Selling Yourself into Unknown Opportunity

This week Ivy Slater, host of Her Success Story, chats with her guest, Brenda Jacobsen. The two talk about her intriguing path to STS Capital, the business of paying homage to businesses built, and how STS learns a business and translates what’s uniquely valuable about that enterprise to potential buyers, essentially maximizing the return. In this episode, we discuss: Where Brenda’s journey started, and how she found her way to STS Capital What challenges and opportunities she had in her early M&A years, and how it propelled her passion forward The transaction that taught her sell herself out of a job and into unknown opportunity Who helped her to “lighten the path”, and how the next steps fell into place only two weeks later How she learned to build and manage an early stage board What attributes make STS Capital so different, and how they are paying homage to businesses they work with How they pull out what’s uniquely valuable about an enterprise to potential buyers Her beautiful discovery in the perspective change of family business, not as a means to continue the business into the next generation, but to enable the next generation to do something that they are passionate about Her advice to the founder in starting something new, and in planning an exit Brenda Jacobsen is an experienced advisor to CEOs preparing for exit or first-time capital infusion. Brenda’s M&A experience spans due diligence, buy-side, sell-side, merger, and divestiture. Brenda has helped operators achieve high growth ranging from $50M-$200M and navigate disruption through cultural evolution with a focus on human capital development and wellbeing. Brenda joined Mindful Communications as President after she led the merger of her former company – Life Cross Training, Inc. – with The Foundation for a Mindful Society to diversify the audience and build shareholder value. Before Mindful, Brenda was recruited to Life Cross Training (Life XT) as the company’s first Chief Executive Officer. Brenda pivoted the company’s strategic position from a B2C to a B2B model and focused its products on its unique positioning in the corporate wellness benefits space. Brenda led the seed funding, created a revenue share partnership with the company’s largest client to fund the build of a mobile application for coaching deployment, and introduced financial discipline and rigor. As the leading member of the Life XT Board of Directors, Brenda assembled and formalized a board that included independent board members. Before her tenure at Life XT, Brenda served as the CEO of Lakeside Occupational Medical Centers (LOMC). She led with a bold approach to maximizing revenue despite a tightly regulated reimbursement structure, introduced culture- changing incentives, and challenged the traditional physician staffing model to leverage nurse practitioners' and physician assistant's scope of practice. In her role as CEO of LOMC, Brenda built the largest privately-owned group of occupational medical clinics in the U.S. Brenda scaled the practice to record revenues and profits, strengthening the balance sheet and producing best-in-class EBITDA margins and YoY gains. After maximizing growth through strategic acquisitions, Brenda brokered the sale of LOMC to U.S. HealthWorks, one of two national competitors bidding on LOMC. The sale included favorable terms for the family business owners. She remained with U.S. Healthworks for one year following the sale to provide continuity for employees and clients and to ensure a successful transition. Brenda currently serves on the International Board of Directors for Young Presidents Organization (YPO). She is a Hesse Partners facilitator and a certified Conscious Leadership Group Coach. Brenda holds an MBA from the University of South Florida, a BA from the University of Florida, and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in the State of Illinois. Brenda is currently based in Chicago.  Website: https://stscapital.com/brenda-jacobsen/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stscapitalpartners YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxrqnrQp3l7nLvz4mc-ja7A

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