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Our Story

We were founded with one goal in mind:
help businesses create value.

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How it started

Crosslake’s roots are based in the technology hub of Seattle, where the founder earned his chops as an original member of Microsoft’s Engineering Excellence team. Starting in 2010, he built a global tech advisory of experienced technology and software development practitioners with expertise in product management, development, quality and operations. From the opposite coast, the founder of Corsis® was building a similar team and a unique TechIndicators® platform designed to bring data-driven objectivity to the black box of technology and disrupt traditional consulting solutions.

How it's going

In 2021, Crosslake and Corsis united to expand their ability to drive end-to-end value for investors and management teams. With that integration, the real-world expertise of Crosslake’s technologists is now complemented by objective scoring against benchmarks based on thousands of technology investments – creating a data-driven formula for actionable insights and transformative outcomes. In 2022, we expanded our expert community of practitioners with the addition of teams from Renna Partners, specializing in IT diligence, and VantagePoint, a cybersecurity practice. Crosslake is now better positioned than ever to help changemakers buy, build and run technology that creates value.

Our guiding values
Service
Our passion is empowering the success of our clients and colleagues.
Curiosity
We believe great advice starts with deep understanding.
Credibility
Our expertise is earned and proven.
Commitment
It’s our privilege to serve clients in their critical moments.
Creativity
We are inspired by the constant pursuit of better.

Real-world experience. Pragmatic perspective.
Passionate about serving clients.

Barr comes to Crosslake from global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where he was a partner in the Transformation and Private Equity practices and served as managing partner of the firm's Charlotte, North Carolina office. Barr has extensive experience advising private equity firms, portfolio companies and Fortune 500 clients on strategic and transformational initiatives.

Barr Blanton
Chief Executive Officer

Gregg has been using technology to solve business challenges for more than 25 years, pioneering many of the technology solutions that have revolutionized the marketing, healthcare and technology diligence industries. He is an accomplished entrepreneur and executive, with a passion for building scalable business infrastructure. His rich history of transformative growth has been central to private and public exits valued at more than $1 billion.

Gregg Alwine
Chief Operating Officer

With more than 30 years of leadership experience in technology and engineering, including 18 years with Microsoft Engineering, Kim has both strategic vision and proven expertise in execution. She has a track record of leading large teams using an agile and iterative approach to optimize resourcing and deliver on time and within budget. During her career, she has cultivated an excellent reputation as a cross-team collaborator and is known for her aptitude in solving business problems through a mix of process improvements and technological innovations.

Kim Walters
Senior Managing Director

Manish is a seasoned professional services executive with more than 25 years of experience growing and developing client-first companies from near inception to transformative growth. As CRO of Collaborative Solutions, he grew the company from less than $10M in sales to more than $200M in sales, leading to an acquisition by Cognizant. His depth and breadth of global experience, across multiple industries and technologies, serves as an asset to any firm looking to grow.

Manish Patel
Chief Client Officer

Matt brings significant experience in senior leadership roles spanning the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. From scaling start-up ventures to driving strategic initiatives for established industry leaders, he has developed rich finance and operations experience while building a track record of guiding strategic growth.

Matt Lehigh
Chief Financial Officer

Kerri brings more than 25 years of corporate marketing and agency experience to Crosslake. In prior roles, she has worked in healthcare, pharmacy, technology-enabled services, consulting, finance and technology. Over the last decade, she has specialized in leading marketing, branding, go-to-market and creative strategy for start-up, PE-funded and publicly-traded companies. Her focus is on addressing the marketing needs of high-growth, recurring-revenue businesses as they transition through times of rapid change.

Kerri Atkinson
Vice President, Marketing

Jim has helped large global companies enable some of the most integrated and automated supply chains on the planet. Having held several executive-level positions in software, engineering and consulting organizations, including Toshiba Semiconductor and Viasat, Jim brings nearly 30 years of experience in information technology, operations and management consulting. A proven leader in innovation-focused results, his passion for using IT as a competitive differentiator has helped Global 100 companies such as Cisco, Sony Electronics, Foxconn, Flextronics and DB Schenker with M&A, cross-enterprise integration and IT transformation.

Jim Daniel
Managing Director, Information Technology and Corporate Systems

With 20+ years in technology and professional services, Austin applies his deep experience in technology strategy to advise enterprise clients in value creation and risk management across the M&A lifecycle. With expertise spanning SaaS, technology-enabled services, financial services, biotech, healthcare, e-commerce and digital media, he is known for delivering enterprise solutions focused on maximizing the business value of technology investments.

