Pete Bassi

Managing Director

Professional Experience

Pete Bassi is a Managing Director/Partner of Verto Partners. He was the Chairman and President of Yum Restaurants International (YRI), overseeing all activities associated with the International Restaurant Division of Yum, including more than 12,000 KFC (leads McDonalds in Korea, China, Thailand, Malaysia), Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurants spread over approximately 100 countries. Under Pete's tenure, Yum opened more than 1,100 new units annually with system sales of approximately $10 billion.

Pete held other senior executive positions at YRI, including Executive Vice President and CFO. He was also CFO of Taco Bell, where he personally negotiated several key acquisitions as Pepsico was fostering a restaurant diversification strategy. Under his tenure, Taco Bell emerged from a niche Mexican food player to a powerful chain fueled by leading the industry with value initiatives. Pete also held a number of officer positions at Frito-Lay and Pizza Hut, as well as numerous planning roles at Pepsi-Cola U.S. and Pepsi-Cola International.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

Pete currently serve on the Board of Directors for BJ's Restaurants Inc. and Potbelly's. He was previously on the Board of Directors of The Pep Boys and El Pollo Loco. He received his BS in Mathematics and MBA in Finance from the University of Rhode Island.

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Randy Besosa

Managing Director

Professional Experience

Randy has more than 20 years of experience supporting private equity funds and small to mid-sized clients as hands-on C-level and senior management, functional area expert in finance, operations, sales and marketing, as well as business development and M&A. He has deployed to and advised the boards of both domestic and international portfolio companies.

In the area of Private Equity and M&A, Randy has been involved in raising over $100 million for PE investments. As part of the founding group at DirecPath, they raised $65 million of equity capital from Hicks Holdings, DirecTV, and pension funds. He then led the M&A team in successfully negotiating and closing purchase agreements, and managing all aspects of the legal, financial, and operational due diligence process, and successfully closed 5 acquisitions in the first year of operations. In 2004, he helped raise US$50 million for Fluviomar S.A. from Darby Overseas Investments, Cargill Value Investments, Exim Bank to fund and create the 2^nd largest barge operator on the Parana river system based out of Argentina. Post funding - Assisted in the acquisition of 2 other operators in Paraguay & Brazil, sourcing and purchasing of over $30 million in capital equipment, establishing policies and procedures, selection and implementation of an ERP/financial systems required to support the growing operation. At Citicorp Equity Investment. he was part of the mergers & acquisitions teams involved in over $2 billion in transactions for CATV, Media, Telecommunications and Internet assets during 1997-98. Partners included TCI International (TINTA), and Telefonica Internacional (TISA). Acquisitions included: (Torneos y Competencias, Pramer, Canal 9, Editorial Atlantida, Cablevision, VCC, Supercanal, Mandeville and various internet companies).

As an operating partner Randy’s corporate performance experience spans several industries and companies ranging from $10 – $500 million in revenue. In the last 4 years he has helped develop and implement a supplier management program for the largest publicly traded property management company (FSRV); as interim CFO, he steered a small company through 40% annual growth rates, increased operating margins and brought the company to sale by a strategic buyer, and recently turned around a mid-sized portfolio company for a private equity fund. He worked with Hicks Muse Tate and Furst (HMTF), a leading private equity firm, as an executive at Davivo Management Group, serving as an operating partner where he led implementation teams for ERP, billing and customer care systems and corporate IT infrastructure projects for their portfolio companies in Latin America. Randy was also the Regional Sales Director of Latin America for Kenan Systems, an enterprise billing and customer software solutions, responsible for enterprise software solution sales and corporate partnerships/alliances for the Latin America, Spain & Portugal markets. He successfully drove sales from $17 million to $70 million. The company was sold to Lucent Technology S.A. in 1999 for $1.4 billion over 4× revenue.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

Randy is on the Advisory Council for Take Stock in Children, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing mentorship and scholarships for low-income at-risk children in Florida. He earned both an undergraduate degree and MBA from Stanford University. He was a four-time US National Team member and NCAA All-American in men's gymnastics.

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Don Bibeault

Managing Director

Professional Experience

Don Bibeault, is one of the nation's leading turnaround practitioners. He is the first-ever recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award for corporate turnarounds from the Turnaround Management Association, the highest honor bestowed by the turnaround industry peers and experts. Don created the established frameworks for the underperforming company segment and is widely regarded as one of the world's experts on strategy and investment returns in the context of underperformance.

