Our Team

Mr. Dyett is a Founder of Salem Partners and Salem Partners Wealth Management.  Mr. Dyett heads the firm's efforts in the Life Sciences. He has raised in excess of $500 million of equity and completed multiple merger and acquisition assignments for Salem Partners' clients.  Mr. Dyett helped raise several rounds of venture capital for Adams Respiratory Therapeutics which was purchased for $2.3 billion by Reckitt Benckiser in 2008.  Recently, Mr. Dyett helped launch ZS Pharma, a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on developing non-absorbed drugs for renal, cardiovascular, liver and metabolic diseases.  Salem raised several rounds of venture capital and participated in each round as a principal investor.  ZS Pharma completed a successful initial public offering in June 2014 and was subsequently purchased by AstraZeneca plc for $2.7 billion.  Mr. Dyett serves on the investment committee of Salem Partners Wealth Management.  Prior to founding Salem Partners, Mr. Dyett was a banker with Gerard Klauer Mattison & Co., Inc. and Needham and Co., Inc.  Mr. Dyett serves on the Board of Directors of OncoNano Medicine, Inc. Mr. Dyett is a graduate of Harvard College.

Mr. Prough is a Founder of Salem Partners and Salem Partners Wealth Management. In addition to his management responsibilities for Salem Partners' two main businesses, Mr. Prough oversees the firm's Technology, Media and Telecom (TMT) investment banking practice, focusing primarily on mergers and acquisitions advisory services and capital investment in growth companies in the sector. Since founding Salem Partners, Mr. Prough has completed more than 50 transactions companies in the TMT sector. Mr. Prough also serves on the investment committees of Salem Partners Wealth Management. Mr. Prough is on the board of directors of Critical Mass Studios, is the Co-Chairman of LA Promise Fund and was appointed by California Governor Gavin Newsom to the Investment Board of the California Secure Choice Retirement Savings plan. Prior to founding Salem Partners, Mr. Prough was a Vice President in the Media and Communications Investment Banking Group of Furman Selz LLC. Mr. Prough is a graduate of Harvard College, where he majored in Government and was a Harvard Scholar.

Mr. Ridgley, 58, is CEO & Chief Investment Officer of Salem Partners Wealth Management, leading an experienced team dedicated to protecting and growing the wealth of our clients. He was previously Managing Director, Head of Investments for the Western U.S. Region, and Senior Investment Counselor at Citigroup Private Bank, supervising $1.2 billion of investment assets under management for wealthy families during his distinguished and successful tenure. He began his investment career after graduate school as a buy-side (institutional investment management) equity research analyst and portfolio manager for pension plans and mutual funds at Provident Investment Counsel (acquired by Old Mutual), where he also led hundreds of in-person due diligence meetings with CEOs and CFOs of publicly traded companies of all industries and sizes, plus hundreds of consultations with sell-side (Wall Street broker-dealer) market strategists and research analysts. His buy-side expertise differentiates our firm and it drives our focus on investment research and long-term investment strategies that are optimized for after-tax total returns.

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Mr. Ridgley is Chairman of the Investment Committee and Board member of the West L.A. County Council of Boy Scouts of America. He served on Boards of the Bel Air Beverly Crest Neighborhood Council of the City of L.A., Bel-Air Association, UCLA Anderson Alumni Association, UCLA Alumni Association (Finance Review Committee), and the CFA Institute Corporate Governance Task Force subcommittee. He served on Harvard-Westlake Parents Association and Harvard College Parents Fund. He has spoken on expert panels at investment conferences including Private Wealth Southern California Forum (2021, 2019), Private Wealth West Forum (2021), ALTSLA (2021, 2019), Alternative Investing Summit (2019), Private Wealth Management Online Summit (2021), and Los Angeles RIA Summit (2019). He was selected to Los Angeles Business Journal’s List of Leaders of Influence: Wealth Managers in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 & 2019 (Disclosure).

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Mr. Ridgley earned his M.B.A. from UCLA Anderson School with highest honors (top 2%), and his B.S. degree from the College of Engineering at UC Berkeley. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and FINRA Series 7 & 66 licenses.

