It’s common for companies that are on the precipice of growth to warrant an expanded leadership team, and yet be limited by the financial constraints of adding more full-time executives to their payroll. Our model offers “bridge” access to COO and CFO-level acumen to companies whose stage of development demands this caliber of expertise, while alleviating the cashflow burden of a full-time hire until one can be sustained without compromising the growth of the business.

It’s common for clients to seek additional executive support when:

• The CEO/Founder is doubling as an operator (e.g. a President & CEO without a COO)

• The business is preparing to raise capital, sell, or make an acquisition

• Before, during, or immediately after an acquisition, to help lead the integration process

• The financial complexity of the business has outgrown its current FP&A function

• A key leader has left, creating a gap that requires interim support

Dealmaking is an art and a science, and we’re well equipped in both. Having analyzed, acquired, integrated and sold dozens of companies over the course of our careers, we are able to help owners and founders see around corners, to ultimately put together the most favorable deal terms possible for all parties involved.

Through our careers, we’ve had the opportunity to:

• Sell a logistics software company to a Fortune 14 (Cardinal Health)

• Orchestrate a company sales process, resulting in (3) LOIs and a highly successful exit

• Secure a $160 million line of credit syndicated from multiple financial institutions

• Raise multiple rounds of capital from Menlo Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, and others

• Secure equity funding at 4x the company’s prior valuation

• Negotiate away $13+ million of liabilities to only $350,000 in cash & 1.3% equity.

• Analyze and operationally integrate 10+ acquisitions

Having led in companies ranging from 10 to 50,000 employees, secured financing from coastal VCs and Midwest PE firms alike, participated in over a dozen acquisitions, and commercialized solutions ranging from services to software in a broad array of industries – we’ve seen a lot. We’re not special, but we’re seasoned, and our clients appreciate our ability to help them avoid mistakes we learned to circumvent, over several decades of practice.

Common first-time challenges we’ve supported executives through:

• Replacing leadership personnel to match the evolving needs of the business

• Leading through tumultuous macroeconomic or recessionary environments

• Mitigating and remediating performance and culture issues with key personnel

• Vetting investors and potential acquisition opportunities to avoid misaligned interests

• Managing the intricacies of board and investor relationships

• Restructuring the financial liabilities of the business

For executives with wide managerial oversight, the challenge of operating the business today often competes with the need to think about where it is headed tomorrow. Our partnership not only provides forward-looking insight from our consultants, but it cements proactive thinking into the culture of the leadership team. The resources and expertise we provide help to expand executive capacity, creating newfound space for leaders to think critically about the future of their organizations.

By engaging us, our clients find more time for critical activities like:

• Thinking about – and defining – the 3, 5, and 10 year vision for their organization

• Engaging in capacity planning and identifying the need for critical hires or investments

• Developing and revisiting the growth and exit strategies for the business

• Stepping out of the minutia to assess Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, & Threats

• Procuring and nurturing transformative strategic partnerships

• Nurturing relationships with future customers, investors, and partners

• Investing in their own professional development and wellness, as leaders

Executives are often held responsible for a plethora of initiatives that fall beyond the capacity or competency of their immediate team. More often than not, due to bandwidth constraints, these initiatives perpetually live in a backlog, or in worse cases, make their way off of the backlog only by means of the executive working 60-70 hour weeks. By functioning as an integrated partner, clients value our willingness to work alongside them, in the trenches, to expand their bandwidth by spearheading mission-critical strategic initiatives that would otherwise fall on their plates.

Special initiatives can vary in size and scope, but some frequent examples include:

• Developing and implementing acquisition and integration plans

• Designing and implementing leadership & development programs

• Conducting market assessments, feasibility studies, and other research

• Preparing financial projections and pitch decks prior to raising capital or selling the business

• Developing a targeted list of acquirers and/or investors

• (Re)designing incentive compensation and/or stock plans

• Procuring a new technology stack to power the FP&A function