About Us
Our Story
Our firm was established by an accomplished technology executive and investment banker whose experience suggested that many mid-market businesses were poorly served by traditional investment banks that relied heavily on a one-size-fits-all approach.
Our hybrid model capitalizes on our real-world experience building businesses and capturing wealth through mergers and acquisitions to create better results for technology companies facing growth and exit challenges. Therefore, we carefully nurture a stronger, more differentiated company as we optimize your operating model, coach your executive team, and test market your company before launching full-scale efforts that engage a range of buyers in deep discovery.
Many sellers need our personal, custom-crafted, controlled approach to optimally sell their company. With our expertise in strategy, operations, finance, and M&A, our team rounds out your executive team’s skill set to generate stronger performance.
Our core values are developed from four fundamental understandings:
- Building a valuable technology company is hard. We respect you, the entrepreneur for your intelligence, sacrifice, persistence, and good fortune.
- Our expertise is rare, hard to acquire, and impactful.
- Your legacy is impacted by how well we guide you through the most important transaction of your life.
- Our values are the basis of our performance:
- Stay Mission-Focused
- Create Impactful Outcomes
- Be Collaborative and Respectful
- Be Transparent and Accountable
How we are different than other M&A firms
Leadership
We are experienced practitioners who have actually started, run, and sold companies of our own. We’ve been CEO’s, investment bankers and executives in start-up’s, mid-market companies and Fortune 500 enterprises. We’ve faced the challenges you face every day and know how buyers evaluate and acquire companies.
Jeff Brown
Managing Partner
Houston, TX
Jeff Brown’s specialty is guiding private technology companies through growth and M&A. Jeff is an experienced executive, having led start-ups, turnarounds and many M&A transactions. For nearly 30 years, he has helped build strong technology companies and advised their executives, investors, and boards.
Jeff served as SVP of Corum Group, a leading global investment bank focused exclusively on technology mergers and acquisitions in the mid-market. Previously he was President of Worksuite, a FTSE 100 subsidiary which he restructured and led to market leadership. He co-founded IntelliGIS, a pioneer in wireless computing and launched Western Hemisphere operations for Simon Petroleum Technology. He was an executive at GeoQuest Systems, a venture backed leader in petroleum software acquired first by Raytheon and then Schlumberger. Jeff began his career on the research faculty at Columbia University and is a published author on climate change.
Sean Myers
Principal
Dallas, TX
Sean is a 20-plus year industry veteran and successful SaaS entrepreneur and CPQ market leader having built and sold his SaaS company to an industry leader backed by private equity. Sean’s leadership experience includes successfully navigating Endeavor Commerce, the company he founded through several challenging transitions beginning as a consulting firm, then transitioning to a traditional, premise-based software company, then into a SaaS company before merging it with a larger acquirer. Coincidently, Sean teamed up with Jeff and Corum Group to complete the sale of Endeavor to Vendavo, backed by Francisco Partners.
Today, Sean leads Navant’s Growth Practice, helping technology companies grow and position for M&A by defining, adopting, and implementing modern marketing and sales strategies around their true market differentiating opportunity.
Alain Viviers
Principal
Alain is a technology entrepreneur, executive and industry consultant with deep experience in healthcare, governance, risk and compliance, eDiscovery, and finance. He began his career in healthcare revenue cycle management and integrity before transitioning into big data eDiscovery, advanced text analytics, and machine learning for legal applications. He co-founded Orca AI, which specialized in proprietary AI software for law firms and corporations. The company’s technology became the first to gain judicial approval for machine learning in legal cases and was later sold to a public company. He has also served as the COO for a blockchain startup, which built a sharable internet platform with cryptocurrency. Today, Alain focuses on tech M&A and advising early-stage companies looking for growth and exit.
Charles Bedard
Principal
Charles works with CEO entrepreneurs and institutional family office and private equity leaders on their corporate development initiatives (platforms and add-on acquisitions). His leadership increases valuations for emerging enterprises, helps create shareholder and institutional wealth, and creates industry sector leaders. Previously, Mr. Bedard has been a successful entrepreneur and held numerous positions with fast-growth technology-enabled service companies. Charles is a certified M&A Advisor (CM&AA) and Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA).
Yasmin Khodamoradi
Valuation Services
Yasmin specializes in valuation, financial analysis, and partner targeting list creation for private technology companies. Prior to joining Navant Partners, Yasmin served as Vice President, Valuation Services at Corum Group for seven years, where she supported senior dealmakers through business development efforts, valuation analysis, partner list creation, and other go-to-market processes. Yasmin graduated with a degree in finance and international business from the University of Washington.
Christine Norton
Compliance, Audit and Risk
Christine is an experienced global executive and leader with extensive experience in risk and compliance management, financial and forensic analysis in the technology, consumer products and pharmaceutical industries. She has a proven record partnering with business owners, boards / C-suite, and division management and in building, collaborating and leading teams and alliances, across complex and changing organizations to deliver effective financial, risk management and audit solutions, value add advisory services and strategic initiatives worldwide. Christine has worked for global brands such as MasterCard, PepsiCo, Allied Domecq, Bristol-Myers Squib and consultants Accenture and PWC.