During a turnaround career that has spanned more than forty years, he has served as Chairman, CEO, or Chief Operating Officer of numerous corporations, including Pacific States Steel, PLM International, Best Pipe and Steel, Inc., Ironstone Group, Inc., American National Petroleum, Inc., Tyler-Dawson Supply, Iron Oak Supply Corporation and Bsquare Corporation. He was the special turnaround advisor to the CEOs of Silicon Graphics Inc., Varity Corporation (formerly Massey Ferguson), and Yipes Networks. He has been a portfolio company board director and corporate performance advisor to many of the nation's premier private equity firms such as TA Associates, and he has also been a special workout advisor to Bank of America, as well as the resident corporate performance improvement and turnaround expert for a leading global fund.

His best-selling book, Corporate Turnaround: How Managers Turn Losers Into Winners!, has been in print for thirty years and is widely regarded as the leading text in the field of turnaround management.

Virtually no other practitioner has both the sustained operating track record and major contributions to the intellectual capital of the turnaround industry. The conceptual framework for turnarounds—first articulated in his Ph.D. dissertation and later popularized in his best-selling book—set the stage for the growth of the professional field of turnaround management. They make up a large portion of the Certified Turnaround Professional Management Body of Knowledge curriculum.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

Don served as a commissioned officer in the US Army Combat Engineers during the Vietnam war. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rhode Island, an MBA from Columbia University, a Juris Doctor (honoris causa) and PhD from Golden Gate University. He has been a member of the Board of Overseers of Columbia Business School, was a trustee of Golden Gate University isand a member of the University of Rhode Island Business Advisory Board. Don was a Founding Director of the Turnaround Management Association and is amongst only a handful of practitioners worldwide to earn the designation CTP Emeritus.

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Greg Calaman

Managing Director

Professional Experience

Greg Calaman has two decades of company-building experience creating value at the nexus of lifesciences, healthcare, and technology. Before partnering with Duncan Steels and then recently bringing the firm together with Verto, Greg founded Wavelength Strategies – a transformations consulting firm that became a "go to" resource for public and private life sciences and technology companies, investment banks, and private investors in need of a different approach from that of traditional management consultants. At Wavelength, Greg provided strategic and commercial operations advice to the C-suite of a leading biorepository/personalized medicine company, strategic globalization guidance to the CIO of a major public generic pharmaceutical company on the heels of a multi-billion dollar acquisition, recruited and placed members of the executive team of a rising bioinformation systems company, and led the requirements specification and initial construction of a new business process and system to mitigate a multi-billion dollar commercial operations compliance risk for one of the world's top pharmaceutical companies.

Prior to Wavelength, Greg served as North American VP & GM for venture-backed lifesciences software company Definiens AG where he built the North American operation. At Pfizer, he reported to the CTO, and led and assisted in strategic re-engineering programs including support of several multi-billion dollar acquisitions and divestitures, the elimination of three quarters of a billion dollars in operating expense, and the elimination of a potentially catastrophic business continuity risk.

Earlier, Greg founded and ran iArmor, a health-tech venture to improve the lives of at-risk populations of outpatients with cardiovascular disease and to establish a new platform for therapeutic compliance and clinical trial support. Greg also served as regional services director for and built a services business at BEA Systems, earned his "top 8 firm" consulting qualifications working on large scale life sciences re-engineering projects at Computer Sciences Corporation, and served as a leader in the technology organization at leading investment bank Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette. Greg began his career as a surface warfare officer in the US Navy.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

Greg holds a BS in Aerospace Engineering/Astro Concentration from the US Naval Academy and some Wharton Executive Education. He serves on the Advisory Council to Executive Education at Drexel University.

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Harry Gray

Managing Director

Professional Experience

Harry Gray is a broadly-skilled executive with a unique range of general management, strategy, operations and finance capabilities. He has been a middle-market President/CEO, COO, CFO and large cap Board-level Advisor for investment firms such as Goldman Sachs Capital, UBS Capital, Arcapita, Hanseatic Capital, MB Financial and TA Associates. He has also been a private equity professional, investment banker and M&A specialist at leading global firms.

