Senior Leadership

Dianna Raedle is CEO/President and Founder of Deer Isle Group – an innovative investment banking and advisory firm that specializes in global growth strategies and complex capital solutions. Founded in 2007, Deer Isle provides institutional financial strategy/advisory services, a proprietary technology solution, and specialized consulting
services. The firm has raised, through its broker/dealer subsidiary, over $5 billion in private placement capital.

Before founding Deer Isle Group, Dianna was co-founder/managing member and investment committee member of Millennium Americas, a sub-advisor to the Millennium Americas Special Situations Fund, which invested in private capital transactions across the Americas with a focus on Latin America.

Prior to Millennium Americas, Dianna worked in structured finance at institutions including CS First Boston, where she worked in London and Switzerland, SBC Warburg, and Citibank.

Dianna is currently a board member of OceanGate, Princeton University Entrepreneurship Council Alumni Advisory Board and Harvard Business School Club of NY where she is co-chair of the strategy committee; and she is Board Emeritus/former co-chair of HBSCNY Community Partners. She also teaches workshops at the Princeton University Keller Center for Entrepreneurship.

Dianna has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Princeton University. She holds Series 7, 24, 63, 65, 99 and 79 Registrations.

Jim Hardin is a Managing Director with Deer Isle Group. He focuses on fundraising and advisory services to independent sponsors, hybrid deal-by-deal sponsors, and small buyout fund managers. He also spends time in esoteric special situations private capital strategies and believes that his experience as a principal investor, business owner, entrepreneur, investment banker, and capital allocator across asset classes brings a well-rounded experience to capital seekers.

Jim started his career in a healthcare investment banking analyst program before joining Farallon Capital, a global multi-strategy hedge fund, where he was part of a small healthcare team executing both a long/short equity and merger arbitrage strategy. In 2009, he bought a payments-related business and also joined Global Endowment Management (“GEM”), an endowment-style, all-asset-class outsourced CIO that had spun out of Duke University’s endowment. At GEM, he led private equity and venture capital under the direction of the head of private investments, while also providing support in hedge funds, credit, and special situations.

After departing GEM, he founded Veil, a premarketing capital seeker/provider tech-enabled matching platform for small private equity fund managers and independent sponsors. He then formed The Sponsor Fund, an investment entity to provide $1-5M equity for independent sponsor-led buyouts. Jim partnered with Deer Isle Group in spring 2020 and is also actively investing via The Sponsor Fund, which is complementary to advisory services.

Jim earned an AB from Harvard College.

Michael Cha is a Managing Director at Deer Isle Group. He brings 25+ years experience in equity and high yield research, and equity and derivatives trading.

Previously, Michael was senior trader and senior energy analyst at BBT Capital Management Advisors LLC, a Connecticut-based hedge fund turned family office. He was head trader for a $1 billion long-short energy and utilities fund, managing beta exposure, portfolio allocations, and commission schedules, in addition to maintaining relationships with prime brokers, vendors, and over 40 institutional brokers. He also assisted in identifying, analyzing, and managing investments in the fund.

Prior to that, he was one of the founding members of J.P. Morgan’s corporate debt and equity securities business following the repeal of Glass-Steagall. He led the due diligence, roadshow, and research coverage on the first equity-linked public securities offering by any commercial bank since 1933. Michael headed the Independent Power Producer and the Oil and Gas Exploration and Production sector research teams, and lead- or co-managed over 30 primary and secondary offerings, elevating J.P. Morgan to number 1 in the E&P league tables from a previously unranked position. He conducted due diligence, built financial models, published research, and marketed globally on over 25 energy companies with assets in North America, Southeast Asia, Former Soviet Union, South America, and West Africa.

He was a former board member and Interim CFO of Gadsden Properties Inc. since September 2020, where he provided assistance in a real estate restructuring/workout situation, until he resigned in May 2022 after joining Deer Isle.

Michael holds a BA in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the Wharton School.