Dan founded Kestrel Ridge in 2014 after twelve years on the sell side and in institutional private equity, where he had grown tired of two things: auctions that rewarded the fastest bidder rather than the best owner, and committee structures that made it impossible to tell a seller anything definitive before month three.

He leads transactions from the first conversation through closing and sits on the board of every platform company. In practice that means he is the one who tours the plant, the one who calls when diligence turns up something unwelcome, and the one who signs. Sellers who have been through a process with a large fund usually notice the difference within the first two meetings.

Before founding the firm he spent seven years at Lincoln International advising founder-owned industrial businesses on sale processes, and five years at Madison Dearborn in the basic industries group. The first taught him what owners are actually worried about when they say they are worried about valuation. The second taught him how quickly an operating plan falls apart when the people executing it were not consulted before closing.

He is a frequent, and by his own account tedious, opponent of the practice of signing a letter of intent without having met the second layer of management. Kestrel Ridge has walked away from four processes for that reason alone.