2025 Dealmakers of the Year Honorees
Presented By: Insperity
Kevin Hambrice
CEO
TerraSource Global
Kevin Hambrice joined TerraSource Global in October of 2021 and, in just three years, has significantly grown the company through two acquisitions. He is currently working on a third. The company, a subsidiary of Hillenbrand, was acquired by Right Lane Industries on October 25, 2021. More recently, it acquired Elgin Separation Solutions ] in Jan 2023 and Peninsula Iron Works in May 2024.
Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge
Airport Director
St. Louis Lambert International Airport
Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge has served as the Executive Director of St. Louis Lambert International Airport since 2016, bringing more than two decades of experience in the aviation industry to her role. Under her leadership, the airport has increased its economic impact to 6.1 billion in the St. Louis region. Notably, she’s successfully negotiating a major airport terminal consolidation project that also includes parking, access roads and a variety of outdated buildings, costing an estimated $3.2 billion, in addition to securing several international flights to Frankfurt and Canada, enhancing the airport's capacity and global connectivity for the city.
Tim Luchini
CEO
Intramotev
Intramotev raised $14.35 million of Series A venture funding in a deal led by Flybridge Capital Partners and Alpaca VC in July of 2024. Cathcart Rail, Band Venture Partners, Advantage Capital, Collide Capital, Decisive Point, Alumni Ventures, Behind Genius Ventures, Aera VC, Idealabx, and Cantos Ventures also participated in the round.
Nathan McKean
Former CEO
Breckenridge Material Co.
London’s Breedon Group closed on a $300 million deal for St. Louis-based BMC Enterprises Inc. The transaction affords the suitor a North American market platform with 44 ready mixed concrete and five precast plants, plus five crushed stone and seven sand & gravel operations—the latter representing upward of 450 million tons of reserves. BMC Enterprises spans a St. Louis ready mixed concrete flagship, Breckenridge Material Co., founded in 1925, plus satellite businesses—most with local market brands—across Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois. The company has significantly expanded during the past fifteen years, closing 30 acquisitions involving aggregate, ready mixed concrete, building materials and precast concrete products.
Terms of the deal called for McKean to transition to a non-executive advisory role for Breedon’s North American business. Separately, he is currently serving as Chairman for the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, where he has been involved in senior leadership for the past dozen years.
David Robert
Co-Founder & CEO
Midas Hospitality
Midas Group, under the leadership of David Robert, has developed many multi-million-dollar projects in the area and raised about $375 million over the past three years. With more than 35 years in the hospitality industry, Robert brings tremendous depth and breadth of hotel experience at all levels, starting out as a busboy at a Holiday Inn to managing the day-to-day operating business for all Midas hotels. Building strong relationships and communicating have always been his strengths.
Robert serves as Commissioner and Vice Chair for Explore St. Louis, which is the destination marketing organization responsible for selling the St. Louis Metro Area as a convention and leisure destination. He serves as Chairman for STL Civic Pride Foundation and supports a number of charitable organizations locally.
Brian Thompson
Co-Founder, President & CEO
Elemental Enzymes
The ability for the company to raise funds in the worst Agtech funding environment in 17 years, combined with Brian's ability to negotiate a minority investment greater than $50M is truely extraordinary. The company raised $77.75 million of venture funding from Paine Schwartz Partners on June 5, 2023. The funds will be used to launch new products, expand technical and R&D capabilities, and enter new markets and segments.
Paul Tibbitt
CEO
Ansira
With the backing of a new private equity investor Truelink Capital and under the direction of a new executive leadership team, Ansira executed multiple deals in 2024 that redefined its market position and helped advance its vision of being the platform of record for companies operating in distributed ecosystems.
On July 1, 2024, Ansira successfully completed a simultaneous double acquisition of two strategic competitors, BrandMuscle and SproutLoud. BrandMuscle was based in Cleveland, Ohio, and SproutLoud was based in Sunrise, Florida. The acquisitions grew the company in tech advancements, client base, industry vertical expertise, revenue (+69%), and EBITDA (+125%). Based in St. Louis, Ansira now has over 1,600 employees across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.
Ansira also strategically divested its Sincro division, an automotive dealership solutions business, to DealerOn, a premier provider of websites and sales and marketing enablement technology for automotive dealerships. The sale was announced on September 26, 2024. This divestiture allowed Ansira to focus its resources on its core strengths while positioning the Sincro division for continued success under DealerOn’s leadership. The divestiture was limited to the tier three automotive business and customers, allowing Ansira to better serve its auto OEM and tier two auto clients. Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. served as the exclusive financial advisor to Ansira in connection with the transaction.
Social Impact Investing
Washington University in St. Louis
The Jeffrey T. Fort Neuroscience Building in the Cortex Innovation District is one of the world's largest neuroscience research buildings. The 609,000-sq.-ft. building marks a new era for medical science, as the research conducted in this building will help patients unlock the fundamentals to the workings of the nervous system, finding cures for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
The university invested $616 million to construct the building and broke ground in March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. It sits on the eastern edge of the Medical Campus and in the 200-acre Cortex Innovation District, a nationally recognized innovation and technology hub that also is home to several biotech startups founded by Washington University faculty. Investment in the neuroscience research building was spurred by the expectation that it will become one of the nation’s premier neuroscience research hubs and that situating it in Cortex will create synergy with the many entrepreneurs and startup companies there, helping to commercialize discoveries from Washington University in St. Louis. It’s expected to radically change the trajectory of neuroscience research and its impact.