Harry is a Managing Director and Co-founder at Verto Partners. The firm's professionals have provided corporate strategy, operational improvement and management best practices advice to clients such as Kleiner Perkins, CS First Boston, Bass Family, Technology Crossover Ventures, JMI Equity, GE Capital, Hambrecht & Quist and NEA Associates. The Verto team includes Fortune 500 CEOs, Big Four partners, and McKinsey, Bain and BCG alumni. Harry was also Managing Director at RKG Osnos, the nation's oldest corporate performance advisory firm.

Harry was a private equity professional at Highland Capital, a $35 billion global investment firm. His responsibilities included governance, strategy development, corporate finance, and talent hiring, as well as hands-on deployment to spearhead growth and profitability initiatives and execute comprehensive portfolio company transformations.

Harry was an investment banker at two leading firms; first at Alex Brown & Sons, the nation's oldest investment bank, and then as a Vice President at Wasserstein Perella & Co., a premier mergers and acquisitions firm. His experiences included corporate strategy, M&A, valuation and fairness opinions, restructurings, and public and private capital markets transactions.

Harry's profit/loss leadership began in the US Navy, where he was head of numerous large operations encompassing logistics and procurement, food service, retailing and grocery, lodging and hospitality, and fleet and fuel management. In addition to specific combat-line responsibilities, he was a US Treasury Agent by way of a federal disbursing officer appointment, as well as a US Postal Officer and certified contracting officer. He was promoted early to Senior Supply Officer and handpicked for the US Navy's elite warship construction program at General Dynamics.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

Harry is a graduate of the US Naval Academy (BS) and Columbia Business School (MBA), where he was a Bibeault Scholar. He is a Resident Fellow of The University of Texas at Dallas, where he lectures on corporate transformations. He has provided expert testimony on corporate performance improvement, as well as guest presentations to the Harvard Business School Club, Technology Entrepreneurs Exchange (TeXchange) and Financial Executives International (FEI).

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Chad Greenway

Managing Director

Professional Experience

Chad Greenway has been involved in troubled company situations as a professional in numerous capacities, ranging from parachute executive and hands-on crisis manager to debtor-side and board-level advisor to principal investor for the past decade. His experiences not only span the continuum of distressed venues, from crisis and cash preservation to underperformance and growth acceleration, but he has also provided strategic, financial and capital markets advisory support to the boards of numerous public and private companies, ranging from early-stage and middle market growth companies to the Fortune 1000. Chad has been a corporate performance improvement and restructuring advisor to leading private equity firms such as TA Associates, JMI Equity and Technology Crossover Ventures, including a parachute executive for TA Associates. He has also provided Adjunct-CFO leadership to distressed clients.

Chad was a Principal at MHT Partners, L.P., a leading middle-market-focused merchant bank founded by Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette (DLJ) and McKinsey veterans. He was also an investment and restructuring banker at Wasserstein Perella & Co., a premier merger, acquisitions and restructuring investment bank. His experiences at Wasserstein Perella included corporate strategy, takeover defense, special committee advice, public, private and distressed M&A, fairness opinions, as well as public and private capital markets transactions. His restructuring scope was broad, including comprehensive board-level strategic and financial advisory services for a number of firms, including global conglomerates such as McDermott International and Halliburton as they negotiated complex multi-billion dollar asbestos liability settlements. Chad's responsibilities included the formation of strategic alternatives for clients, implementation of takeover defense strategies, providing extensive valuation expertise for a wide range of industries and complex transactions and formulating capital markets recommendations for public and private clients.

Chad began his career in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group at Banc of America Securities, providing board-level advice to a number of clients on strategy, buy-side, sell-side and private placement transactions as well as transaction fairness opinions. His clients included a range of publicly-traded and privately-held industrial companies.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

He is a graduate of Texas Christian University, where he earned a B.B.A. in Finance and Accounting. He also was sponsored by Wasserstein Perella at INSEAD University in Fontainebleau, France.

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Bill Hass

Managing Director

Professional Experience

Bill Hass is a Certified Turnaround Professional, a past National Chairman of the Turnaround Management Association (TMA), and recipient of the TMA's Outstanding Individual Contribution Award. Bill was instrumental in developing TMA international's Troubled Loan Workout Program.

Bill has more than 25 years of experience with turnaround and strategy clients, including both healthy and distressed Fortune 500 companies, such as Allstate Insurance, Baxter International, LTV, National Steel, Continental Airlines, as well as a variety of smaller public and privately-held companies such as Jiffy Lube, Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel, Florida Steel, Cross & Trecker, and Specialty Equipment. Bill's industry experience is broad based and includes retailers and consumer and industrial manufacturers such as: valve manufacturers, mini-mills, homebuilders, publishers, newspapers, automotive suppliers, machine tools and electronics.