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Mr. Ridgley lives in Bel-Air with his wife of 32 years (Dr. Bea Torrado-Ridgley), his daughter is in medical school, and his son is an investment analyst. He and his son are both Eagle Scouts from Troop 223 in Pacific Palisades, and both played four years of NCAA Div. 1 sports in college (soccer and water polo, respectively). He enjoys reading, sports, and spending time with his family.

Mrs. Kamangar joined Salem Partners in 2006 and is Chief Compliance Officer and Chief Operating Officer.  She serves on the Salem Partners Wealth Management investment committee. Mrs. Kamangar spent five years with Bear Stearns as a Relationship Manager, a liaison role between introducing firms and various specialized departments.  Prior to Bear Stearns, Mrs. Kamangar was a Vice President at Thomas Weisel Partners in San Francisco where she created the Asset Management Consulting Group operations and procedures.  Previous to Thomas Weisel Partners, Mrs. Kamangar was at Montgomery Securities, where she headed the Trading and Operations department for the Investment Management Consulting Division. Mrs. Kamangar is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley with honors and received a professional designation in Personal Financial Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles.  Mrs. Kamangar currently holds the following FINRA licenses; Series 6,7,63,65,9,10,24.

Mr. Barcy has amassed over two decades of experience on Wall Street and in real estate private equity, including 13 years at Credit Suisse and three years at Cantor Fitzgerald.  Mr. Barcy has raised over $20 billion in capital for  private real estate companies, REITs, homebuilders and developers through a combination of joint-ventures, initial public offerings, follow-on offerings, loans, senior and subordinated notes and CMBS deals.  He has also advised large companies on conversion from a C-corp to a REIT and advised CEOs on many mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Barcy began his banking career at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette ("DLJ") which was later acquired by Credit Suisse in 2000. In addition to his investment banking experience, Mr. Barcy previously served on the senior management team and Board of Directors at Hearthstone, a real estate private firm with over $12 billion invested in the homebuilding industry.  Mr. Barcy also successfully raised institutional capital for investments in distressed real estate including purchases directly from banks and the FDIC. Mr. Barcy graduated with high honors from Harvard and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Mr. Ratkovich joined Salem Partners in 2014 as a Managing Director of Salem’s real estate equity and development platform.  Throughout his three decades in the real estate industry, Mr. Ratkovich has planned, developed, redeveloped, financed and managed a diverse array of projects throughout the West Coast and Hawaii.  His experience includes a wide assortment of property types, comprised of multifamily residential, commercial, industrial, historic rehabilitation, mixed-use and luxury resort properties.  Mr. Ratkovich is a past chairman of a national Urban Land Institute (ULI) product council (Urban Development Mixed-Use Green), a member of Smart Growth America, LOCUS, and Real Estate Conference Group.  Mr. Ratkovich graduated with a BS from San Diego State University, is a licensed real estate broker in the State of California, and is a frequent conference panelist and guest lecturer for various real estate organizations.

Mr. Houlihan is a Managing Director and is responsible for the firm’s valuation practice across all industries.  Mr. Houlihan has over 20 years of experience in investment banking advisory and valuation.  He has advised clients in a broad range of transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, financial restructuring and debt and equity capital raising for clients in the technology, media and entertainment industries.  Mr. Houlihan’s experience in valuation includes the provision of fairness and other financial opinions and the valuation of intellectual property assets, businesses, private equity and hedge fund investments, goodwill and intangible assets, incentive compensation awards, estate and tax planning, derivatives, complex partnership and tax structures and other structured finance assets.  Mr. Houlihan also works as an expert witness in arbitration, litigation, dispute resolution and other related matters in the technology, media and entertainment industry.

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Prior to joining Salem Partners in 2003, Mr. Houlihan was an Associate in the Mergers and Acquisitions practice of Credit Suisse First Boston in San Francisco and an Analyst in the Technology Investment Banking practice at Warburg Dillon Read in San Francisco.  Mr. Houlihan is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.

Mr. Smith joined Salem Partners in 2007 and is focused on sourcing, evaluating and structuring transactions in the healthcare & life sciences sectors.  While at Salem, he has been directly involved with companies such as Exemplar Pharma (sold to Allergan), Femasys (private), Neos Therapeutics (Nasdaq: NEOS), OncoNano Medicine (private), Sebacia (private) and ZS Pharma (sold to AstraZeneca). Prior to joining Salem, Mr. Smith was a director at Harvey & Company, a leading merchant banking firm based in Newport Beach. Before Harvey & Company, he was a consultant with Public Health Foundation Enterprises and performed clinical research at Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center.  Mr. Smith graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Southern California.

