AM&AA Thought Leader of the Year Award

Founded in 2009, this prestigious award recognizes leaders in the private middle market community who create and advocate innovative ideas that add value to the M&A marketplace.

Subsequently, these contributions from Thought Leaders add to the body of knowledge serving as a foundation for AM&AA’s education and credentialing programs.

Each year, a panel of judges select finalists to be recognized for their work at the AM&AA Winter Conference where the Thought Leader of the Year Award recipient will be announced. The judges will provide assessment in the following areas when reviewing nominations:

How does the work enhance the profession?
Is the material ground breaking or does it significantly contribute to the foundation of AM&AA’s education programs?
How does the Thought Leader inform and empower the next generation of middle market M&A professionals?
What method of research was to used to support their work?

To qualify:

Work must be completed during 2024
Must attend award ceremony during the 2025 Winer Conference (Jan 21-22) in Scottsdale, AZ.

Self-nominations are accepted.

2024 nominations can be submitted here.

Nomination Deadline: Thursday, November 21, 2024

Thought Leader of the Year Sponsor

2024 Thought Leader

Bill McCalpin

CEO, Capitalize Network

Bill McCalpin is the CEO of Capitalize Network, providing pre-transaction planning/preparation and investment banking services for transactions from $10M – $150M.

Mr. McCalpin has spent his 39-year career in M&A, entrepreneurship, and corporate management: 15 years in corporate management, 5 years in buy-side mergers & acquisitions at a Fortune 1000 corporate strategic buyer, 8 years successfully founding, growing, and selling two technology companies, and 11 years in Sell-Side business exit and transaction advisory services.

Mr. McCalpin is the Chair of the Advisory Council of AM&AA, a founder of the Rocky Mountain chapter, holds the CM&AA certification, and the CBEC and CExP certifications in Exit Planning.

2023 Thought Leader

Randy Schwimmer

Senior Managing Director

Co-Head of Senior Lending of Churchill Asset Management, Founder & Publisher of The Lead Left

Randy is co-head of senior lending for Churchill, an investment specialist of Nuveen, the $1.1B asset manager of TIAA. He has broad experience in leveraged finance and is widely credited with developing loan syndications for middle market companies. Additionally, Randy is Founder & Publisher of The Lead Left, the premier source for information on middle market trends, which is distributed weekly to 44K+ readers. He is also Author of the LinkedIn newsletter, Private Capital Call.

2022 Thought Leader

Christian W. Blees, CPA/ABV, CM&AA

Managing Director
BiggsKofford Capital

Chris is Managing Director for BiggsKofford Capital, which he founded in 2002 as the investment banking division of Colorado CPA firm, BiggsKofford. Chris has also served as the CPA firm’s Managing Partner since 2007.

Within the AM&AA, Chris has lead the CM&AA program since 2007, served 15-years on the Advisory Council (including Chairman from 2020-2022), and belongs to the “Founders Circle”.

Chris co-authored “Middle Market M&A” in 2012, and the second edition in 2022.

2021 Thought Leaders

Charles K. Gifford, Jr.

Senior Partner, New Heritage Capital

Andy Greenberg

CEO, Greenberg Variations Capital

In 2021, Andy and Charlie launched Middle Market Musings (MMM)—a podcast devoted to the “people and ideas of the middle market.” While there are other podcasts, MMM is unique in its focus on the middle market, and in its intense practitioner’s view. Each episode features a deal professional or sponsor who has achieved differentiation in our industry, how they did it, how they think about it, and what it means for middle-market M&A.

2020 Thought Leader

Joe Brusuelas

Chief Economist
RSM US LLP

Joe is known in the industry as the ‘chief economist to the middle market’ and is a preeminent voice championing issues and policies facing the midsize companies that make up the “real economy” in the United States and around the world.

2019 Thought Leader

Walker Deibel

Acquisition Entrepreneur
Author, “Buy Then Build”

Walker Deibel cofounded three startups and has acquired seven companies, and exited two. He holds an MBA from the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis where he received the Declaration of Achievement in Entrepreneurship from the Skandalaris Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Walker is a Certified M&A Advisor and former SEC licensed stock broker.