Bill is CEO of TeamWork Technologies, a consulting and research firm in Chicago. Prior to launching TeamWork Technologies, Bill's consulting career spanned work at two of the Big Four accounting firms, including Partner at Ernst & Young, where he was a leader in both the Special Services, Strategy and Restructuring Groups. He focuses on turnaround strategies, failure prediction, strategic options analysis and valuation, corporate renewal and dramatic change. Bill co-authored Building Value Through Strategy, Risk Assessment and Renewal (600 pages, 2006, CCH) and The Private Equity Edge: How Private Equity Players and the World's Top Companies Build Value and Wealth (440 pages, 2009, McGraw-Hill). He is a frequent contributor to The Journal of Corporate Renewal and The Journal of Private Equity.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

Bill earned an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago's Booth Graduate School of Business and a B.S. in Engineering Systems Analysis and Operations Research with Highest Honors from the University of Illinois-Chicago. He is a former director of the University of Illinois Alumni Association and Chairman of the College of Engineering Industrial Advisory Board. He served as Director and VP Education of the Association of Certified Turnaround Professionals. He is also an inventor with US and Foreign Patents.

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Richard (Dick) Lindenmuth

Managing Director

Professional Experience

Richard (Dick) Lindenmuth has been a corporate performance advisor and Chief Executive Officer in a number of industries, with business models ranging from high-technology and services to heavy- and basic-industries. He has more than 30 years general management experience in domestic and international operations, and he is noted for his comprehensive execution skills in both high-growth and distressed environments.

Dick has advised many of the nation's premiere private equity and investment firms. For Highland Capital Management, one of the world's largest distressed investment funds, he was a primary crisis manager and corporate performance executive. Dick has served as CEO for more than ten companies and corporate performance advisor to numerous others. A short list of his executive roles includes Amcast Corporation, Quantegy and number of corporate performance leadership positions for global banks and private equity firms.

Dick's corporate leadership experiences are broad and international. He began his career at the Singer Sewing Machine Company in treasury and international finance, where he advanced rapidly to General Manager of The Middle East and Africa. He was also the Director of International Operations for Bendix Automotive, where he helped spearhead industry-changing joint ventures, such as RENEX (Renault and Bendix) and brake manufacturing operations in Korea for Hyundai before the Hyundai automobiles were imported into the USA. He also forged the acquired technology companies that were part of Burroughs (now Unisys) into one strategic unit.

He was President of ITT's Business and Consumer Communications Group, where he led 20,000 employees through rapid deregulation and grew the revenues four fold to record profitably in record time. After his successful turnaround at ITT, the company was sold and is now part of Alcatel.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

He is an avid athlete, having played professional baseball and achieving a black belt in several martial arts. He enjoys flying, and occasionally volunteers as a licensed commercial pilot for Piedmont Aviation. Dick speaks fluent Italian and French and is conversational in other languages, which he acquired throughout his multi-decade international career.

Dick earned his MBA at the Wharton School and is a US Navy special operations veteran.

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Dick Redden

Managing Director

Professional Experience

Dick Redden is a nationally recognized turnaround expert, with more than 40 years experience in operations, marketing, and finance, and a very successful track record of general and interim management, profit improvement and strategic repositioning in numerous companies.

Dick has been the Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Operating Officer of two Fortune 500 companies and has led more than twenty successful crisis-to profitability turnarounds as "Turnaround CEO" in nine industries. He has also served as board-level adjunct to the CEO or Chief Restructuring Officer in the reorganization and return-to-profitability of twelve companies in seven industries, including portfolio companies of leading investment firms such as Highland Capital. Throughout his career in turnaround advisory, Dick has spearheaded a number of successful corporate divestures.

Dick has been sought after repeatedly for his governance on the board of both public and private companies, including directorship of seventeen companies in packaging, banking, real-estate, textiles, apparel, plastics, medical services, consumer products, telecommunications, and civic and charity organizations.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

In his early career, he founded, grew and sold a successful textile and apparel company. He is an engineering graduate of North Carolina State University. As a regular Army officer and Distinguished Military Graduate in the US Army, he was in a number of combat units and received the Bronze Star in Vietnam.

