Management Team
At Keston & Associates, we commit ourselves to providing our clients with results-oriented leadership in establishing their international presence by applying our wisdom and business skills, our dedicated teamwork and our results oriented attitude. In addition to the Management Team, we work with a team of independent consultants located in selected geographic regions of the world.
Joan Keston
Joan Keston has twenty-five years of experience with mature as well as entrepreneurial companies, domestically and internationally, coupled with an executive managerial and legal background. Her sole focus is in international corporate development, with a strategic and operational focus in transactional and project development, and management. She has a deep understanding of the business culture and issues involved in doing business in developing countries. Joan is the Managing Principal at Keston & Associates, Ltd. and a Partner at Paladin and Associates, Inc.
Joan lived and worked in Europe and Latin America, was part owner of a Brazilian trade company, and has worked in a business development capacity involving Europe, Latin America, Africa and China. With a privately held finance company, Joan served in an entrepreneurial capacity in the U.S. and Europe, directing the marketing strategy and structuring and negotiating project financings and leveraged leasing transactions primarily in the computer and equipment industries, and was the lead attorney for the equipment acquisition portfolio of a large public railroad and in the transactions of the finance company mentioned above. Recently she served as the Chief Legal Officer of a public software company where she was responsible for several acquisitions.
Joan is a member of the Advisory Council of the Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a faculty advisor at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She holds a B.A. degree in biology and economics from Bucknell University, a J.D. degree from Villanova University School of Law and an LL.M. degree in International Law from the University of Miami School of Law.
Bill Warner
Bill Warner is the founder and Managing Partner of Paladin and Associates, a firm that helps executives create successful businesses by providing a broad array of executive services. He is also Chairman of the Triangle Accredited Capital Forum, an angel investor network that reaches throughout the southeast. Bill has more than thirty-eight years of experience in the computer industry, with the last twenty years as a CEO and general manager responsible for computer software and hardware businesses. He most recently served as President and CEO of LiveWire Logic, a customer relationship management company in the service and support market. Previously, he was Executive Vice President of Products and Services at Dialogic, an Intel Company, and a $400M computer telephony company headquartered in New Jersey. Prior to that, he held executive positions at Banyan Systems, SystemSoft and IBM. His community service includes board directorships in the Association for Corporate Growth, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Cooperación Ortopédica Americano Nicaragüense and the Triangle Community Foundation's Entrepreneurial Partnership, and is a member of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, Angel Capital Association, Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry, North Carolina Technology Association and National Association of Corporate Directors. Bill is also a faculty advisor at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an Entrepreneur Affiliate at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.