Testimonials & Endorsements
Hiring Apex to work with our executives on our three-year strategic plan was an excellent experience. Eddie quickly became a trusted partner for all of us and a sounding board for me as the new CEO, only a few months into my role, in a 100% remote work situation due to the pandemic. Eddie is a strategic and critical thinker, who learned our business, and with a totally disarming style was able to challenge our executives, our assumptions and our vision to lead us to a well-constructed and thoughtful plan. Eddie goes above and beyond in ownership and responsibility to get to the best outcomes. We are now driving our three-year strategy on the basis of this strategic framework.”
Karin Borchert
CEO
Realized a successful exit in April 2024
Seller: The Riverside Company
Acquirer: HireVue
I want to share how valuable Eddie has been to Sullivans during Fort Point Capital’s hold period. We wouldn’t have gotten to this point and realized a successful exit without your influence and involvement in our strategic planning process. I thoroughly enjoyed working with you and I know the entire Sullivans feels the same.”
Tom Russo
CEO
Realized a successful exit in February 2023
Seller: Fort Point Capital
Acquirer: ICV Partners
Looking back, the day we started working with Eddie was a tipping point for our Company. He was the right strategic partner at the right time, helping us streamline our thought and work process to create a clear, but focused, long-range strategic plan.
In many ways, Eddie's support, not just for me as a CEO but our entire executive team, has been instrumental in our evolution from `scrappy startup' to a highly focused growth Company. Inside of a year since our initial engagement, our whole team feels a strong sense of directed purpose, the results have been meaningfully positive, and an ambitious long-range plan feels more achievable than ever.”
Scott Tannen
Founder & CEO
Current Portfolio Company of L Catterton
As a relatively new CEO to our business in the midst of an industry-challenging pandemic, it was especially important to me to find the right person to help me develop our go-forward strategic plan. There is no question that Eddie Binder was the right person. He jumped right in and learned a great deal about our business. He listened, but also was able to challenge long-standing norms within the company and the industry, in general. This approach was both productive and refreshing.
In many ways, Eddie routinely went above and beyond the call of duty. We actually asked Eddie to interface with our internal team, our Board of Directors, and even some select clients. Those interactions were instrumental in the final outcome, which was a comprehensive 3-year strategic plan that is a bit of stretch, but also easy to understand and implement. I view Eddie as a trusted partner in this process and, as such, am quite bullish on the near and long-term strategic direction of the organization.”
Neil Johnson
Chief Executive Officer
Current Portfolio Company of Prospect Hill Growth Partners
Sweeteners Plus was a successful business run by a founder-owner when purchased by private equity and had a management team that reflected its past priorities and practices. We needed to build a strategy relevant to creating value as defined by our new investors. This program would only be successful if the management team understood the factors that create value, agreed with the strategy and bought into their role and responsibilities in executing the plan.
Eddie led us through a straightforward and efficient process that brought all management team members along and allowed us to define a new strategy and a plan for its execution – with little of the pain that can come from such a transformational change of direction.
I’m pleased to report that 18 months later the plan is well underway, and we’re exceeding the goals that we set during the strategic planning process. Thanks, Eddie.”
Jonathan Bamberger
Executive Chair
Today operates under Ingredients Plus
Realized successful exit in April 2024
Seller: Graycliff Partners
We engaged Eddie to assist InVita Healthcare Technologies transition from a founder-led, niche company to a professional healthcare IT company spanning several verticals and complex medical environments.
Eddie was instrumental in getting the management team to think outside of their narrow fields and develop a solid strategic plan. These were difficult waters to traverse but Eddie handled the job with ease. He is a trusted confidant to the CEO now and continues to help shape the future of InVita.”
Todd Collins
Chief Executive Officer
Current Portfolio Company of The Riverside Company
Our management team was new to private equity ownership and Apex Growth Strategies was brought in to assist us in the development of our strategic plan. Eddie’s knowledge of ‘how it works’ brought the team valuable insight. Eddie makes the process easy. He led our brainstorming session and articulated our ideas into a working document that could be presented to our Board as well as a task-oriented accountabilities matrix that we refine over time.
Eddie kept us on point and documented our discussions. Our team was able to open up and debate without the laborious task of document creation. By the end of our engagement, we had a working document ready to be presented to our Board with actionable items.
We highly recommend Apex Growth. Eddie’s experience, passion and empathy allowed our executive team to feel extremely comfortable, for meaningful dialogue and focus us on our growth objectives.”
Gary Rothschild
President
Current Portfolio Company of Shoreview Industries
Eddie drove development of a 5-year strategic vision for our company, guiding discussions and gaining input from the executive team. He is a critical thinker and incredible communicator, and the outcome of our sessions is a legitimate roadmap to growth and success that guides our decision-making every day.”
