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 “…

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…

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 priva…

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…

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 Charli…

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 Ch…

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 interacti…

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 …

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 …

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 co…

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 t…

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 …

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 h…

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 …

Brent Baxter is several months into his tenure as Chief Executive Officer of the Association for Corporate Growth, the premier trade organization serving the M&A deal making community. Brent shares his immediate vision and priorities for serving ACG’s membership, then delves into the path that brought him to this role. Childhood in western Pennsylv…

Jim Apple is partner and head of sourcing at The Sterling Group, an operationally focused private equity firm based in Houston. Jim hits the ground running with stories of a rich upbringing that included antique road shows and no TV in the house. Discussion culminates with a review of Sterling, its two current vehicles and model that includes seven…

Jim Andersen wakes up as if from a bad dream, and finds himself in conversation with Andy and Charlie. Jim is a managing partner and co-founder of Clearview Capital, a Stamford, CT based private equity fund that is often the first source of institutional capital for lower middle market owner/managers. Clearview is currently investing Fund V, an $85…

This time out, Rob Brown takes us inside Lincoln International LLC, one of the preeminent middle market investment banks. Rob joined Lincoln as one of its first employees in 1998, rising to become CEO in 2021. He charts his own and Lincoln’s development with great insight and good humor. Stick around for the second half, in which Rob, Andy and Char…

Hollywood settles the writer’s strike, the vast creative team supporting Middle Market Musings swings back into action, and we launch our third season with a standout guest! Nishen Radia is Senior Managing Director and Co-Head of M&A at B. Riley Securities. Nishen starts off with a panoramic tour of his well-traveled boyhood, including a stint sell…

Chris Burbach draws the black marble and finds himself on the podcast with Andy and Charlie. Chris is Co-founder, Partner and CEO of Fundamental Income, an institutionally backed firm that offers efficient real estate-based capital to business owners and buyers, and access to net lease real estate to investors. Chris explains when and how thinking …

Ted Kramer is the CEO of HKW, a private equity firm that traces its lineage to the early years of the 20th century. Ted not only shares an overview of his firm’s lineage, but also traces his own beginnings in northwestern Ohio and his immersion in hockey as a schoolboy, University of Michigan star, and eventually as a professional player in the ear…

Devin Mathews wanders out onto the Middle Market Musings stage and the audience goes wild at the cross-platform possibilities. Devin is co-founder of ParkerGale, a Chicago-based private equity fund focused on profitable technology investments, and co-originator of their successful podcast devoted to companies in the tech space. Devin entertains wit…

Parker catches the guys up on Cowen’s successful integration into TD since his last visit. He discusses the current market from the perspective of a larger firm with two dozen professionals on the ground in Vegas. Parker and Charlie trade insights on Jerry Garcia vs. Bob Weir while Andy weighs the possibility that this conversation will make him se…

Bruce shows his skills as M&A lawyer and raconteur have not diminished since his last visit. Bruce talks about his unusual intentionality in marketing off of a law firm platform at DealMAX and elsewhere. His account of a past encounter with Peyton Manning takes about half as long as an actual football game, but is materially amusing and perfectly c…

Michelle drops by to talk about how Crest Rock – a Denver-based PE fund founded in 2019 and devoted to software, tech and business services – set out to establish a market presence in the midst of the pandemic. She ignores the premise of “Charlie or Andy” but scores a direct on the hosts by answering, in response to a question about who you would c…

Andy and Charlie set their sights on David Welinsky, a young star in the private credit industry. (Young = younger than Charlie.) David is a managing director in capital markets at Monroe Capital, widely regarded as a premier boutique asset management firm specializing in direct lending amongst other strategies. David talks about his upbringing, Mo…

Not unlike the guy who drives through the carwash with his top down, Jay Weinstein gets the full Middle Market Musings treatment from the co-hosts. Jay is Vice Chair of Industries and Markets at the EisnerAmper accounting, tax and business advisory firm. Jay has seen all sides of the M&A business – from running accounting firms that merged into pro…

Gretchen Perkins inexplicably agrees to spend an hour with Andy and Charlie. Gretchen, partner at Avance Investment Management, is one of the best known and widely respected figures in the world of private equity business origination. Gretchen shares the story of Avance, a two-year-old equity fund differentiating itself through investments in rapid…

Charles K. Gifford is Chairman Emeritus of Bank of America. Chad visits the podcast to provide valuable perspective on the current tempests swirling around the global banking system. Son Charlie and co-host Andy are on best behavior with a guest who would be an incredible “get” under any circumstances. As CEO of the Bank of Boston, Chad had a front…

Andrea Auerbach of Cambridge Associates stops by Middle Market Musings to offer a master class in the trends defining the private equity asset class. Cambridge Associates is a leading advisor/portfolio manager to institutional investors. Andrea oversees a team directing $12-15 billion per year to private investments, co-investments, and secondary o…

Matt Carroll helps Andy and Charlie prove that Middle Market Musings is exactly as mature and insightful in 2023 as it was in 2022. Matt is a managing partner at WestView Capital Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm that recently closed on its $1 billion fifth fund. Matt has been a part of WestView since its inception in 2004. He charts the…

LA-based investment banking luminary Ed Bagdasarian misses the Slauson Cutoff and finds himself in the middle of an episode of Middle Market Musings. Ed is CEO of Intrepid Investment Bankers LLC, now part of MUFG. Ed begins with an extraordinary family story—he is of Armenian heritage, born in Romania, brought to the United States by his parents as…

