From Kansas City to the deal seat,
told in six chapters.

To go deeper on finance, I chased the fundamentals. Real estate was the best place I could find to learn modeling and valuation at a serious level — first at Ziegler Capital Markets, the #1 underwriter of continuing-care retirement communities (CCRCs), then at Green Street Advisors, the #1 shop covering REITs at the time. It was rigorous, quantitative, and unforgiving. But the excitement was elsewhere. I followed it back to technology at Thomas Weisel Partners, where I sat in a dual seat: originating convertible securities as an investment banking associate, and working alongside the prop desk pricing option-adjusted spreads for a convertible-bond arbitrage strategy.

1. Ziegler Capital Markets

   2002 — 2003

   Investment Banking Analyst, Senior Living

   Modeled, structured, and priced $200M+ of tax-advantaged revenue bonds at the #1-ranked CCRC underwriter — including the largest issuance in the industry's history at the time. Handled Associate-level responsibilities as an Analyst.

2. Green Street Advisors

   2003 — 2004

   Equity Research Associate, Hotels & REITs

   Supported the #1-ranked REIT research team; rebuilt the hotel group's models, cutting research publishing turnaround by 50%+.

3. Thomas Weisel Partners

   2004 — 2005

   IB Associate, Convertible Securities

   Dual seat: originated $2B+ of convertible bond offerings on the banking side and priced option-adjusted spreads for the prop desk's convertible arbitrage strategy. Executed $500M+ of debt-for-equity swaps and refinancings.

M&A at Ridgecrest sharpened the deal instinct — acquirer landscapes, merger models, business-development pitches. Leading SaaS equity research at Tier1 Research (later acquired by the 451 Group, then S&P) taught me how public markets listen to a software story. I launched coverage on Concur, NetSuite, and Salesforce, and authored some of the first deep dives on SaaS unit economics. Then I hung my own shingle. Over the next several years, I served as fractional FP&A leader to more than twenty companies — most of them on-premise businesses transitioning to on-demand SaaS — and, more importantly, helping them tell that story to boards, investors, and acquirers. The pattern I kept seeing: the winning narratives are always three things — clear, compelling, and credible.

The winning narratives are always three things: clear, compelling, and credible.

1. Ridgecrest Capital Partners

   2006 — 2007

   M&A Associate

   Built acquirer landscapes and merger models with full accretion-dilution analysis; led business development pitches to mid-market tech and consumer clients.

2. Tier1 Research (→ 451 Group → S&P)

   2007 — 2009

   Lead Equity Research Analyst, SaaS

   Launched coverage on Concur, NetSuite, and Salesforce.com. Authored some of the industry's first deep dives on SaaS efficiency metrics (CAC ratio, burn multiple). A contrarian read on SaaS delivered 59% annualized returns on long/short recommendations.

3. Independent Consulting

   2009 — 2013

   Fractional FP&A / Finance Partner

   Fractional finance partner to 20+ SaaS and high-growth companies — building the plans, systems, and investor narratives that carried them through fundraises, transitions, and exits. It's where the Three Cs became a working philosophy.

In 2014, I put the analytical toolkit to work as a founder. My wife recognized an unmet need for specialized training for prenatal and postpartum women, and we co-founded The Lotus Method. She built the practice; I brought the operating discipline, the financial model, and the investor story. We raised over $5M — half of it non-dilutive — and scaled to seven brick-and-mortar locations at peak. The company is now positioned for sale. I know what the founder's chair feels like: the 3 a.m. model stress, the board pitch, the recap, the exit. That empathy is hard to teach — and it is exactly what makes me credible across the table.

I know what the founder's chair feels like. That empathy is hard to teach.

• The Lotus Method — Capital

  2014 — 2019

  Co-founded with my wife; raised $5M+, half of it non-dilutive, to build a category-defining practice for prenatal and postpartum training and establish the operating model.

• The Lotus Method — Scale

  2019 — 2024

  Scaled to seven locations, launched the first digital offering, and added $4M in net annual revenue post-recap — returning to profitability and positioning for sale.

Teaching has been the throughline. At the Investment Banking Institute I launched the San Francisco location and taught finance and investment banking to analysts and associates; at iXperience I taught U.S. students in Cape Town, South Africa, and online. Every class forced me to take a complicated idea — a DCF, a convertible, a SaaS unit-economics story — and make it digestible. That skill is not a side note; it is the same skill required to build a board deck, a sell-side memo, or a management presentation.

The ability to make a complicated idea feel simple is not a side note; it is the craft.

• Investment Banking Institute

  Launched the San Francisco location; taught finance and investment banking to aspiring analysts and associates.

• iXperience

  Taught U.S. students in Cape Town and online — translating Wall Street concepts into practical frameworks.

This is why the next chapter is M&A advisory at Woodside Capital Partners — and I know exactly where I'd hunt. My lead lane is digital health, wellness, and femtech: I'm not covering it from the outside — I co-founded a women's health company, raised over $5M — half non-dilutive — scaled it to seven locations, and I am running its sale process right now. My second lane is the software making Main Street more efficient — vertical SaaS, payments, and embedded fintech for SMBs — where I bring something rare in a banker: I was the customer, running the booking, POS, payments, and payroll stack this category sells. My third lane is edtech and workforce learning, and it's a thesis: distribution is the scarcest asset in education — upstarts can build product but can't reach the district, the campus, or the enterprise L&D buyer — so the coming cycle belongs to consolidators acquiring their way to product breadth. I've seen that constraint from the inside launching the Investment Banking Institute's San Francisco operation and teaching within iXperience. Three lanes, three kinds of credibility: founder-seller, customer-operator, thesis-insider. And behind all three, the same revenue case — 25+ founder, board, and investor relationships in WCP's sweet spot: founder-led companies approaching their first process, who need their story made clear, compelling, and credible.

Three lanes, three kinds of credibility: I'm selling in the first, I was the customer in the second, and I've lived the constraint driving the third.

• Digital Health and Femtech

  Lead Lane

  Founder-operator credibility from building and selling in the digital health category. Direct overlap with WCP's wellness and behavioral health coverage.

• Main Street Tech: Vertical SaaS

  Buyer's-side perspective

  Customer-operator perspective on the software, payments, and embedded fintech running local businesses. SaaS unit-economics fluency from the research and fractional-FP&A years.

• EdTech & Workforce Learning

  A consolidation thesis

  Distribution is education's scarcest asset, and platforms that own the channel will acquire the product innovators who can't reach it. Insider's view from teaching for over 20 years.