Mr. Combrinck has more than 17 years of experience as a senior executive in the entertainment industry, including as Head of International & Structured Finance at a boutique film-financing and media advisory company, Screen Capital International. He also continues to serve as the US advisor and consultant for Freeway Entertainment.  Prior to joining Salem Partners, Mr. Combrinck was a lead executive on more than $7 billion in cutting-edge, cross-border financing transactions for production, marketing & distribution, and library acquisitions with counterparties including Walt Disney, Marvel Studios, Warner Bros., New Line, The Weinstein Company, Constantin Film, New Regency, and Universal Studios. His track record includes successful transactions on more than 100 films, including Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3, Harry Potter 2, National Treasure 2, Oblivion, Blood Diamond, Rush Hour 3, Hugo, Enchanted, Iron Man 2, Thor, The Reader, The Bourne Ultimatum and Jurassic World.

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A native of Munich, Germany, Mr. Combrinck graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the School for Cinema-Television at the University of Southern California.

Mr. Bennett joined Salem Partners in autumn of 2013 and is responsible for sourcing / business development, evaluating, execution, and structuring for the real estate banking practice. Mr. Bennett has 12 years of financial, banking and advisory experience at major financial institutions (AXA) and large public companies (News Corp / 21st Century Fox). At Salem Partners, his clients include large national developers, sponsors and real estate operating companies that focus on value-added and opportunistic strategies typically in partnership with larger institutional investors. Since joining the real estate banking team, the group has structured numerous programmatic equity joint-ventures, single-asset equity, and credit financings. Throughout his career, Mr. Bennett has worked on large and complex transactions in both the real estate and media sector. Prior to Salem, Mr. Bennett was a senior finance analyst at Fox Sports Media Group and worked on global media rights and M&A transactions in the sports sector with total values in excess of $10 billion. Mr. Bennett is a Los Angeles native and a graduate of University Of California at Santa Barbara.

Mr. Peckage joined Salem Partners in 2024 and is primarily focused on sourcing and originating advisory and capital raising opportunities across the media and entertainment landscape. With 15 years of experience in financial services and more recent tenure at RBC Capital Markets and Truist Securities, he’s helped lead M&A mandates across Content and IP within the Film & TV, Music, Live Events, Talent Representation, Creator Economy, and Digital Media verticals. Mr. Peckage has also led execution on many corporate and IP credit financings within the Film & TV space along with several notable IP securitizations. Prior to his roles in Media & Entertainment investment banking, he had spent 7 years at Wells Fargo within their fixed income sales group. Mr. Peckage has a Master of Business Administration from NYU Stern and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Emory University.

Mr. Witte joined Salem Partners Wealth Management in 2012 and has over 28 years of experience in the financial and capital markets.  Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Witte was the Chief Investment Officer for Caruso Affiliated, managing the investment matters of this private company and three generations of family members.  For approximately 15 years at Caruso, Mr. Witte was in charge of all capital decisions for the company, including strategic and tactical asset allocation, budgeting, forecasting, tax planning, and manager due diligence.  He was also an integral factor in the development of Caruso’s multi-billion dollar real estate portfolio.  Before joining Caruso, Mr. Witte worked in investment banking, corporate banking, private banking, and investment management for UBS, Bankers Trust Company, and Shearson Lehman Brothers.  Mr. Witte has been a long-standing member of the Board of Trustees and has chaired many committees for the House Research Institute (hearing science).  Mr. Witte also serves on the Board of Directors for Front Porch Communities and Services (senior housing), and he has been a guest speaker and panelist at numerous conferences, including ones sponsored by Cal State Northridge and UCLA. He serves on the Salem Partners Wealth Management investment committee. Mr. Witte graduated with top honors (“With Distinction”) from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Petroleum Engineering.

