Don is a Managing Director with more than two decades of advisory, accounting, and performance improvement experience with clients ranging from small startups to large multinational companies. He specializes in helping private equity backed organizations succeed, and has deep experience in analyzing complicated financial and technical issues, with a strategic focus on business impact. His background in finance, management, and IT enables him to identify and manage operational risks across an organization.
Don provides leadership for private equity-backed organizations seeking business re-engineering, back office transformation, and accelerated growth though M&A transactions. He has led financial and operational analytic and improvement initiatives, merger and integrations, financial planning and analysis, cash management, board and bank reporting, technology system selection, and IT infrastructure initiatives.
Don has significant experience working with private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies across a variety of complex situations. His experience includes advising sponsors pre-acquisition and assisting portfolio companies to execute on value creation strategies such as add-on acquisitions, operational improvement initiatives, business transformation, and prep for exit.
Before Accordion, Don was a Senior Managing Director at Ankura in Strategy & Performance. He was also a Managing Director while at CBIZ Private Equity Consulting, a leading operating and implementation partner for finance, accounting, IT, strategy, and financial leadership. There, Don led the national practice and was instrumental in building and growing the practice, leading complex consulting projects for private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies, and focusing on financial and operational transformation. Prior to CBIZ, Don was the VP of Accounting & Finance and Treasurer at CastleRock Security, a private equity-packed full-service alarm installation and monitoring business. He also acted as interim CFO for multiple portfolio companies in various industries. Before this, Don filled senior management roles at PwC, Accenture, and Arthur Andersen in Chicago.
Don graduated from Millikin University with a B.S. in accounting and is a Certified Public Accountant in the State of Illinois.
“It takes what it takes.” – Trevor Moawad