Jay Catlin
Chief Executive Officer
Current Portfolio Company of Fort Point Capital
I acquired Stat PADS via a search fund and became a first-time CEO. Eddie was a great mentor, working with me and the Board to manage the process of establishing our strategic plan.
It was important for me to be 100% focused on setting our strategic plan, instead of using energy to manage the process. Eddie’s proven framework is focused on building sustainable growth now and preparing a runway for the future. He did this by beginning with the end in mind and focusing on the key drivers of value creation. He has a gift of pulling the best ideas out of management and the board and synthesizing them in actionable ways. I’m grateful for the things I learned while working with Eddie.”
Carl Dixon
CEO
Acquired by Uinta Capital (Search Fund)
We engaged Eddie, as we do for all of portfolio companies, to create a first ever strategic plan for our portfolio company, WolfePak Software. WolfePak was a classic founder-owned company – with a great software product and installed customer base, but lacking the organizational structure, management resources and sales and marketing engine to support and drive organic growth.
Eddie worked extremely well with our management team to develop a plan to first create an organization and infrastructure which would provide the best in class customer support and service our customers expected and then to build out our sales and marketing engine which began to drive 20%+ organic growth. Over our three-year hold, the transformation and professionalization of WolfePak was pretty incredible, and it all began with our work with Eddie to create a roadmap for WolfePak’s future.”
Christina Pai
Partner
Realized a successful exit in October 2019
Seller: Fort Point Capital
Acquirer: Charlesbank Technology Fund
Having facilitated workshops to originate growth strategies for many subordinate operating units and companies, I was initially skeptical about any true value I might realize by engaging a third-party consultant, that I could not produce through my own leadership.
Eddie was completely understanding of this line of thought but successfully encouraged me to recognize that I might bring greater value as a participant, than as the facilitator. This proved to not only be true but to be an essential insight.
Eddie’s respectful and engaging style, coupled with his keen insight into the nuances of private equity, drove a deep, honest and meaningful evaluation of our business by our management team. He helped us to develop a strategy aligned with both the shorter-term interests of our financial sponsor and the longer-term growth and sustainability interests of our company. The outcome wouldn’t have been as consequential without our partnership with Eddie and Apex Growth Strategies.”
Greg Rzonca
CEO
Realized successful exit in January 2020
Seller: Saw Mill Capital
Acquirer: ACON Investments
Eddie’s facilitation was valuable in getting the management team aligned around the future vision. The process he walked us through was engaging, thoughtful and deliberate. The company and the Board now have a clear understanding of our defined path for the future from our work with Apex Growth Strategies.”
Bill Moeller
CEO
Current portfolio company of Calvert Street Capital Partners
Eddie was an extremely knowledgeable consultant who helped United Language Group successfully navigate the complexities of creating a future state strategy that aligned with our shareholders, investors and internal stakeholders. His strategic planning and advice was invaluable to our corporate planning and long-term action plan. I recommend his services to anyone looking to unlock their company’s full potential."
Kristen Giovanis
President & CEO
Current Portfolio company of Northern Pacific Group & Yukon Partners
I know I have said many times that I thought you were an excellent board member. You appropriately challenged the team in the spirit of making improvements and I never felt that you were not well prepared and the recommendations, suggestions and questions all showed that. Thanks for your help. Even when we met for the Management Presentation – your suggestion to put a list of wins into the presentation was often talked about during the presentation."
Tom Friedl
CEO
Realized a successful exit in March 2018
Seller: Silver Oak Services Partners
Acquirer: PNC Riverarch Capital
I had the pleasure of working with Eddie on our company’s first ever strategic growth plan. Like most companies, we had our own unique set of circumstances. We’d recently been acquired by a progressive PE firm. The company founder was turning its leadership over to me as the new CEO. Plus, we were tasked with sustaining aggressive double-digit growth coming off a five-year run of a +55% CAGR.
Eddie did an excellent job in understanding the business — its strengths and weaknesses, the objectives of ownership, the competitive landscape in our core markets, and the “what counts” factors that had made the company so successful to date. Over 75% of our team had never been through formal strategic planning and, frankly, some key team members entered the process with apprehension. I was impressed by the way he could engage everyone from the start, creating e an environment where our people understood they had a voice and that the outcome of their work had significant bearing on our future success.
Finally, Eddie made sure we developed tight, measurable objectives, while creating tracking tools to measure our progress and hold people accountable for key deliverables. He continues to serve as a sounding board and resource for us as we execute the strategic plan he was so instrumental in helping us build."