2018 Thought Leader

Allie Taylor, PhD

Co-Founder
Orange Kiwi

Allie’s research is ground breaking in that it recognizes that a key component of any business sale is the psychology of the owner. Despite all the financial and operational analysis that gets done at the point of the deal, psychology is measured at best with intuition. Allie’s research identifies scientific means of defining and measuring an owner’s propensity to exit their business.

2017 Thought Leader

David H. Crean, PhD

Managing Director
Objective Capital Partners

David’s thought leadership is materially expanding the investment banker’s role in serving life sciences companies and provide these companies with a highly attractive, non-diluting alternative to hard-to-secure venture capital.

2016 Thought Leader

Christopher Snider

President/CEO
Exit Planning Institute

Christopher Snider, President/CEO, Exit Planning Institute, empowers business owners and advisors to proactively embrace exit planning as a management and life planning system that enables best-in-class performance in the owner’s financial, business and personal life in his book “Walking to Destiny.”

2015 Thought Leader

Carl Sheeler

Managing Director
Global Leader of Family Offices & Business Strategies at Berkeley Research Group, LLC

Mr. Sheeler authored “Equity Value Enhancement: A Tool to Leverage Human and Financial Capital While Managing Risk.” The advisory community serves a significant role in not only identifying and measuring risk associated with an operating business as part of the traditional legal and financial due diligence; but to manage the risk and leverage the human capital such that value is not only known, but is created. This work promotes strategic activities for clients who are not accustomed to a holistic approach that places as much focus on human as it does on financial capital; thereby providing the entire gamut of different types of advisors and their clients a road map to elevate intangible assets.

2014 Thought Leader

Dr. J Keith Dunbar

Founder/CEO
Potentious

Dr. Dunbar’s dissertation research in “Leaders Who Make M&A Work” found for the first time, a quantifiable correlation between collective leadership capabilities of acquirer and target companies and the particular deal’s financial success (or potential risk aversion).

2013 Thought Leader

Peter R. Worrell

Managing Director/CEO
Bigelow LLC

Mr. Worrell received the award for his book titled, Enterprise Value: How the Best Owner-Managers Build Their Fortune, Capture Their Company’s Gains, and Create Their Legacy.

2012 Thought Leader

Andrew T. Greenberg

CEO
Fairmount Partners

Mr. Greenberg received the Thought Leader of the Year award for bringing factual data and relevant thinking to the lower middle market.

2011 Thought Leader

Dr. John Paglia

Associate Dean
Pepperdine University

Dr. Paglia received the award for his groundbreaking research at Pepperdine University to understand the true cost of private capital across market types and the investment expectations of privately-held business owners.

2011 Thought Leader

Rob Slee

Roberston & Foley

Rob Slee received the Thought Leader of the Year award for his work on the seminal book Private Capital Markets: Valuation, Capitalization, and Transfer of Private Business Interests, Second Edition.

2010 Thought Leader

Frank Evans

Evans & Associates

Mr Evans co-authored the second edition of the book, Valuation for M&A: Building Value in Private.

2010 Thought Leader

Chris Mellen

President & Founder
Delphi Valuation Advisors Inc

Chris Mellen, Delphi Valuation Advisors, Inc and Frank Evans, of Evans and Associates, co-authored the second edition of the book, Valuation for M&A: Building Value in Private.

2010 Thought Leader

Chris Mellen

President & Founder
Delphi Valuation Advisors Inc

Chris Mellen, Delphi Valuation Advisors, Inc and Frank Evans, of Evans and Associates, co-authored the second edition of the book, Valuation for M&A: Building Value in Private.

2009 Thought Leader

Shepherd G. Pryor IV

Managing Director
Board Resources

Mr. Pryor, co-author of The Private Equity Edge: How Private Equity Players and the World’s Top Companies Build Value and Wealth, is an expert on helping companies build value.

2009 Thought Leader

Dr. Arthur Laffer

Founder & CEO
Laffer Associates

Dr. Laffer was honored as the first Thought Leader of the Year Award for his book, The Private Equity Edge: How Private Equity Players and the World’s Top Companies Build Value and Wealth along with co-authors William J. Hass and Shepherd G. Pryor IV.