Middle Market Musings

Barbie Adler gives new meaning to the phrase “mystery date” with a star turn on Middle Market Musings.  Barbie is Founder and President of Selective Search, the nation’s preeminent luxury matchmaker.  Barbie traces her origin story from Chicagoland roots to Bradley University to early successes in public relations and executive search.  Her work experience led her to found Selective Search in 2000...

Ron Miller’s good judgment and even temper survive an appearance on Middle Market Musings.  Ron, an old friend to both Andy and Charlie, is Managing Director and Head of US Middle Market Investment Banking at CIBC.   Ron talks about his youth in Chicago, including early experience in the family clothing business.  The story migrates to Milwaukee, where Ron traces his early involvement in the Clear...

Chris is a Partner at Pacific Lake Capital, one of the leading investors in the search fund industry and currently investing out of its $317 million sixth fund. The Stanford Graduate School of Business alum shares stories of his 20 plus years of experience and how the industry has evolved over time. His journey began as a searcher who found, invested in, and ran VRI, a remote patient monitoring co...

The Middle Market Musings tour bus pulls into Western Pennsylvania for a lively episode with Steve Gurgovits, Managing Partner & Co-Founder of Tecum Capital.  Tecum is a multi-strategy investment firm focused on the lower middle market.  Steve gets into his upbringing and football exploits in Sharon, PA; the example his father set as a banker in that economically hard hit community, Steve’s ow...

Scott Estill runs out of excuses and ends up in the MMM studio.  Scott is partner and head of the New York office at Lancor, a national search and advisory firm.  Scott reviews his extensive early career in investment banking and how it evolved into Lancor’s distinctive private equity executive placement model.   Before that, the hosts get into Scott’s origin story, including his time producing fi...

Randy is vice chairman at Churchill Asset Management.  With over $50 billion of committed capital, Churchill provides customized financing solutions to U.S. middle market private equity firms and their portfolio companies across the capital structure. Randy is widely credited as one of the pioneers in providing loan syndications to private middle market companies and is founder/publisher of the Le...

Scratch golfer Pat Galleher ends up in the tangled fescue that is Middle Market Musings.  Pat is Managing Partner of Boxwood Partners, the middle market investment bank based in Richmond, VA and Jupiter, FL.  Pat details his youth in and around golf courses, including encounters with a young Tiger Woods, which compels Charlie to offer Pat and Andy a complicated hypothetical involving Tiger, prison...

David Walker is president and CEO of EBSCO, one of America’s largest family-owned private companies.  With approximately $3 billion in revenues, EBSCO traces its origins to a magazine subscription business founded by Elton B. Stephens in 1944.  David details EBSCO’s business interests today, comprising information services, diversified industrial and real estate holdings.  He also shares his perso...

Marty Mannion shows up and puts 40 years of leadership stature at risk.  Summit Partners is a pioneer in the private equity industry, with more than $32 billion invested to date.  Marty has been at Summit since 1985 and currently serves as Chair of the Board of Managers.   His storied path begins in modest surroundings in the Bronx, before formative experiences at Regis High School, Princeton (whe...

Since January, David Santoni has been Managing Director, Business Development at Audax Private Equity, now investing out of its seventh flagship fund, a $5.25 billion vehicle.  Before Audax, David was a well-known middle-market investment banker based in Minneapolis with several firms, notably Lazard Middle Market (dating back to its Goldsmith Agio Helms days), Hennepin Partners, and Prestwick Par...

Sir William Felix Browder provides a distinguished start to Season 4.  As CEO and Founder of Hermitage, Bill Browder became the largest portfolio investor in Russia.  He traces his family’s early connections to Russia, and then tells one of the singular tales of courage in this century.  Browder went from Russian insider to mortal Putin foe.  He was able to escape Russia, but his attorney and frie...

Les Alexander takes MMM on a picaresque back-and-forth between the lowlands of Louisiana and the rolling hills of Virginia.   Childhood in New Orleans, college at UVA, a private equity and business career back home, then a return to Charlottesville as an endowed professor.  The lively discussion covers such critical questions as the right way to say “New Orleans,” the best restaurant in Charlottes...

Another episode, another chat with a Navy pilot / SEAL team member / US-Senate candidate / private equity star / private company CEO….Gabriel Gomez stops by to talk about his boyhood in Washington state, his extraordinary military service, and his post-HBS success in business, including his most recent venture as CEO of O2X Human Performance, which provides science-backed training programs to hund...

