Jim Southern

Jim is a Co-Founder and Managing Member of Pacific Lake Partners and a successful search fund entrepreneur. Once himself a beneficiary of the model, Jim launched the first search fund in 1984 under the mentorship of then Harvard Business School professor H. Irving Grousbeck. This fund resulted in the acquisition of Uniform Printing, a $43 million printer of specialty insurance documents. Jim served as the company’s CEO and Chairman for 10 years. Investor returns under Jim's tenure as CEO were 24x the acquisition capital.

Jim has invested in over 75 search funds as an individual investor and with Pacific Lake. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of AlphaCredit, Arizona College, and BEX Realty. He is often a guest speaker on the search fund model at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and Harvard Business School and is the subject of an HBS case on his first search fund acquisition. Jim holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and resides in Wolfeboro, NH, and Boston, MA.

Coley Andrews

Coley is the Managing Member and co-founder of Pacific Lake Partners, a firm focused exclusively on the search fund model. Since co-founding Pacific Lake in 2009 with search fund pioneer Jim Southern, Coley has worked with over 200 search funds worldwide. Pacific Lake has over $750 million dedicated exclusively to search fund investing.

Coley is a board member of multiple search fund companies including, Morningside Translations, IS Entrega, Inspired eLearning, Circle Surrogacy and is an observer at AlphaCredit.

Prior to forming Pacific Lake, Coley worked for Golden Gate Capital, a private equity firm in San Francisco, and in management consulting for The Parthenon Group. Coley graduated from Dartmouth College and has an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Coley, his wife Alisa, and their four children live outside Boston, MA.

Kevin Oxendine

Kevin is a Partner at Pacific Lake Partners where he brings experience as a successful executive and operator. Kevin works closely with search fund entrepreneurs throughout their search, acquisition and operating phases and is a board member of Emporos and Kantola. Prior to joining Pacific Lake in 2018, Kevin was an active Special LP. He brings special expertise to software and technology-enabled businesses given his industry experience.

Kevin is a two-time successful CEO/COO. At Wistia, a video SaaS company, Kevin led all business functions, including sales, finance, marketing, customer support, people operations, and business development. Over his three years at Wistia, the company grew from $8M to over to $30M in ARR before Kevin executed a PE-backed recapitalization. At Havit, a consulting firm, Kevin grew the firm from $6M to $36M in capitalized billings over three years.

Kevin graduated from the University of Maryland where he received the H.C. Byrd Award and earned an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business as an Arjay Miller Scholar. Kevin resides just outside of Boston, MA with his wife, Kate, and their two sons, Teddy and Chase.

Keith Gross

Keith is a Partner at Pacific Lake Partners. Since joining the firm, Keith has worked with over 75 search fund entrepreneurs and been involved in over 20 operating company acquisitions. Prior to joining Pacific Lake in 2015, Keith was an Associate at Hellman & Friedman in San Francisco. He began his career in the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs, where he worked on M&A and capital markets transactions.

Keith has worked closely with the entrepreneurs and Boards of Directors of several Pacific Lake portfolio companies, including Arizona College, Falcon Critical Care Transport, IS Logistica, Chronus, and Omatic.

Keith graduated as valedictorian from Hamilton College with a degree in mathematics and economics and earned his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Keith currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Tina.

Learn more at https://www.pacificlake.com/

WSC & Company is a private equity firm specializing in management buyouts, growth capital, equity recapitalizations, and mezzanine investments in small and medium size manufacturers, distributors and asset intensive services businesses, family or entrepreneur-owned businesses seeking succession plan or liquidity options, generational transitions, over-levered or capital-intensive businesses, and corporate divestitures. The firm does not invest in startups. It typically invests in business services, consumer services, value-added distribution, and building materials. It seeks to invest more than $5 million in companies with revenues more than $10 million and EBITDA more than $3 million. It also makes co investments and fund of fund investments. For co-investments, the firm usually invests between $1 million and $4 million in companies based in North America with revenues over $5 million and EBITDA over $1.5 million. The firm seeks to hold majority or minority positions in companies. WSC & Company is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Learn more at www.wscandcompany.com

Miramar Search Partners is the search fund investment platform of Miramar Equity Partners, a Dallas-based family office. Miramar seeks to partner with searchers to help them acquire and operate small businesses, and adds value by (1) sharing deal flow from its traditional private equity business, (2) providing advice and guidance based on its partners’ two decades of investing in small- and medium-sized businesses, and (3) investing capital for a time horizon that lines up with the vision of the executive team, not the life cycle of a fund.

