Belinda Kokoeka Bassey Ephraim, Founder and CEO of Katalyst Point, has been honored as one of the 2024 Women of Influence in Finance by the Los Angeles Business Journal. She is also host of the podcast, NextGen Industrialists: Rebuilding America’s Dynamism.
Belinda’s life has been enriched by a multicultural upbringing across 13 cities on three continents. She grew up in a family deeply involved in the manufacturing and distribution of kitchen and bath fixtures across West Africa and Europe. Her fascination with investment banking sparked during her university studies in the United States, particularly influenced by the landmark $165 billion acquisition of Time Warner by AOL.
At Katalyst Point, an industrial-focused boutique M&A advisory firm, Belinda leads a dedicated team obsessed with delivering sustainable growth through exceptional mergers and acquisitions for founder-led and -owned companies across the industrials sector specializing in various sub-verticals driven by Industry 4.0. The firm marries a buyer-led due diligence strategic framework and an agile transaction methodology, ensuring a high level of service for clients who want to significantly increase their growth rate and change the valuation multiple they can expect to achieve on exit. For larger clients, Katalyst Point is an outsourced partner to help them design their buy-plan and bring their corporate M&A strategies to life. Over her career, Belinda has led or participated in over 120 mergers and acquisitions, with a total transaction value exceeding $26 billion to a variety of publicly-traded NYSE, Fortune 500, and private-equity owned firms within the industrials sector.
Prior to founding Katalyst Point, Belinda accrued nearly three decades of executive experience. She served as Chief Revenue Officer overseeing luxury hospitality assets in the US and the Caribbean for publicly-traded REITs, advised on PPP infrastructure projects across EMEA and LATAM, and founded a vertically integrated skin repair startup. Belinda also worked in the Middle Market Leveraged Finance Groups of Siemens Financial Services and Merrill Lynch Capital in New York. Earlier in her career, she was part of the Corporate and Investment Banking Group at SunTrust Bank, completing the bank’s credit underwriting and rotational leadership development program.
In her personal time, Belinda enjoys golfing, reading, and traveling. She holds a B.S. cum laude in Finance and Entrepreneurship from the University of Florida and an M.B.A. from the Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College. Belinda is an active member of BLK Forbes, Association for Corporate Growth, Women in Technology, and Girls, Inc. Additionally, she is a trained lay minister and a meditation practitioner.