Barry Calhoun
Barry Calhoun is Co-Managing Partner of BLSQ Management, a firm that works with mid-sized financial institutions, non-bank lenders and other small business lenders. The firm provides its clients with financial technology that permits them to reach more small business borrowers and the firm assists those lenders with their troubled loan portfolios. Mr. Calhoun has extensive experience assisting companies in crisis to immediately install new management, assess liquidity forecasts, develop new business plans, evaluate strategic alternatives, obtain new financing, and or guide complex debt restructurings when necessary. Most recently, Mr. Calhoun was acting CEO of Blueacorn at a time when the company was facing a series of ethical, legal, technological, and organizational challenges in processing PPP loans to small business owners with fewer than five employees.
Mr. Calhoun has spent much of his career helping restructure companies, putting them on a solid path forward. He has extensive experience in finance, including private equity, alternative investments, alternative financing, and asset management. In 2017, Mr. Calhoun became Director at Bayard Business Capital and Consulting overseeing the firm’s portfolio of capital solutions provided to businesses and commercial real estate investors utilizing both credit and equity products. Prior to that, Mr. Calhoun was Managing Director at Larson Capital Management, an alternative investment manager where he managed the firm and its five real-estate funds.
Mr. Calhoun has held roles as Senior Vice President in Wealth Management with Bank of America and US Bank, where he focused on asset management for Sports and Entertainment professionals, managing large liquidity events for business owners and securing optimal financing solutions for his clients.
He earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Jonathan Frutkin
Jonathan Frutkin is Co-Managing Partner of BLSQ Management. Mr. Frutkin has managed teams of attorneys working with companies in crisis, installing compliance systems, setting up legal structures, engaging regulatory bodies and providing strategic advice.
Most recently, Mr. Frutkin was appointed acting general counsel of a leading fintech platform that enabled small business owners to obtain micro-PPP loans. In 2007, he founded and led The Frutkin Law Firm, now Radix Law, where he served as Principal. The practice focuses on providing general counsel, including legal advice on capital formation, mergers and acquisitions, litigation strategy, and intellectual property. Mr. Frutkin specialized in domestic and international transactions on behalf of his business clients, ensuring that these matters complied with all relevant federal, state, and international laws. Radix was the first law firm in the country to be acquired by non-lawyer private equity under a new Arizona Supreme Court rule. Before founding the firm, he held various leadership roles. He served as general counsel and chief operating officer for Doceus, Inc., the leading provider of Internet software for associations and nonprofits, where he and his team developed Associant Software Suite, an online platform used by associations and non-profits to interact with their members and donors. Prior, Mr. Frutkin served as CEO of Cricca Funding, an equity crowdfunding consultancy, and Managing Partner of development for MaggieMoo’s Ice Cream & Treatery franchise in Nevada.
Mr. Frutkin is the author of Equity Crowdfunding: Transforming Customers into Loyal Owners. His crowdfunding expertise has resulted in regular media appearances, including in The Economist, Kiplinger Personal Finance, USA Today, and the Washington Post.
He earned a bachelor’s degree from American University and a Juris Doctor from The University of Virginia School of Law.