Kyle Coots

Kyle co-founded Miramar Equity Partners in 2018. Prior to co-founding Miramar, Kyle spent nearly seven years in the private equity sector, most recently at RedBird Capital Partners, a growth equity firm that invests in close partnership with company founders and entrepreneurs. While working at RedBird, he was responsible for sourcing, executing, and managing investments in the business services and energy sectors. Before joining RedBird, Kyle focused heavily on investing in growth-oriented, middle market buyouts at Austin Ventures.

Prior to Austin Ventures, Kyle served as a Consultant at Bain & Company where he concentrated on turnarounds, growth strategies and performance improvement initiatives across a multitude of industries, such as natural resources, telecom, consumer products, business services and healthcare. Kyle was also previously an Analyst at TPG as well as an Associate at PwC.

Kyle graduated with a BBA in Accounting and Finance and an MPA from the University of Texas at Austin. He received his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is also a Certified Public Accountant and serves on the board of Rainbow Days Inc., a Dallas-based non-profit serving children in need.

Kyle lives in Dallas with his wife, Kyla. Kyle developed a strong affinity for the local sports teams, specifically the Texas Longhorns and the Dallas Stars, while growing up in Mansfield, and he can often be found at local sporting events with at least one of his and Kyla’s three children.

Kurt Leedy

Kurt Leedy co-founded Miramar Equity Partners in 2018 and leads the efforts of Miramar Search Partners. Prior to Miramar, Kurt spent more than 13 years at Ridgemont Equity Partners, a middle-market private equity firm with more than $2.5 billion of capital under management. At Ridgemont he was responsible for sourcing, executing, and managing investments in the technology, media, and telecommunications industries. Kurt started his career in the Dallas and Mexico City offices of Bain & Company, a leading strategy consulting firm, where he helped companies in a variety of industries tackle challenges related to growth and profit improvement. Kurt graduated with Highest Honors with a BBA in Finance and a BA in Spanish from the University of Texas at Austin. He received his MBA, with Honors, from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a Palmer Scholar. He is a CFA charterholder and is (or used to be) fluent in Spanish. Kurt lives in Dallas with his wife and two daughters. He is active as an alum of the McCombs School of Business and also serves on the board of Wesley Rankin Community Center, an organization providing education and support services to a community in West Dallas. In his spare time, Kurt enjoys reading, traveling, and riding motorcycles.

Learn more at https://miramarequity.com/

TTCER Partners is an investment partnership established by key founding team members and investors in Asurion, the world’s leading provider of technology protection and support services for mobile devices. We draw on a long history of operating and investing together to advise and collaborate with entrepreneurs with whom we have developed strong relationships. We invest only our own personal capital with a goal to drive superior long-term returns and help the leaders we work with build and grow enduring companies.

Gerald Risk

Gerald Risk most recently served as Vice Chairman of Asurion, the world’s largest provider of technology protection services, partnering with the world’s top companies and brands to serve over 250 million customers globally. Prior to serving as Vice Chairman, he served as Asurion’s President from 2009 to 2013 and Asurion’s Chief Financial Officer for the 10 years prior to that.

Before joining Asurion, Gerald helped a wide variety of clients, from Fortune 500 firms to early stage start-ups, execute their strategic and financial plans as an investment banker with Goldman, Sachs & Co. in San Francisco, Hong Kong and New York. He has also worked for Hambrecht and Quist and the private investment arm of Toronto Dominion Capital. Gerald is an active mentor of entrepreneurial leaders in the for-profit and non-profit worlds. In this capacity, he currently serves on the Board of Directors of Carillon Assisted Living (provider of assisted living services in the Southeast), HealthCPA (provider of medical expense management services for consumers), and QMC Telecom (cell tower operator in Brazil).

Gerald holds an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar and where he served as a case writer for Jack McDonald, the Stanford Investors Professor of Finance. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce with honors from Queen’s University in Canada where he was on the Dean’s List.

Sara Rosenthal

Sara joined TTCER as a Principal in 2017. Sara began her career in the fields of health policy research and healthcare management management consulting. After earning her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Sara pursued her interest in sustainable building by joining an urban infill development firm, where she helped secure over $75 million in acquisition capital to purchase and renovate multifamily buildings along the West Coast. Sara then served as principal of a Napa-based design build firm focused on green building projects, working alongside the CEO and founder. In 2010, Sara returned to the Stanford Graduate School of Business where she worked with Stanford faculty and entrepreneurs to develop entrepreneurship case studies, which are taught at the Stanford GSB and top-tier business schools around the world.