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Dr. William S. Russell

Managing Director

Professional Experience

William S. Russell’s most recent positions have been in the role of Chief Operating Officer for Primary Management Resources (PMR), a consulting company in the healthcare field specializing in IT conversions and overall transformations of healthcare clinics, and for Take Stock in Children (TSIC), a Florida-based non-profit organization, which helps low-income children succeed in life by providing college scholarships and other long-term support. Dr. Russell’s responsibilities included short- and long-term strategy, managing corporate office operations including finances, information technology and HR in addition to field operations in dozens of client locations.

Dr. Russell also has experience as a consultant at McKinsey & Company where he gained expertise in generating and evaluating strategic options for Fortune 500 clients, developing and implementing business-building strategies, building and refining business models, assessing market and competitive landscapes, and developing rigorous financial models focusing on budget management and cost-reduction strategies.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

Dr. Russell spent 8 years as an academic on the faculty of Columbia University in New York and the University of California, Berkeley. He worked alongside NASA scientists on a daily basis on cutting edge mathematical-computational modeling. Dr. Russell holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Virginia and a B.Sc. (with Honors) in Mathematics from Heriot-Watt University in Scotland.

Dr. Russell is also a former international athlete having played for, captained, and coached the USA National Rugby Team. He is also a founding member of the board of Play Rugby USA, the national youth rugby organization in the USA.

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Duncan Steels

Managing Director

Professional Experience

Duncan Steels' 20-year business career has focused on a range of business transformations and start-ups. His results-focused leadership has delivered substantial top and bottom line results for a broad size range of businesses in the technology, healthcare, and financial services industries. Duncan founded Graeme Partners, a transformational consulting firm, later joining forces with Greg Calaman under the Wavelength Strategies banner to create a powerful transformation brand.

Working directly with the Chairman & CEO of a $5B, fast-growing public information technology, consulting and BPO company, Duncan recently led an overall transformation designed to re-position the company for future leadership. Consulting to a Global CIO of one of the world's leading life insurers, Duncan ran the transformation of a $1.5B technology group saving $300M and delivering other significant performance improvements. At Pfizer, Duncan led numerous multi-million dollar business and technology transformations including governance definition and implementation, field force realignments, and fundamental changes to the commercial operations platforms.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

Earlier in his career, Duncan served as head of technology and projects for a private equity-sponsored trust company and then went on to co-found a trust company as head of operations. Prior to this, Duncan served as a program leader at PA Consulting. Duncan started his career in the UK as a program and project manager for large scale engineering projects. Duncan holds a BEng (Hons) in Engineering from Leeds University in the UK.

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John Whitney

Managing Director

Professional Experience

John Whitney is a nationally recognized turnaround expert and has been a Chief Executive Officer or Board Member of several corporations such as Church and Dwight, Pathmark Stores, Turner Corporation (AMEX), Atchison Casting Corp. (NYSE) and the Newsbank Corporation.

John's corporate performance improvement clients include Alcoa Corp., Wickes Lumber, Rodale Press, Sunstar, Inc. (Osaka, Japan), the Zimmer Division of Bristol-Myers Squibb, the Lab Glass Division of Corning, Inc., Merck & Co., W.R. Grace Corporation, The Nashua Corporation, IBM Corporation, John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance, Aetna Insurance, Rhone Poulenc, Azko Nobel, Chemical Bank (Chase), The Forum Corporation, Premier Health Alliance, The Barnes Group, Inc., as well as others.

John is currently the Burnett Family Chair of Leadership in the Cameron School of Business at the University of St. Thomas. He is a Professor Emeritus at the Columbia Business School, where he was Executive Director of the Deming Center for Quality Management. He was also Associate Dean of the Harvard Business School. John has been a mentor to many business leaders, and was named by Business Week as "Columbia Business School's most outstanding professor".

His first book, Taking Charge: A Management Guide to Turnarounds and Troubled Companies, has been characterized as a "Bible" in the turnaround business. He is also author of The Economics Of Trust and Power Plays: Shakespeare's Lessons in Leadership and Management, as well as numerous articles that have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, CFO Magazine, and the AMA Journal.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

John is a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Tulsa and received his MBA from the Harvard Business School. He was chairman of the Harvard Business School Club of greater New York and a member of the Executive Council of the Harvard Business School.

