Advisory

Operating judgment, applied where it counts.

Advice for private equity sponsors and for the boards and CEOs of operating companies — from an operator who has run the turnaround himself, structured with the 9 Vectors so nothing material is left unexamined.

Who we advise

Private equity sponsors

Diligence through exit, on one model of the business.

Commercial and operational diligence, management assessment, the hundred-day plan, value-creation tracking, portfolio reviews and exit readiness — with the same 9 Vectors model from the CIM to the sale, and an AI deal workspace that seeds each portfolio company at close.

Two years inside Gemspring Capital as Operating Executive: investment thesis, sourcing, diligence and investment committee.

Corporations

Boards and CEOs at an inflection point.

Repositioning, post-merger integration, margin recovery, CEO evaluation and succession — and making the AI the company already pays for actually know the business.

Six CEO tenures, a five-company integration at Marchex, and an on-premise-to-cloud conversion of 3,000 customers at Everest Software.

Services

Five ways to engage.

01

Private equity operating advisory

From the CIM through diligence, the value-creation plan and exit readiness — one consistent model of the business across the whole hold.

Commercial and operational diligence · management assessment · value-creation plans · portfolio reviews · exit readiness

02

AI strategy and SLM formation

Giving a company’s AI a working memory of the business — a causal model of how it runs and a small language model formed from its own data — on TheGreyMatter.ai, the platform Edwin built.

AI estate review · use-case priorities · SLM formation · deal workspaces · AI governance for the board · How it works →

03

Transformation

Re-setting strategy, operations and execution when the business is not running the way it could — and measuring that it stays reset.

Diagnostic · priority setting · execution plan · KPI design · integration

04

CEO advisory

A sounding board for the hard calls: turnarounds, reorganizations, capital allocation and the first hundred days in a new seat.

First-100-day plans · operating cadence · leadership team design · board communication

05

Board advisory

Strategy, governance and CEO-succession conversations, framed by someone who has reported to a board as a public-company CEO and served on eight.

Board offsites · strategy reviews · technology and AI governance · CEO evaluation and succession

How an engagement runs

Insight, then action — in four moves.

01 · Assess

A 9 Vectors diagnostic of where the business really stands.

02 · Prioritize

The few moves that matter most, in the order that matters.

03 · Execute

Owners, cadence and decisions — run with leadership, not around it.

04 · Measure

Results tracked against the same model, quarter after quarter.

Track record

Infodata Systems
14×
Equity value; 11 consecutive profitable quarters after years of losses, funded entirely from operations
Astreya Partners
11×
Enterprise value, $20M → $220M, as revenue grew from $23M to a $150M run rate; the platform was acquired by Cognizant in 2026 for $634M
Marchex · Nasdaq: MCHX
2.5 years
To the first profitable year since 2013; gross margin 50% → 70%
Everest Software
−50%
Operating expense, with revenue up 26%; 3,000 customers moved to one cloud platform before the sale to Versata

Request a briefing

Bring the hard question. Leave with a point of view.