Austin Rowan
Managing Director

Bryan has successfully driven strategic and transformational change in global software organizations for over 15 years. He has extensive experience advising and partnering with private equity firms and their portfolio companies to generate enterprise value rapidly. Bryan’s recent experience includes Vista Equity Partners and ST6 Partners, where he transformed software companies across various stages ranging from SMB to Enterprise. His primary expertise is M&A diligence and integration, business systems architecture and instilling operational excellence.

Bryan Myers
Managing Director

Charity has over 20 years of leadership experience in engineering product management, product management and operations management. She has proven expertise leading organizational transformations and developing global teams to create data-driven solutions to solve complex, ambiguous problems using an agile, iterative approach. Leveraging her experience at companies such as Microsoft, Intel and Oracle, Charity is adept at cross-team collaboration and value creation through process improvements and technological innovation.

Charity Elkins
Managing Director

Danny has more than 16 years of professional experience in the cybersecurity industry in various operating, advisory, and leadership roles for organizations across various industries and sizes. In these roles, he has designed, built, implemented and managed dozens of cyber security, privacy and compliance programs in security-sensitive industries, including legal (eDiscovery), large enterprise, healthcare, financial and government. Organizations value his ability to translate deep technical issues into practical and understandable guidance and actions supporting overall business objectives.

Danny Tijerina
Managing Director

David is an experienced technology executive with more than 30 years of experience in software product development and product management. His experience includes CTO, VP of Product Management, and line of business leadership in EdTech companies, including SunGard Higher Education, as well as 10 years at PwC advising private equity investors and working with their portfolio companies to improve performance and profitability. David’s primary expertise is product management and new product commercialization, technology strategy and software product development. 

David Murray
Managing Director

David has led regional and divisional technology businesses in the US, Brazil, Europe and Australia for more than 25 years. An expert in data-driven, root-cause analysis of business problems, David has transformed support, engineering, and sales and marketing teams to support business growth through innovative initiatives that improve customer experience and operational excellence.

David van Toor
Managing Director

Francis is an experienced architecture and engineering leader, focused on delivering game-changing digital transformation outcomes through pragmatic people, process, technology and information strategies. After a 20+ year career with Microsoft, which culminated in the role of Chief Enterprise Architect, Francis has more recently led technology transformation at T-Mobile, driven digital ambition strategy for Bose Corporation and transformed product engineering at F5 Networks as a Crosslake client.

Francis Gan
Managing Director

Mike has over 15 years of experience spanning a variety of roles, from a consulting advisory capacity to building, operating and growing his own businesses. He has deep technical knowledge and has worked for several private equity-backed software businesses, enterprise software service integrators and digital agencies. He has spent over seven years in M&A transaction advisory having supported hundreds of technical assessments on behalf of financial sponsors. 

Mike Bestvina
Managing Director

With a global career spanning over 30 years, Neal has worked for and with start-ups, scale-ups and major technology companies such as Microsoft and IBM in a broad variety of roles. Using a wealth of skills and experience in software, SaaS and service delivery, he helps clients assess, transform and deliver value from their technology investments.

Neal Fiske
Managing Director

Rohan has over 17 years of experience in the cybersecurity industry with deep expertise in security strategy, security architecture, infrastructure security, cloud security, application security, security operations, incident response and regulatory compliance. He has successfully designed, implemented, and supported security, compliance and privacy programs for global companies of varying sizes and types, from small start-ups to large enterprises in the financial, technology, eDiscovery and healthcare sectors. He is passionate about delivering actionable security objectives aligned with companies' overall business objectives.

Rohan Kotian
Managing Director

With nearly 25 years of professional experience, Sean has worked on 400+ M&A transactions, helping public companies, private equity firms and private companies with evaluating and completing such transactions. In particular, he brings a combination of functional and technical skills that provide a holistic understanding of how to best utilize technology. He has served in many different executive roles, including Practice Leader, CIO and CFO, and understands essential aspects of business strategy, risk and growth with sharp strategic insights.

Sean Lyons
Managing Director

A versatile technology entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in software product engineering and technology due diligence, Thomas is responsible for ensuring that Crosslake deploys the right solutions for our clients. As a trusted advisor to private equity firms, he has guided investors through the complexities of over 350 M&A transactions in the software industry over the past decade. ​

Thomas Shelford
Managing Director

Todd has decades of experience leading IT organizations to drive business results at industry leaders such as Advance Auto Parts, Carquest Auto Parts, LabCorp, and General Electric, serving twice as CIO. Clients value his practical and understandable guidance on a wide range of IT questions and challenges.

Todd Bolon
Managing Director
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