Listen to the conversation that Lidore DeRose, senior partner on the transaction risk team at BRP, moderated with:
- Lane Wiggers from Argosy Private Equity
- Greg Burkholder, former CEO, and president of Fairway Building Products
- Jeff Bause, CEO of Groome Industrial Services
View the audio transcript here.
A few key takeaways:
Greg expressed his appreciation for the structure provided by established guidelines for decision-making. He stated, “One of the key things that I really appreciated was the authority matrix that was provided to me. It provided me with a lot of clarity. I understood exactly, quite honestly, what I could and could not do pre-transaction to private equity. It was a simple conversation over a beer and it was done. But for most [decisions], if it exceeded X amount of dollars, then I needed to have a conversation and get approval from the investors. But that was hugely helpful.”
Lane emphasized the importance of unity and support within the team, stating “…And again, I don’t think he was saying it just because I was there, but it is true that we have Jeff’s back, we had Greg’s back, and whenever there’s a problem, we’re all in this together. It isn’t pointing fingers at somebody and saying, oh geez, you should have been watching cash more closely. Or how in the world did it ever happen or anything like that.”
Jeff highlighted the significance of building strong personal and professional relationships with colleagues. He explained, “I respect them professionally, but I also like them personally. And I think that relationship is really important because then when times do get tough when Covid hits or you’ve got a senior leverage ratio issue with the bank or you’ve got a call for some cash, those tough conversations are just easy and simple. They’re not even hard. Looking back on Covid in those first six months, it wasn’t that hard of a time because we had each other’s backs, and we just got through it because we liked each other and we had that great relationship.”