Accordion Taps Aggarwal as President

Accordion, a private equity financial consulting and technology firm, has named Atul Aggarwal as president. Prior to joining Accordion, Aggarwal was a partner at Bain & Company.

PRESS RELEASE

NEW YORK, April 30, 2019 — Accordion, the private equity financial consulting and technology firm, today announced that it has appointed Atul Aggarwal to the newly established position of President. A 20-year veteran of Bain & Company, Aggarwal will focus on helping the company achieve its ambitious growth plans, addressing both the opportunities and challenges of scale. Aggarwal will report to Accordion CEO and Founder, Nick Leopard.

“We’re proud of the firm we have built and the client company we keep,” said Leopard, “but, we also understand the growing – almost outsized – opportunity presented by a private equity industry that is now elevating the role of value creation in a successful investment strategy. We intend to seize on that growth opportunity, and will do so thoughtfully, by equipping our firm with the right tools to embrace expansion without sacrificing our culture or agility. Atul is the perfect person to help us scale that mountain.”

As a veteran of Bain & Company, Aggarwal has helped clients of varying sizes scale their businesses, using Bain’s Founder’s Mentality® and Full Potential Transformation playbooks. He has played various leadership roles in the Results Acceleration Practice, was a member of Bain’s Leadership Center of Excellence, and led the firm’s global recruiting efforts at Wharton business school and its new MBA global training program.

“I’m joining Accordion because I have a deep respect for this company, a strong admiration for its leadership, and a very real connection to its culture, which celebrates collaboration and rejects complexity,” said Aggarwal. “I’m here to make sure we maintain the model that has made the company so successful to date, while embracing the professionalization that must accompany scale. This is absolutely doable, but is a real balancing act that the Founder’s Mentality playbook is uniquely suited to support.”

Aggarwal will focus on maturing Accordion’s operations: strengthening the firm’s approach to talent management, ensuring unbeatable client delivery and customer experience, and productizing Accordion’s services and offerings. Added Aggarwal: “I like to say I’m here to help professionalize, not bureaucratize.”

Overseeing Accordion’s growth while mitigating the corresponding tradeoffs will be a critical priority for Aggarwal, particularly given the firm’s plans to accelerate its recent, significant pace of expansion. Accordion, which boasts a bi-coastal team of 120+ finance and technology professionals and a client roster of more than 150 fund sponsors and their portfolio companies, recently opened offices in San Francisco and Boston, extending the firm’s footprint beyond its New York headquarters.

Concluded Leopard: “Atul will not only help us navigate growth, his leadership will empower me to focus on critical CEO priorities: corporate strategy, high profile client partnerships, senior talent recruitment, and M&A opportunities. Importantly, it also enables a deeper focus on all aspects of our brand. As Accordion grows, we’re committed to keeping that brand synonymous with being the go-to partner for value creation among our clients, and an incredible career experience for our people.”

Aggarwal graduated with a BA from the University of Cambridge and received his MBA from the University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School.

About Accordion
Accordion is the go-to partner to the private equity community – driving value creation through financial consulting services and portfolio operations technology. Focused exclusively within the Office of the CFO, Accordion works alongside sponsor management teams to support initiatives across the entire finance function, including: operational and technical accounting, strategic FP&A, transaction execution, and performance improvement. With a bi-coastal team of finance and technology professionals, Accordion serves the world’s premier private equity firms and their portfolio companies from offices in New York, San Francisco, and Boston.