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Lance P. Wimmer

Managing Director

Professional Experience

Lance P. Wimmer’s career spans Board of Director and CEO roles, corporate planning and strategy, M&A and finance in a cross-section of business environments that include Booz, Allen & Hamilton, US Steel, Swift Foods and Lenox China as well as a multitude of middle market companies. He holds graduate degrees in engineering and business.

Lance was Founder and Managing Director of Wimmer Associates, Inc. and recently affiliated with Verto Partners. Wimmer Associates was formed in 1998 to assist Boards of Directors, equity firms and management teams by significantly enhancing the shareholder value. Early engagements involved raising over $45 million to fund businesses in electronics, health care, communications, retail, and other industries.

Previously Lance managed the Southwest Region for a leading national restructuring consulting firm. His assignments included lead responsibility as CEO for viability analysis, market and product strategy, operations restructuring plans and improvements, cash flow enhancement and refinancing. He also led operations teams that assisted management with successful negotiations with secured and unsecured creditors, unions, and new investors. He built relationships with major lending institutions including Citicorp, Bank of America/LaSalle, JPMorgan Chase, CIT, Wells Fargo/Wachovia, Merrill Lynch and Prudential among others.

Since then, Lance has gained a reputation for the development and application of simple, yet incisive analytical methodologies that get results. Engagements have included management leadership and advisory roles in a wide variety of industries including manufacturing, automotive/trucking, food processing, distribution, consumer goods, retail, franchising and business services.

Lance has been “hands-on” in over 50 client engagements. A sampling follows:

• $500 million CompuAdd, CRO, engaged by owner; Wells Fargo as agent for three banks; required taking into Chapter 11 to shed leases of an ill-fated retail operation; restructured and exited; banks exited whole and owner retained a majority equity position.
• $250 million Blackman & Mooring, flood & fire disaster restoration company, CRO advisory, engaged by owners; Bank of America commercial loan on the "watch list"; defined and implemented a successful strategic redirection of this consumer services company; BofA retained the credit and owners retained their position.
• $275 million Warren Electric, distributor, BofA advisory role, underperforming commercial loan; made sweeping operations change recommendations related to severly obsolete inventory; changes unheeded and collateral deteriorated over 8 months; funding was ceased and bank exited whole; company liquidated.
• $250 million Crowley Milner, CEO, Schotenstein-owned 40 location department store chain, engaged by Board of Directors to assess and then installed as CEO; chain liquidated and sold
• $150 million Scholl Forest Industries, BofA advisory role; we guided Scholl Forest Industries, a Houston based home building products distributor, through the 2008-2009 declining housing cycle. By expediently implementing cost reductions the Company was able to manage cash resources and avoid liquidity problems. Critical decisions were recommended to “mothball” a division of the company and drastically reduce operations of another division to conserve cash in order to rebuild the business when the housing industry would stabilize and revive. Management implemented these decisions, paid down its asset based secured loan and retained its facilities and continues to operate in a substantially reduced capacity.
• $100 million injection molded products, CEO advisory, engaged by owner; worked with management to define and implement executive leadership management changes and a strategic re-direction...existing lender refinanced the company and owners retained their equity stake.
• $100 million IT staffing company, CRO, appointed by the Board of Directors and owner, strategic re-focusing of the business to improve gross margins, settled legal actions of disgruntled terminated employees, developed and maintained the 90 day cash model, secured replacement lenders, hired replacement management team; company has survived and thrived and the owner's enterprise value was restored.

As President of $4.2 billion Swift Independent Corporation, a leading food and distribution LBO, he successfully managed the cash flow enhancement, organizational development and strategic re-direction of the company. He later played a lead role with the equity sponsor in negotiating Swift’s sale for over seven times the original LBO purchase price in just 3½ years.

Prior to that, Lance was Vice President, Marketing of Curtis Mathes Corporation, a privately held $300 million manufacturer and retailer of televisions and electronics products. There he focused on strategy implementation, marketing, and new product development, while converting the company to a retail franchise system. He had responsibility for 650 retail locations nationwide.

Before Curtis Mathes, Lance was with Lenox, Inc., a leading manufacturer and marketer of consumer goods. Over a period of eight years, he was President and General Manager of three Lenox subsidiaries. He implemented a company-wide strategic planning system that led to dramatic improvements in growth and profitability and a four-fold increase in the company’s stock price. He led the acquisition effort and became President of Keepsake, a leading diamond jewelry manufacturer, distributor and franchise retailer.

