Experience
Mr. Tucker has extensive experience in corporate law and global finance. He has more than 30 years of experience advising clients on M&A transactions, IPOs, private placements, IP licenses and other corporate transactions. His clients have ranged from global NYSE-listed industrial companies to Silicon Valley technology start-ups, venture capital funds, large private equity firms, providers of artificial intelligence solutions to the U.S. and other “Five Eyes” defense and intelligence groups, financial services companies, SEC/FINRA registered crowdfunding portals, consumer products manufacturers, providers of trading platforms for financial derivative instruments and real estate investment trusts (REITs), among others.
He has served as Manager of the International Monetary Market for Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. a Wall Street brokerage firm, after which he spent 10 years trading financial futures and other derivative instruments on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He then served for three years as a Special Advisor to the (former) Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and eight years as a transactional attorney in the Financial Institutions Group at the law firm of Barack Ferrazzano in Chicago. He left Barack Ferrazzano to become President of one of its clients, a venture capital-funded technology company located in Silicon Valley, where he served for three years and made frequent trips to South Korea, Taiwan and Japan working with partners such as LG, Samsung, and Taiwan Semiconductor.
In 2004 he joined Quarles & Brady LLP, an AmLaw 200 law firm, where he was an equity partner and served as its Global Partner in Charge of Growth, Chair of its Chicago-based Mergers & Acquisitions practice, Chair of its China Law Group, and Founding/Managing Partner of its Shanghai office.
Since 2010 he has served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and member of the Executive Committee of Midland States Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:MSBI), a financial holding company. During this period MSBI has grown from having $450 million in assets to more than $12 billion, including its investment advisory business, completed 17 acquisitions and raised more than $300 million of capital, including through its 2016 IPO.
He has also served as an Adjunct Professor for more than 10 years at the Chicago-Kent Law School, Illinois Institute of Technology, where he taught courses to graduate law and MBA students focusing on M&A, Securities Law, IPOs and Venture Capital and Private Equity fund formation and methodologies. In the U.S. he has been a presenter/speaker at numerous corporate finance symposiums and in China has lectured at several Chinese law firms and Bar associations on topics ranging from structuring M&A and VC/PE transactions to law firm growth and management strategies. He holds a B.A. in Foreign Policy and International Relations from Michigan State University and a J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law.
Mr. Tucker’s other international experience includes working under the Office of the Secretary General of NATO in Mons, Belgium, completing programs in Global Economics at Cambridge University, Cambridge, England and at the European Union Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, and serving as an advisor to the newly formed Solidarity government in Warsaw, Poland on matters relating to private property laws, capital formation and financial markets following the overthrow of the Soviet-backed government in that country.
He has served on the boards of directors of several companies, including one of the largest originators of FHA/GNMA-backed securities for multi-family and health care facilities in the U.S., a $1 billion trust company located in New York, and a Wisconsin-based registered investment advisor.
Mr. Tucker is a citizen of and resides in the U.S. and holds permanent residency status in Malaysia.