Mr. Nguyen joined Salem Partners in June 2013.  Prior to joining the firm, he worked for Roth Capital Partners as an equities analyst and provided sell-side research.  Mr. Nguyen has also worked with Harvey & Company, a middle-market merchant bank, where he assisted the deal origination process.  Mr. Nguyen graduated cum laude from the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California Irvine with a Bachelor of Art degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Accounting and Finance.

Mr. Whelan joined Salem Partners in May 2023 and is responsible for transaction sourcing and execution within the Media & Entertainment practice. Prior to joining the firm, he worked in the Technology, Media & Telecommunications group at Solomon Partners, a middle-market investment bank in New York City, advising on mergers, acquisitions, and capital solutions in the software space. Mr. Whelan graduated cum laude from Middlebury College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics.

Mr. Keyfes joined Salem Partners Wealth Management in January 2010.  He holds a B.A. degree in Economics from University of California, Santa Cruz.  As an undergraduate he interned at an alternative investments hedge fund where he was responsible for analytical support of asset allocation, marketing efforts, and carbon credit market related ventures.  He furthered his studies with an M.A. in Statistics and an M.A. in Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara during the span of which he was a Graduate Teaching Assistant.  Upon Mr. Keyfes’ graduation and prior to joining SPWM he was a Consulting Analyst at a private high net worth family wealth management office in Santa Barbara where he supported hedge fund selection via analytical and quantitative due diligence.

​Dr. Caldwell joined Salem Partners in 2019 and is responsible for deal sourcing, relationship management, and transaction support in the healthcare & life sciences sectors.  Prior to joining Salem, Dr. Caldwell worked for ZS Associates on a variety of management consulting projects from R&D pipeline to commercialization and marketing strategies for large pharmaceutical firms.  Dr. Caldwell also has additional consulting experience through founding a start-up in the regulatory affairs space focused on early stage pharmaceutical and MedTech companies.  He earned his PhD in Clinical and Experimental Therapeutics with a thesis on Neurotherapeutics as well as a MS in Regulatory Affairs at the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy.  His undergraduate degree in Biochemistry is from Vassar College.

Mr. Stein joined Salem Partners in February 2022. Prior to joining the firm, he worked for Scott-Macon, a middle-market investment bank, as an analyst in the healthcare group. He graduated from Cal Poly SLO in 2019 with a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Finance Concentration.

​Mr. Fong joined Salem Partners in March 2022. Prior to joining Salem, he worked for Ernest & Young as an assurance associate in their Media and Real Estate groups. Mr. Fong graduated magna cum laude from the University of California, Irvine with a Bachelor of Art degree in Business Economics and minors in Accounting and Statistics. ​

Ms. Petersen joined Salem Partners in 2017 as an Operations Associate.  Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Petersen worked in store sales and operations for Target Corporation. Prior to Target, Ms. Petersen worked at The Social Life, an LA-based clothing and apparel startup. She is a graduate of California State University, Fresno where she earned her B.S. in Business Marketing.

Mr. Singh joined Salem Partners in May 2024. Prior to joining the firm, he worked for Copley Equity Partners and Morgan Stanley. He graduated from Southern Methodist University in 2024 with a Master's of Science in Finance.

Mr. Sobczak joined Salem Partners in July 2024. Prior to joining the firm, he worked for Cascade Partners, a boutique investment bank specializing in healthcare and industrial transactions. He graduated from the University of Michigan's Stephen M. Ross School of Business in 2023 with a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration.

Ms. Abbey joined Salem Partners in August 2019. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ms. Galera joined Salem Partners in July 2024. Prior to joining the firm, she graduated Magna Cum Laude from Loyola Marymount University’s College of Business Administration in 2024, earning a Bachelor of Business Administration in Management & Leadership with a minor in Political Science. Ms. Galera distinguished herself as a dedicated student-athlete and a constructive leader within her community.

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Throughout her academic journey, Ms. Galera held several significant roles. She was the first Video Anchor for Asia Media International, Captain of the LMU Spirit Squad, Director of Academic Development for LMU Alpha Phi, and a Management & Leadership Student Ambassador for the College of Business Administration. Additionally, she served as Creative Director at Drink REVYVE, a CPG startup in the food and beverage sector. Her experience also includes working  as a Research Assistant and Social Media Manager for the Management Department of LMU’s College of Business Administration.