Paul’s functional experience includes restructuring, board governance, including matters related to financial and operating stress and change of control, strategy development and execution, operations, industry analysis, enterprise valuation, and acquisition, divestitures and partnerships.

Paul has served clients in a wide range of industries including automotive services, canteen and vending services, consumer products, finance, forgings, healthcare, printing and publishing, real estate, residential, commercial, and industrial HVAC, and residential and commercial security.  Select clients include Abbott Diabetes Care, Baxter, Chubb PLC, Johnson Controls, Maui Jim, Perrigo and Quad Graphics.

Select Restructuring Matters

Paul acted as advisor to the board and management team of a distressed $100M DSO, providing analysis on the implementation of a centralized call center, and on the cost savings available at the corporate and field levels of the organization, including the use of a zero-based budgeting approach to create a proposed organization structure.

Acting as advisor, Paul provided financial, strategic and operation direction to a $50M automotive alloy wheel repair company, allowing it to operate without external funding for twelve months before its successful sale. Paul stabilized finances, articulated strategic options, provided operational insights, and coordinated the parties involved in the sale process; all the while, supporting decision making with detailed analysis and managing communication for all constituents.

Acting as restructuring officer, Paul assisted a residential and commercial security company in positioning itself for sale after initial strategic and operational options narrowed. Paul drove initiatives and processes with ownership, management, and the bank group to extend the operating ability of the company. Additionally, working with the CEO and CFO, Paul managed liquidity and operations and created alternative sale and liquidation analyses for various constituencies.          

Serving as advisor to the lender, Paul provided financial and operational support to an online publisher of content for several owned lifestyle websites. After engaging the company and analyzing cash flow and market conditions, Paul augmented information flow between the parties to drive consensus around strategic options. This led to the engagement of a banker and the successful sale of several of the company’s websites, allowing the lender to exit and the company to transform itself to meet the new market conditions.

Paul advised a PE-owned capital advance fin-tech in stabilizing its operations. He further reviewed their use of AI to analyze various vintages of loan portfolios to better predict cash flow outcomes and collection curves. Paul negotiated with lenders and assisted management with the transitioning of various portfolios for syndication purposes.

Select Performance Improvement Matters 

Paul led the effort to improve the cash counting facilities of an armored car services company.  Following a diagnostic phase, the company’s three primary cash-counting facilities were redesigned. The redesigns included new floor layouts, workflows, processes, and performance metrics for each facility. After implementation of the redesign at the first facility, the facility was shadow managed to monitor and troubleshoot the implementation. Before leaving the first facility, the effort was successful in reducing labor costs by 30%, with momentum toward the final goal of 40%.

Paul analyzed the strategic options available to a $500M air conditioning/ refrigeration compressor company that was facing significant competitive and market pressures, resulting in revenue and margin compression. After the management decision was made to divest the business, Paul provided support for the sale of the compressor business, including the identification of acquirers, the valuation of its business lines, and the development of selling scenario, plant closure, and alternative sourcing analyses.

Paul was retained by a manufacturer of brake forgings to identify revenue and cost-saving opportunities and analyze the impact on its enterprise value. The railcar forging company was previously purchased by a PE firm with management participation and subsequently entered a down cycle in what has historically been a highly cyclical industry. After using several methods to determine the enterprise value, Paul also analyzed revenue opportunities and the company’s cost structure to provide an upside value estimate.

Paul served as the marketing strategy lead for the diabetes care division of Abbott Labs for three years. In this role, he provided strategy and analytical capabilities to the U.S. Marketing group, allowing the group to address strategic issues and to focus its marketing efforts. Issues and opportunities addressed included the end-of-life options available to its flagship value product, the potential for multi-patient use of its existing continuous blood glucose monitor, the impact of changing the Medicare/aid pricing for its flagship premium product, the attractiveness of a third-party electronic co-pay program, the potential of retail healthcare clinics as a new delivery channel, and the profitability of its 250K member customer loyalty program. 

Paul served as the interim network and telephony lead for Maui Jim, stabilizing the network and telephony function and leading the IT team on an interim basis. As part of this work, Paul led the effort to design and implement an upgraded network of circuits to connect global locations and an upgraded global telephony system. This included selection of a management consulting firm to conduct technical studies, procurement of hardware and software, negotiation of a $1M transfer of liability agreement with the existing vendor, and implementation of the circuits and the headquarters telephony upgrade. Paul also created a new $6M network and telephony budget based upon the existing infrastructure and projected upgrades and acted as liaison between IT and Finance departments to drive the process to conclusion.

Prior to joining Novo Advisors, Paul was a Managing Director at Kugman Partners, a Chicago-based restructuring firm, Managing Director of CBRE’s Building Innovation Lab, and founder and principal of his own consulting firm.  Paul started his consulting career at Booz Allen.

Paul holds a BBA in Finance from the University of Notre Dame, Cum Laude, and an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business.