NEAR INTELLIGENCE, INC. Near Intelligence, Inc. announced the appointment of two new members to its Board of Directors, effective September 19, 2023: Richard J. Salute, former Director of Capital Markets and SEC Practice at J.H. Cohn and CohnReznick LLP, and served in various leadership roles over 29 years at Arthur Andersen. Sherman Edmiston III, former managing director of Zolfo Cooper LLC (now Alix Partners), and currently a Managing Member of HI CapM Advisors Ltd. Richard J. Salute, CPA, has provided accounting and complex audits for public and private companies during his career. In addition to being appointed to Near?s Board, Mr. Salute has been appointed to serve as chairperson of the Audit Committee of the Board.
Mr. Salute served as Capital Markets and SEC Practice Director at J.H. Cohn and CohnReznick LLP from 2004 to 2014. Prior to that, he spent 29 years, from 1972 to 2001, at Arthur Andersen managing complex audits for public and private companies. During his tenure, he was responsible for providing clients with strategic planning services as well as consulting on corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and process evaluation.
His clients included large multinational companies and entrepreneurial start-ups. In addition to his client responsibilities, he started three business lines for Arthur Andersen: the Enterprise Group (New York Metropolitan area), the Technology Practice (New York office), and the Bankruptcy and Corporate Recovery Practice (nationwide). More recently, Mr. Salute served as Chief Financial Officer of PAVmed Inc. from June 2014 to September 2015.
Mr. Salute also served as a director of Walker Innovation Inc. from 2015 through 2018. He currently serves on the board of directors, the governance and compensation committees, and as chair of the audit committee and audit committee financial expert for Newtek One, Inc. (NASDAQ: NEWT) and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and The New York Society of Certified Public Accountants. Mr. Salute has more than 39 years of audit, accounting, and tax experience.
Mr. Salute holds a Bachelor of Business Administration, in Accounting from Adelphi University, and is a Certified Public Accountant in the State of New York. Sherman Edmiston has decades of experience providing financial and operational advisory services to corporations and comes with a breadth of leadership knowledge through active participation in a number of corporate boards across industries. Mr. Edmiston has served as the Managing Member of HI CapM Advisors, Ltd, a firm providing strategic and financial advice to corporations, private equity firms, and credit funds, since August 2016.
In addition to serving on the Company?s Board, Mr. Edmiston is currently serving on the board of directors of ARKO Corp. Mr. Edmiston is also serving on the board of directors at the following private corporations: GTT Communications, Inc., a multinational provider of telecommunications and internet services; Key Energy Services, Inc.; and Real Alloy. Mr. Edmiston formerly served on the board of directors of Arch Resources and Harvey Gulf International Marine.
From November 2009 through December 2015, Mr. Edmiston served as managing director of Zolfo Cooper LLC (now Alix Partners), where he provided financial and operational advisory services to corporations and investment funds. Mr. Edmiston holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Arizona State University and an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan.
