Council (GBEIC), as well as Eduventures. Ralph has been active both as sponsor and panelist for such industry events as EdNET; Eduventures' K-12 Markets and Opportunities and Digital Education Marketplace; IIR's Education Investment Forum; SIIA's Ed Tech Industry Summit, eSchoolNews' Business to Education Technology Summit; Fulcrum's Education Industry Finance and Investment Institute; the VentureOne Exchange; the Springboard Venture Capital Forum; the Nantucket Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship; and the Ernst & Young Israeli Showcase.

OCA VENTURES

505 N LASALLE STREET
STE 500
CHICAGO, IL 60654
TEL: (312) 327 - 8400
FAX: (312) 542 - 8952