Frank Carpenito
CEO
Current portfolio company of CID Capital
We engaged Eddie to guide the updating of our strategic plan based on the glowing recommendation of several former clients and others who knew of his work with private equity portfolio companies. We liked the planning process he employed and really appreciated his ability to adapt those concepts to our unique challenges and opportunities. Throughout the process, he did a wonderful job of listening to and engaging the entire team to think creatively while maintaining focus to meet our objectives. Eddie exceeded our expectations and helped raise the bar for our team."
Larry Wesson
President & CEO
Current portfolio company of CID Capital
As a founder-run, high growth start-up, when our company reached the $30mm mark we were acquired by private equity. The PE firm brought in new senior management, and it quickly became evident that to continue our meteoric growth, we needed to unify the thinking of legacy leadership and the new management team to identify and resource our biggest strategic opportunities. We engaged Eddie Binder to steer the blended team through a strategic planning process and the development of a five-year plan. He expertly drew the team out of the tactical weeds, challenged everyone to drop preconceived notions, and ultimately zeroed in on the opportunities that represented the greatest incremental value for the business. Importantly, because Eddie’s approach was insightful, disarming and collaborative, the process was very team oriented, and in the end the entire team felt vested in the process and has joint ownership of the final plan. There is no longer a sense of the old vs. the new, but a unified team charging forward to accomplish a shared vision. Eddie continues to be a tremendous resource that we use as a sounding board to vet the continued progression of our plan."
Maura Mottolese
CEO
Realized a successful exit in June 2018
Seller: The Riverside Company
Acquirer: Mondelez International
Eddie was recommended by our private equity group as a valued partner in creating a strategic plan for Avure. Although skeptical at first, our management team quickly came to respect Eddie’s approach, listening skills and observations about the business. He spent time across all areas of the business to understand our current state, position in the market and competitive positioning. During the process Eddie not only worked on strategy but provided valuable insights into the personalities of the private equity group itself. Ultimately he helped us develop a growth strategy that addresses all areas of the company and market opportunities. The overall strategy was done far quicker and better with Eddie’s drive and insights than we could have accomplished on our own."
Jeff Williams
CEO
Current portfolio company of Milestone Partners
I feel very fortunate to have met Eddie and utilized his broad knowledge and expertise. Eddie helped LSO develop a multi-faceted strategic plan that not only guided the company to several successful years, but also broke down that strategy into a format that was easily understandable and executable from the front line employees to the Csuite. We were so impressed with Eddie’s knowledge and ability to work with our team that we invited him to join our board, where his perspective helped us unlock new opportunities. I would happily recommend Eddie to anyone who is looking for breakthrough results for their company and team."
Rick Jones
President & CEO
Realized a successful exit in April 2014
Seller: Fort Point Capital
Acquirer: Eagle Merchant Partners
Eddie was brought into Eemax to assist us in developing our strategic plan. He quickly jumped on the opportunity and used his proven process to utilize a team approach to building an executable plan. Together, we sized the market, defined the commercial opportunity, assessed our capabilities, defined the resources required, and forced ranked the initiatives to provide a clear priority and path. The strategy was then broken down into digestible initiatives. Through Eddie’s efforts with helping us build our strategic plan we grew the business by 17% CAGR and earning by 31% CAGR over a sustained period. Eemax was one of the top exits for Riverside in 2015 and Eddie was a key factor in this success."
Kevin Ruppelt
President & CEO
Realized a successful exit in December 2015
Seller: The Riverside Company
Acquirer: Rheem Manufacturing
Shortly after SMC was purchased out of bankruptcy by a private equity firm I was hired as the new CEO. Eddie was engaged to help us develop a long term strategic plan. He was a true partner helping us with developing a vision, providing focus and identifying key projects. He has exceptional listening skills, which he used to help us to work together as a team to face the many issues we had as a company. The strategic plan we developed with Eddie’s guidance allowed us to reach our 5 year goals in less than 3 years. We then brought Eddie back to SMC to develop a plan for the next 3 years. Today, we have achieved most of those goals and we have increased our profits by over 300% in 4 years. Eddie is a CEO’s best friend — he listens, provides great advice on how the team is working and he understands private equity."
Bob Bloom
President & CEO
Current portfolio company of Milestone Partners
Shortly after a private equity group acquired our company, Eddie was selected by senior management to assist us in developing our strategic plan. As a fast growing company, we had maintained a consistent and successful approach to how we built on our success, but we knew we needed a fresh perspective. Eddie is a very good listener, and after a number of meetings he was able to direct our focus on long-term success driven by near-term decisions. We value his expertise and prior experience in working with companies such as ours, and continue to work with him as he follows our continued progress."