Lance began his career with U.S. Steel in financial planning, and later joined Booz, Allen & Hamilton to assist clients in both industrial and consumer markets in mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and general management consulting.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

Lance received both his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University. Later, he attended Carnegie-Mellon University as a U.S. Steel Fellow, where he earned a Master of Science degree in Industrial Administration. Lance also served as President, TMA - Dallas Chapter and remains active as a Director. In 2001 he was nominated for “Turnaround Manager of the Year”.

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Carl Youngman

Managing Director

Professional Experience

Carl Youngman is respected as one of the deans of corporate growth and renewal in America. For more than thirty-five years he has been helping management team, investors and creditors of public and private companies maximize their operational and financial opportunities. While he is frequently tapped for "due diligence" in support of acquisitions, he is one of the nation's leading "hands-on" practitioners, with roles ranging from active director to trusted advisor to mentor to the CEO—always with an emphasis on leadership and execution, rather than report writing.

Carl has been involved with performance improvement of more than 250 companies. He has been CEO, President and Director of more than 50, including Chairman of the Audit and Compensation Committees for NYSE companies. He is also regarded a financial expert as defined by Sarbanes-Oxley.

Carl is regarded as one of the top brand resuscitation experts, guiding many well-know firm such as: Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc.; Vie de France Corporation; Au Bon Pain; Inc.; Omni Facility Services of Canada, Inc.; Uniscribe Professional Services, Inc.; Ultimate Franchise Systems, Inc.; Food Research Corporation; Red River Barbeque and Grill; Boston Chicken (c/k/a Boston Market); Tony Maroni's; Champions Sports, Inc.; Tabi Corp.; Cotton Ginny; Jreck Subs Group, Inc.; Mountain Mike's Pizza; Cuisine Solutions, Inc.; Hub Mail; The Sun-Times Company; Bonner-Vawter Printing Company; The Concord Group; and Bertram Yachts.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

Carl has a BS in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and his MBA from Harvard Business School. He is a frequent speaker in academic and business circles throughout the United States, as well as a member of the World Presidents' Organization (WPOer), a lecturer at Babson College and a trustee of Lesley University.

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John Zombolas

Managing Director

Professional Experience

John Zombolas is a seasoned finance and management professional, investor and operator with extensive experience in private equity, investment banking, investment management, and operations consulting.  John can be characterized as a results-driven serial entrepreneur with a talent for maximizing value extraction from available resources and driving growth through both organic and acquisitive means.  He is a proven team leader, project manager, and business developer with a “high-touch, high-quality” approach to client relations and service.  As an M&A specialist, John engages in all aspects of project management and deal execution, including target search, due diligence, valuation and financial modeling, financing, fundraising, and negotiation to definitive agreement. 

Prior to joining Verto Partners, John was the co-founder and Managing Director of Promethean Strategies, which delivered financial and strategic guidance, M&A advisory, debt/equity placement, operations improvement, turnaround, and management consulting services to lower middle market companies.  At Promethean, John assisted clients in a multitude of industries and sectors across the country, with a heavy emphasis in manufacturing and financial/professional services.  His efforts in growth strategy implementation, turnaround consulting, interim C-level management, performance improvement, deal consummation, and post-merger integration realized over $3 billion in capital value creation to his various clients.

John is also an active private equity investor and operator who has owned several manufacturing companies in the U.S. and Europe.  He provides strategic direction to these companies and has held management roles within them in order to drive sales growth or lead improvement initiatives.

Prior to his private equity efforts, John co-founded an institutional investment consulting firm, which he subsequently helped develop to reach more than $8 billion in assets under management.  In this capacity, John consulted on the full spectrum of asset classes and administrative functions to middle market retirement plans, foundations, and endowments.  These activities continued the asset management practice he had begun as a Senior Vice President with Kidder, Peabody & Co., where he also served as a Vice President of the Asset Consulting Group, Director of the Pension Fund Services Group, and an investment banking associate.  Additionally, John has held positions in asset management and financial analysis at other Fortune 100 companies, including General Electric and the Walt Disney Company.

 

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

John received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford University.  As a proponent of responsible corporate governance, he has maintained board seats for various middle market manufacturing, technology, and professional service companies throughout his career.  He is currently Chairman of the Board for the Illinois Manufacturing Foundation, a not-for-profit entity he co-founded focused on vocational training to low-income communities.  He is also a member of the Alliance of Merger & Acquisition Advisors and the Association for Corporate Growth.