Futaleufu Partners is an investment firm that invests in search funds to find and acquire great businesses. Founded by search fund veteran David Dodson, Futaleufu works closely with the entrepreneurs we back in both the search phase and in operations post-acquisition.

David Dodson

David Dodson has been active for twenty-five years in the formation of new businesses through entrepreneurial acquisition. After graduating from the GSB, under the direction of Professor Irv Grousbeck, he wrote the original course material for search funds—then in its infancy. After one year as a case writer, David Dodson raised his own search fund, which led to the purchase of Smith Alarm Systems in 1989. He subsequently raised two more search funds to purchase an auto parts retailer and an environmental services firm. During this time, Mr. Dodson became an active investor in and board member of other search funds, investing in over forty search funds. Mr. Dodson has been a director and investor in twenty-one middle market companies.

He is currently on the board of: Teton Gravity Research, Penn Warranty, Wind River Environmental, Eyewitness Surveillance, Innflux LLC, and Carillon Assisted Living. He is also active in three non-profit boards: U.S. Fund for UNICEF (Regional), Project Healthy Children, and Sanku LLC. David Dodson currently divides his time between Stanford University and Project Healthy Children (a nonprofit enterprise with operations in Rwanda, Burundi, Nepal, Liberia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi), and a “double bottom line” enterprise Sanku, LLC, with operations in Tanzania. He is also completing his first novel. He has three daughters: Caroline, Rachel, and Hannah.

Susan Pohlmeyer

Susan Pohlmeyer is a principal at Futaleufu Partners, an investment fund formed by David Dodson to invest in search funds and search fund-acquired businesses. She works closely with search fund entrepreneurs during the diligence and acquisition phases of the search, and currently serves as a board observer for Datum Technologies. Prior to joining Futaleufu, she was a member of the investment team at Stanford Management Company, where she covered portfolio strategy as well as private equity investments. She started her career at JP Morgan in equity derivatives. Susan holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA from Dartmouth College.

Learn more at www.futaleufu-partners.com

Andrew Saltoun
Andrew is the founder of Saltoun Capital Partners (“SCP”), a family office focused on investing in vertical market software and search funds/ETA. Andrew’s focus on entrepreneurship began when he was the CEO of Integra Partners, a healthcare services company. Under Andrew’s leadership, Integra Partners scaled from 13 employees to over 200 and returned more than 10x investor capital. Since then, Andrew’s family office has been building a software portfolio through its principal investing efforts and, separately, has invested in 100+ entrepreneurs and over 50 operating companies in search/ETA. Andrew has held roles at Goldman Sachs and Vestar Capital Partners. He has been a guest lecturer at both Harvard Business School and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business on many occasions and has served on numerous boards.

Andrew is currently a director for CampMinder, Central Storage and Warehouse, and Technomotum. Andrew received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Emory University and an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

Learn more at https://www.saltouncapital.com/

Ryan and Lucas founded Brown Robin Partners in 2007 and acquired a co-location datacenter in 2009. They grew OnRamp over the course of 9 years and recently sold the business.

Ryan Robinson

Ryan served as Chairman and President of OnRamp after acquiring the business in 2009. Prior to that he was a managing partner at Brown Robin Capital. He started his career as an Analyst for Farallon Capital Management. He holds an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and his undergrad degree from The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania.

Lucas Braun

Lucas served as CEO of OnRamp after acquiring the business in 2009. Prior to that he was managing partner of Brown Robin Capital. He originally started his career in Mercer Management Consulting as an associate. He currently serves as a board member of Apex Dental Partners. He holds an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and his undergrad degree from Dartmouth College.

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Blake co-founded a search fund that acquired Planet DDS, a provider of dental practice management software. He and his business partner led the company for four years—increasing revenue six fold and growing the team from a dozen to 75—before partnering with a growth equity firm to accelerate its expansion. Prior to searching, Blake served as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps, with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He also worked for the U.S. State Department in Africa, and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. Blake has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Ryan graduated from Georgia Tech in 2010 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. Ryan was commissioned as a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy and served seven years on active duty, deploying four times in the Pacific. Later in his naval career, Ryan was selected to lead a public-private partnership to develop new cloud-based software for the Department of Defense.

Ryan left the Navy in 2017 to pursue his MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, graduating in 2020. Ryan started his own search fund before graduating and acquired Radiation Detection Company of Austin, TX in the summer following graduation; Ryan currently serves as CEO of RDC.