Cove Street Partners is a boutique advisory firm that specializes in driving change in private equity-backed companies.
We focus on bringing deep management expertise and success leading venture-backed, private equity-owned and public companies, to help align investor and operator visions of success to maximize returns.
Who We Are
Cove Street’s leadership team has decades of experience building market-leading companies across multiple verticals, generating billions of dollars of returns for top institutional investors.
We leverage this experience in innovation, growth and transactions to help our clients build disruptive companies across the company lifecycle.
Tom MacIsaac
Tom has been the CEO of multiple market-leading companies generating billions of dollars in returns for institutional investors like KKR, Shamrock, Venrock and others.
Joe MacIsaac
Joe is a proven leader and expert in building and scaling sales and marketing organizations.
Joe was most recently CEO of Stone Source, a PE owned provider of luxury stone products (acquired by Platinum Equity) and was previously President, Knoll International, where he expanded the legendary Knoll brand across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and LATAM.
Dan Maxwell
Dan is an experienced executive who has been instrumental in scaling several successful companies.
Dan has led operations, product and technology teams, making him an invaluable member of any technology company in high-growth mode.
Services
The fact is, money is cheap.
Private Equity has exploded over the last decade, both in number of firms and assets under management. LBO economics made it hard not to make money in a zero-interest-rate environment. But those days are over.
Today, you need an edge. A reason to win beyond just paying more than everyone else. We help deliver that edge.
Operater VC’s have transformed the Venture business, now dominated by operator-led firms like A16Z. But Private Equity firms are still largely run by investment professionals with no operating experience, evidenced by the increased dependence on operating partners and consultants.
But even then, most operating partners are former CFO’s and most consultants have no operating experience. But great operators speak a different language than deal guys, CFO’s and consultants – and this leaves money on the table.
At CSP, we work with a few firms/ companies per year to bring our deep operating experience in leadership, strategy, sales/marketing, operations, and product/technology to bear. Ideally, we’re brought in early and get to know management from the outset. We work alongside investors to learn the business and alongside management to develop a plan for the next leg of growth and the broader go-forward strategy.
Investors and management don’t always see the world the same way — we bridge that gap and build trust, credibility, and alignment for maximum success.
This is the core value we bring.
We focus on bringing deep management expertise and success leading venture-backed, private equity-owned and public companies, to help align investor and operator visions of success to maximize returns.
Contact Us