Accordion Announces New Operating Model to Support and Accelerate Growth

NEW YORK, OCTOBER 22, 2019 — Accordion, the private equity financial consulting and technology firm, today announced that it has formalized a new operating model to fuel growth across the business and seize its tremendous market opportunity. This new model reflects Accordion’s commitment to serve as the go-to partner in private equity for value creation.

“When Atul Aggarwal joined as President earlier this year, he brought a vision for how we could achieve our ambitious growth plans and address the opportunities and challenges of scale,” said Nick Leopard, Accordion CEO. “This new operating model is part of that vision. It will help us seize the outsized opportunity presented by an industry that is now elevating the role of value creation in a successful investment strategy.”

The new operating model expands Accordion’s practice areas, reflecting the market demand for services related to performance improvement, transaction execution, strategic finance, and financial accounting advisory services. In addition, Accordion has accelerated the pace of its geographic expansion – evolving from a bi-coastal firm to a larger team of over 120 finance and technology professionals in New York and San Francisco, and now Dallas, Charlotte, and Boston.

As part of the new model, Accordion has named new Practice Leads and Office Leads – all reporting to Aggarwal.

“Since our founding, Accordion’s mission has been to inspire the world’s best finance and technology professionals to drive transformational change in the private equity industry,” continued Leopard. “These best-in-class professionals and their new roles will help us more fully meet, and exceed, our ambitious objectives.”

The full list of new Practice and Office Leaders follows:

Practice Leaders:

• Sanjeev Parlikar, Strategic Finance
• Pamela Stern, Financial Accounting Advisory Services
• Matt Marcus, Transaction Execution
• Rishi Jain, Performance Improvement and Co-Head of Western Region

Office Leaders:

• Gary Moran, New York, Head of Northeast Region
• Hal Polley, San Francisco, Co-Head of Western Region

Practice Leaders:
Accordion Practice Leaders ensure their products and services are world-class and differentiated, shaped solely for private equity clients. Practice Leaders routinely work collaboratively on behalf of clients to help optimize and transform the finance function.

Sanjeev Parlikar, a New York-based Managing Director, has been tapped to lead the Strategic Finance practice. Pamela Stern, a Managing Director based in New York, has been promoted to lead the Financial Accounting Advisory Services practice. Matt Marcus, also based in New York, now leads the Transaction Execution practice. Finally, Rishi Jain has been promoted to Practice Leader for Performance Improvement. Based in San Francisco, Jain will also retain his role as Head of Western Region (now Co-Head alongside Hal Polley).

Office Leaders:
Accordion Office Leaders are responsible for the sponsors in their markets and work with their Managing Directors to bring the best of Accordion to each client. In addition to growing Accordion’s market share, they are committed to maintaining Accordion’s unique and strong people proposition.

Gary Moran, formerly the Practice Leader for Financial Accounting Advisory Services will now head Accordion’s Northeast Region. Hal Polley, formerly the Practice Lead for Strategic Finance, will lead the San Francisco office and co-head Accordion’s broader Western Region (alongside Jain).

In addition to changes to the organizational structure, the new operating model will involve a number of process improvements around talent management and client delivery.

“These changes will ensure the firm maintains its frontline obsession, which has made Accordion unique relative to other service providers,” concluded Aggarwal. “Growth companies like ours cannot achieve sustained, profitable growth without a robust scaling plan. This operating model is a key element of the plan and has been designed in a way that professionalizes the firm, without bureaucratizing it.”