Rusty Goodsell, CEO and Co-Founder of New Orchard LLC, joins us for a podcast all about culture – or as they say in Boston, “cultcha.” (Charlie doesn’t say that -- other Bostonians). New Orchard is an analytics company that helps business buyers and other clients more quickly assess organizational culture as part of their operational/investment dec…

Pete Stavros is a Partner & Co-Head of Americas Private Equity at KKR, as well as founder/chairman of Ownership Works, a nonprofit organization that partners with companies and investors to provide employees with the opportunity to build wealth at work. Pete and the guys discuss the role of global investment firms like KKR versus middle-market PE g…

Parker Weil is vice chair of investment banking at Cowen. He provides a lively excursion through three decades in the most successful echelons of M&A, beginning with his tenure as a junior banker during the “Liar’s Poker” era at Salomon. Parker views industry trends leading to his current role as vice chair and head of the group that encompasses sp…

Jeffrey Stevenson finds himself on the wrong side of town and becomes Charlie and Andy’s latest accomplice. Jeffrey is Managing Partner of VSS Capital Partners, a private investment firm that manages $4 billion in committed capital across eight funds. He recounts VSS’s early days as an M&A firm devoted to publishing/media, then the transitions into…

Tom Bohn, President and CEO of the Association for Corporate Growth, kicks off the fall season on Middle Market Musings. Tom discusses the state of mergers & acquisitions coming out of covid, his plans for the M&A industry’s largest trade association, and the business orientation he’s brought to trade group management. Most important, he engages in…

Tarrus Richardson takes Middle Market Musings on a panoramic tour of the deal-making life. Tarrus is Founder and CEO of IMB Partners, a Bethesda, MD private equity fund targeting utilities and government contracting suppliers. Andy and Charlie ride along as Tarrus starts with stories about growing up in a family business in Chicago. Other stops bef…

As co-founder of the Harris Williams investment bank, Chris Williams is one of the best known figures in private company M&A. Chris’s storied career hits the wall that is Middle Market Musings. He regales Charlie and Andy with tales from his early career, then moves on to Harris Williams’ path to being an industry standard bearer. We also cover Chr…

The Private Markets Club is a group of University Delaware business students devoted to learning more about and engaging in the world of private finance. In a lapse of good judgment, the PMC invited Andy and Charlie to come in as guests. The MMM hosts quiz one another about their own origin stories, then field sharp, informed questions from Keaton …

Jeri Harman gives Andy and Charlie a lesson in “emotional intelligence” – like building a swimming pool in the desert. Jeri is Founder and Chairman of Avante Capital Partners, a woman- and minority-owned private credit and structured equity fund. The discussion is a fast-paced tour of Jeri’s early career, the impetus to create her own fund and the …

Bill Tyson is Managing Director and Head of Mergers & Acquisitions at Fifth Third Bank. During our wide ranging discussion, Bill shares stories amassed from a 37 year career spanning his time as an M&A banker, a commercial lender, and a Capital Markets specialist. He discusses the importance of culture, and how personal relationships and building t…

Bruce Fenton takes on Andy and Charlie in a cage match for the ages! Bruce, the head of private equity at Troutman Pepper, traces his path to becoming a preeminent M&A attorney, assesses the professional landscape as represented by the combination of two storied law firms and gives his views on changes in the balance of power among actors competing…

Jon Lemelman, Riverside Partners and Classify. After nearly 20 years at Boston-based Riverside, Jon has co-founded Classify, a software application devoted to creating a smarter, stress-free digital workplace. Jon share’s his perspective on deal making at Riverside, a firm at the vanguard of private equity’s evolution to industry specialization. He…

Eugene Fama is the 2013 Nobel laureate in economic sciences, widely recognized as the “father of modern finance.” Professor Fama finds himself in the wrong part of town and ends up on a podcast with Andy and Charlie. Gene Fama is direct, funny, and generous in sharing insights on the evolution of financial markets dating back to his revolutionary e…

Joe Conte is the Head of Strategy and Corporate Development at Standish Management, a leading fund administrator. Joe was long a fixture in middle market M&A as a managing director at Lazard before taking a senior role at Standish last year. Joe traces the evolution of the field from his early career stops as an attorney and as a young banker at Go…

Jay Jester, partner at Plexus Capital, is the latest M&A luminary to spend an hour he’ll never get back with Andy and Charlie. Jay is well known as a leader in private equity’s evolution to more granular, industry-focused, relationship-based business development. He shares insights drawn from his prior experience at Audax Capital and his current fo…

Eric Zoller is the Founder and current Partner of Sixpoint Partners, one of the largest fund placement advisors serving the middle market private equity industry. Eric traces Sixpoint’s development as an early entrant in the industry through the company’s 2019 sale to PNC Bank. Charlie, Andy, Eric have a spirited discussion about core, non-outsourc…

Lauren Mulholland, Founding Partner of MiddleGround Capital, burns off an hour with Charlie and Andy. MiddleGround is an operationally focused private equity fund with more than $1.2 billion in assets under management. Lauren illuminates her own background in a business family, MiddleGround’s rapid growth since its formation in 2018, the actual dif…

Sean Mooney, Founder and CEO of BluWave, stops by. BluWave is a fast-growing provider of best-in-class resources to more than 500 private equity funds. Andy and Charlie drill into how BluWave evolved from Sean’s own background in private equity, the particulars of the business model, and what the business itself says about signature trends in priva…