How to Build a Successful Acquisition Engine

David co-founded Western Reserve Partners in 2004, which was acquired by Citizens in 2017, and has more than 25 years of experience advising middle market companies in mergers and acquisitions and capital raising across a wide range of industries. Prior to co-founding Western Reserve Partners, he was a Managing Director at KeyBanc Capital Markets and Manager of Consumer Investment Banking at McDonald Investments. David started his career at Ernst & Young, where he provided financial consulting and audit services to middle market companies.

Rich currently leads the Tax and Treasury functions for Matthews International and its subsidiaries.  Additionally, Rich is the corporate function lead for Matthews’ project management office (“PMO”) where he provides strategic advice on the establishment of our global shared service centers and digital transformation.

During Rich’s six years of experience at Matthews, he has led strategic tax planning, financial accounting for income taxes and other tax initiatives, and various treasury initiatives including cash acceleration, foreign exchange risks, and debt refinancing.  Rich has helped Matthews digital financial transformation by leading the establishment of the robotic process automation (“RPA”) center at Matthews and the implementation of Alteryx analytic process automation (“APA”).  Within a year of use of RPA and APA, Matthews has saved over eight thousand hours of work and greatly reduced its intercompany foreign exchange risks.

Prior to Matthews, Rich was Vice President of Taxes at Kraft Heinz Company, leading much of its tax department functions and planning.  Rich also spent significant time working at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Pittsburgh where he was the Tax Consulting Service Lead for various large international clients.  Rich graduated summa cum laude with Honors with a B.A. in Accounting from Westminster College and obtained his Master of Science in Taxation from Robert Morris University. 

Bill Coleman is responsible for the development and implementation of transactional-based risk solutions, including the deployment of insurance capital for M&A transactions through representations and warranties, litigation, tax and other contingent liabilities insurance. Bill is based in Houston and is further supported by a New York-based team of professionals in North America and colleagues in London, Hong Kong, Sydney and Bermuda who focus exclusively on transactional risk transfer. Prior to joining the Aon Team, Bill was an attorney at Sidley Austin LLP, where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions and private equity transactions, with a significant focus in the energy sector.

Stephen J. Gurgovits, Jr. is the Managing Partner and co-founder of Tecum Capital, a $500+ million private investment firm based in Pittsburgh, PA, which oversees pools of committed capital focused on mezzanine debt, subordinated notes, and private equity, along with a separate strategy via a multi-family office platform for control equity investments. In his current role, Mr. Gurgovits, Jr. is responsible for providing strategic, operational and investment management leadership to the funds, including its overall planning, fund raising, growth and execution of strategy. Mr. Gurgovits, Jr. previously served on the board of directors of Auburn Gear, Uncle Charley’s Sausage, Oberg Industries, Gibraltar Cable Barriers, Western Allegheny Capital and is currently on the board of directors for Primetac and the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Association of Corporate Growth (ACG).