Tom brings nearly twenty years of entrepreneurial and consulting experience to Blue Key Business Brokerage and M&A. His focus on practical results comes from helping clients discover technology-based business opportunities as well as creating two startups — HowZabout.com and ConceptLabs.net. Prior to these efforts, he worked at two global management consultancies: Ernst & Young and Accenture. He has also held a number of research- and operations- jobs at Seybold Computing, Coopers & Lybrand (now PWC), Fidelity Investments, and Irving Trust Bank. Tom’s Doctoral training in Social Anthropology gives him a unique perspective on changing patterns of business and technology and he continues to speak in numerous professional forums. As an observer of technology trends, Tom has been quoted in The New York Times, Wired, Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, and the World Economic Forum. He writes about blogs, wikis and other collaborative technologies at www.wikisquared.com.
His academic background includes McGillUniversity (Montreal, Canada), University of Edinburgh (Scotland) and New York University.
Dear Tom
I am the author of a new book entitled “Every Family’s Business”. The book is targeted at closely held business owners. The book advances the theme that gifting an operating business to family will almost certainly destroy wealth and family relationships. Instead the book argues that business owners must always make every decison with the end or “sale” of their business in mind. The book is proving to be an effective marketing tool for business brokers. It is not a technical book on how to sell a business but rather a book that engages business owners on an emotional level. The book is writen much like the Wealthy Barber — I see that you went to McGill — so you might be familiar with David Chilton’s book on financial planning.
Very very interesting. My long standing hunch is that ‘familial hand-downs’ is something that sounds like it should work but often doesn’t. (mind you, it’s just a gut feeling). That said, I’d love to read your book and – with your permission – use some of those ideas in subsequent blog postings. TP [tportante@bluekeybma.com]