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Jay Lucas

Strategic Partner

Professional Experience

Jay Lucas is the Chairman and Managing Partner of The Lucas Group, and over the past twenty-five years, has helped numerous executives, investors and management teams set their strategic direction and grow their businesses.

Prior to founding The Lucas Group, Jay was a Partner at Bain & Company, a leading international management consulting firm. While at Bain & Company, Jay led assignments for a number of Fortune 500 clients, including companies in the consumer products, food and beverage and information industries.

Jay also was one of the Founders of Bain's consulting practice to Leveraged Buyout Funds and their portfolio companies. He has developed The Lucas Group into one of the preeminent private equity advisory firms in the nation.

Through his work, Jay has developed a depth of experience in several industry sectors including consumer products, manufacturing, distribution, pharmaceuticals, business services and information industries. Further, beyond helping clients in these sectors with Corporate Strategy, Jay has also organized and led numerous client and The Lucas Group teams in the effort to 'go get results' - including initiatives for major new sources of revenue and profit improvement - as well as advising clients on more than one hundred acquisitions, joint ventures and related transactions.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

After graduating from Yale College, Jay studied at Oxford as a Marshall Scholar. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School, his JD from the Harvard Law School and a Masters from The Fletcher School at Tufts.

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Kaihan Krippendorff

Strategic Partner

Professional Experience

Kaihan Krippendorff is the creator of The Fourth Option™ approach, a strategic methodology that teaches executives and businesses how to seize opportunities others ignore, unlock innovation, and build strategic thinking skills.

A former consultant with McKinsey & Co., Kaihan has spent over a decade studying corporate conflict. He is the author of three business strategy books – "The Way of Innovation," "The Art of the Advantage," and "Hide a Dagger Behind a Smile." Each text delves into the keys to true competitiveness and innovation.

Kaihan identifies mental patterns applied by great military strategists – from Sun Tzu to John Boyd – and applies those strategies to modern breakthrough companies, such as Apple, Whole Foods, and Rosetta Stone.

An expert blogger with FastCompany.com, Kaihan has also been featured in key business media outlets, including BusinessWeek, The Miami-Herald, Harvard Business Review, National Public Radio, and Bloomberg Radio. He also presents his ideas and theories at conferences around the world. By teaching participants that agility and flexibility are more important than strength and resources, Kaihan shows that with creativity, companies can consistently outthink their competition with ease.

Kaihan works regularly with ambitious large and medium-sized corporations including Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and Johnson & Johnson. He has delivered keynote speeches for organizations, such as Motorola, Schering-Plough, Colgate-Palmolive, Fortune Magazine, Harvard Business Review, the Society of Human Resource Managers, the Entrepreneurs Organization, and The Asia Society, that motivate participants to unleash their strategic creativity to better their organizations. He also regularly conducts programs as a faculty member of Wharton Executive Education.

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

Beyond his research into Eastern military tactics and his own entrepreneurial success, Kaihan has master's degrees in business administration from Columbia Business School and London Business School, a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering. Kaihan is fluent in English with conversational command of Spanish and German.

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William E. Maya

Managing Director

Professional Experience

As a Chief Executive, Bill Maya has over 26 years of hands-on operating experience.  He is a result driven executive with creative problem solving capabilities and is extraordinarily adept at identifying, fixing and capitalizing on broken or underperforming business opportunities. As an intuitive leader, he is astute at restructuring operations for growth & profitability and has a strong record of proven success with demonstrated abilities. Considered a strategist and skilled negotiator, he has on numerous occasions managed “change and crises” effectively through several troubled situations, then drives innovation to create growth that delivers bottom-line results.

Augmenting his executive “company building” skill set, Bill has wide-ranging Board and Chairman level experience that effectively guides and communicates strategic vision to senior management teams while building consensus that drives organizations to success.

Having significant experience with private equity, venture funds and investment banks, his leadership spans turnaround and high growth environments, and has advised and operated public and private companies in both the domestic and international markets.

Although Bill’s experience spans several industries, he has particular core strengths and expertise in the Life Sciences and Healthcare Technologies.  He also has wide-ranging Software Industry experiences having completed a number of successful transactions.

 

Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations

Bill currently serves on the following Board of Directors: Axis Technical Group, OrthAlign Inc. and Osseon Therapeutics.  He received his BS in Biology from St. Joseph’s University and is an active supporter of the U.S. Marines Wounded Warriors Program.

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