Kevin Hinkamper
President & CEO
Current portfolio company of Fort Point Capital
As a new CEO at Sullivan’s, Eddie provided me with essential strategic advice about Sullivan's over the past 18 months. He helped our executive team to formulate a forward-looking strategic plan, which forced us to think through all of the likely challenges to growth and then allocate resources necessary to overcome them. We thought so highly of Eddie that shortly after our first engagement, we continue to retain him for "as needed projects." His presence within our company gives us objective, honest feedback that has been key to the direction we have established and will help in the success of the Sullivan’s company going forward."
Mark Miller
CEO
Current portfolio company of Fort Point Capital
In April of 2014, I was named President & CEO of IDOC and we were being appropriately challenged to refresh the strategic plan due to changing marketplace conditions and significant competitive pressures. Our PE owners suggested Eddie to assist us, as he was involved in the early days of the acquisition. We demanded a lot from Eddie to have our plan fleshed out in a short time period. I was very impressed by how quickly Eddie reacquainted himself with our company and the risks and opportunities we were facing. And more so, how he helped us identify the right areas of focus, gain alignment with the leadership team and the Board, and secure rapid approval of the plan. This was an important milestone moment for IDOC as it contributed to strong second half 2015 growth. We can point to the strat plan and Eddie Binder’s involvement as an inflection point.
Dave Brown
President & CEO, IDOC
Current portfolio company of The Riverside Company
Eddie facilitated the architecting of Lexipol’s first forward-looking strategic plan. Working with the executive team and the broader leadership, Eddie guided us through all of the likely challenges to growth and allocating resources necessary to overcome them. His ability to drive us to focus on a set of optimum future states provided the impetus for our forward looking structure, strategic initiatives, and resource plan to achieve truly extraordinary results."
Michael Davis
Chief Executive Officer
Current portfolio company of The Riverside Company
Eddie has provided essential strategic advice to L-Com for several years. He helped us formalize a forward-looking strategic plan, which forced us to think through all of the likely challenges to growth and then allocate the resources necessary to overcome them.
We thought so highly of Eddie that shortly after our first engagement, we invited him to join the L-com Board of Directors. His presence on the Board gives us objective, honest feedback that’s been a key to the growth and success of the company"
Ed Caselden
Chief Executive Officer, L-com Global Connectivity
Realized a successful exit in July 2012
Seller: The Riverside Company
Acquirer: Odyssey Investment Partners
Eddie brings a broad level of experience and knowledge to strategic planning. He quickly understood our business and facilitated a planning process that forced us to think and create. The result — a clear strategy and operating plan to rally our team around and execute with excellence.”
Ben Waldshan
Chief Executive Officer, Datamyx
Realized successful exit in October 2015
Seller: Halyard Capital
Acquirer: Deluxe Corporation
We’ve worked with Eddie on strategic planning and preparing our company for sale. During these projects, he solicited input from key stakeholders that ensured everyone’s views were represented. He then delivered actionable plans that were reasonable to execute against. Eddie’s strategic thought leadership, marketing excellence and focus on both HSI’s needs and the needs of our customers helped us develop a roadmap for success. Simply put, Eddie gets it. He gets our business. He gets our customers. He gets it done. What we got were great results.”
Bill Clendenen
Chief Executive Officer, Health & Safety Institute
Realized a successful exit in August 2012
Seller: The Riverside Company
Acquirer: DW Healthcare Partners
Former Independent Director
Realized a successful exit in May 2015
Seller: DW Healthcare Partners
Acquirer: The Riverside Company
I established a pet food company in Istanbul in 1999. It was extremely successful and we ended up selling a majority interest to a private equity firm in 2010. Eddie worked with us immediately after closing, shaping a detailed strategic business plan, repositioning two brands, completing CapEx investments and assembling the right team. Transformation like this is always hard, but it set us on a course to increase annual revenues by 55%. Eddie worked closely with me and Tropikal Pet’s senior management, and we all benefited from his experience, insight and incredible energy. He’s still the first person we call to share our success.”
Izzet Saban
Chief Executive Officer, Tropikal Pet (Istanbul, Turkey)
Current portfolio company of The Riverside Company
At first, we were skeptical about an outside consultant, but Eddie changed our viewpoint completely. He immersed himself in the project from day one and spent a lot of time with our key management in multiple locations, fully understanding their ideas to facilitate smart, efficient growth. In addition, Eddie's customer visits generated very candid feedback that crystallized our customers' feelings about Stanton and led to critical insights. He helped us filter all of this information and transform it into a straightforward, practical and manageable strategic plan — with realistic goals, persons of responsibility and timetables, all coupled with the financial goals expected. As we implemented this strategic plan, the accuracy of the key premises became obvious. Eddie made a strong contribution to our success which ultimately led to a very healthy exit.”
Jonathan Cohen
President & Chief Operating Officer, Stanton Carpet Corporation
Realized a successful exit in August 2012
Seller: Linsalata Capital Partners
Acquirer: Norwest Equity Partners