Grew EV 10x in 5 Years
Ben Rudman knew he wanted to work in food before he knew what investment banking was. His first independent sponsor deal, Western Smokehouse Partners, started with ~60 employees in 2018. By the time it sold 4.5 years later, it had almost 700 employees across 4 facilities and enterprise value had grown ~10x.


More recent episodes

"We're Not Operators": Bridging Capital & Management
Edwin Burke and Chris Eichmann of Pillsman Partners discuss their deal-by-deal PE model, PowerVac acquisition, and why 11 sellers rolled equity for a bigger second bite.

7x Organic EBITDA Growth After Liberating Employees
Rise Run Capital's Corbin Cook and Alex Swanston discuss their independent sponsor success: 5 platforms, $50m+ EBITDA, and a 7x exit in 4 years.

The Applied AI Engineer: A New PE Weapon
Chris Breaux shares how he left $500m investment banking to build Emberline, an independent sponsor focused on government, defense, and vertical tech with AI-driven growth.