Jeff Giles is the latest deal professional to run out of excuses and end up in the MMM studio. He is Executive Vice President for Corporate Development at Core & Main, a St. Louis-based publicly traded specialty distributor focused on water, wastewater, storm drainage and fire protection.  Andy and Charlie join Jeff in recounting his days as a private equity newbie. Since joining Core & Ma...

This episode features: a University of Missouri starting quarterback who tackled Brian Bosworth, a hardworking youthful entrepreneur, a standout networker in the M&A industry, a pioneer podcaster and a leader in the field of insurance / due diligence.   Not five guests!  Just one – Jeff Henningsen, President and CEO of Lockton Companies – Texas Series.  A veritable Ben Franklin.  The episode c...

Steve was the one “first time, long time” guest in the DealMax extravaganza.  Even so, he is as cool as the other side of the pillow in recounting his activities as TM’s head of sponsor coverage and the firm’s recent acquisition by Janney Montgomery Scott.   Steve and Andy trade friendly competitive observations on the Braves and Phillies while Charlie – totally  not influenced by current Red Sox...

If this were a Friends episode, it would be “The One Where Gretchen Shows Up With a Glass of Wine.”  Gretchen blows the doors off with insights into Avance’s deal activity, the current temperamental condition of the M&A market, and her own turn as DealMAX conference chair a few years ago.  A discussion of her “walk on” music at that event leads to Charlie, Andy and Gretchen all singing at diff...

Brent returns to the big stage for his first DealMax conference since assuming the reins as ACG’s CEO.  He shares some impressive numbers on this year’s event – more than 3,000 attendees and an estimated 35,000-40,000 meetings.  Then interesting discussion on how ACG is keeping pace with the industry’s desire for more informed and qualified interactions.  In “Gifford or Greenberg,” Brent asserts h...

Christina Pai is a partner at Fort Point Capital, a Boston-based private equity firm focused on service businesses with high growth potential.  This episode begins and ends with Christina and Charlie swapping captivating Boston sports insights.  In between, she charts her Massachusetts childhood, college at Dartmouth, and path to her current role at Fort Point.  Discussion ensues around the streng...

Mark Chesen is a founder and managing partner at SSG Capital Advisors, a special situations-focused investment bank that has completed more than 400 transactions since its founding in 2001.  Mark zips through growing up in Iowa, college at the University of Texas and an early stint in public accounting before turning to the wide world of investment banking.  He and the hosts chart SSG’s growth, it...

The Middle Market Musings tour bus rolls into southwestern Ohio for a discussion with Ashley Hess, Partner-in-Charge of Baker Hostetler’s Cincinnati office.  Ashley draws vivid stories out of a succession of stops in his journey:  Western Virginia boyhood, school at UVA and Washington & Lee, marriage and life as a young connector in the Cincinnati community and, finally, a demanding and varied...

This time around, Chrisanne Corbett classes up the proceedings.  Chrisanne is  Managing Director of KPMG Corporate Finance LLC, leading the Diversified Industrials Team, and co-leading the Private Equity Coverage Team. She starts off recalling a busy, promising childhood in Minnesota and Connecticut.  Andy and Charlie – rarely interested in the same thing at the same time – both come to full alert...

Jon Skinner is CEO of PSP Partners, a diversified private investment firm founded by former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker.  Jon is the latest financial honcho to miss his exit and end up in the Middle Market Musings recording complex with Andy and Charlie.  Jon reviews his path to his current role – childhood in suburban Boston, football and undergrad at Brown, law school at Boston Col...

Andy Souder grew up in a steel town and attended Notre Dame, but the similarities to “Rudy” end there.  Andy is vice president of acquisitions at RAF Equity, a family office turned private equity fund based in suburban Philadelphia.  Andy regales his old friends with stories of his own upbringing and early career  in commercial banking and law, then he and Andy Greenberg trade stories about Bob Fo...

Bob Whalen is CEO of HB Global, a $550-million revenues commercial specialty contracting firm based in Harrisburg, PA.  Bob talks about HB’s evolution since his acquisition of the business and its transition to ESOP ownership in 2008, as well as HB Capital, a private equity vehicle formed to acquire other businesses suited to similar management and ownership.  Some interesting discussion on valuat...