Engagements

Services

AI and cloud economics advisory, and executive technology leadership, across the PE deal lifecycle

I work with two people: the PE operating partner who owns a value creation plan, and the CTO at the portfolio company who has to deliver it. Every engagement translates technical findings into the financial outcomes both of them are measured on — EBITDA adjustments, valuation changes, and deal pricing decisions. Increasingly that means AI: inference is the fastest-growing line item on the bill, and the least well understood. The same analysis runs on either side of the table — for a buyer it finds the reasons a price should come down, and for a seller it makes sure those reasons are fixed before anyone goes looking. I never do both on the same deal. When a company needs someone to own those decisions rather than advise on them, I take the CTO seat on a fractional or interim basis.

Deal Advisory

Across the Deal Lifecycle

Project-based engagements from pre-LOI screening through exit preparation. Fixed scope and fixed fee, agreed before work begins.

Pre-Exit Cloud Cost Audit

2-3 weeks

A buyer's diligence team will find your cloud waste. This finds it first. A fixed-scope audit for PE-backed companies twelve to twenty-four months from an exit — quantified waste, a remediation roadmap with time to actually execute it, and a defensible position going into a process rather than a finding you have to absorb in the price.

What you get

  • Quantified waste with dollar figures and confidence levels
  • Prioritized remediation roadmap sequenced against the exit timeline
  • Unit economics trend a buyer will ask you to explain
  • Partner-ready summary in EBITDA and valuation terms
  • Written answers to the findings a diligence team will raise
Explore the Pre-Exit Audit

Pre-Deal Cloud Assessment

2 weeks

Rapid cloud economics evaluation before LOI. Identify red flags, estimate optimization potential, and quantify EBITDA impact to inform deal pricing. Includes a Technology Risk Assessment with findings translated to valuation multiples.

What you get

  • Cloud spend analysis and waste identification
  • EBITDA adjustment estimates with confidence levels
  • Technology risk scorecard with valuation impact
  • Executive summary for investment committee
Book a Discovery Call

Technical Due Diligence

3-4 weeks

Deep-dive cloud infrastructure analysis during diligence. Waste identification with confidence levels (90% for zombie resources, 70% for right-sizing, 50% for architectural changes), risk-adjusted projections, and deal pricing input.

What you get

  • Detailed infrastructure assessment report
  • Cloud cost optimization roadmap with timelines
  • Risk-adjusted ROI projections
  • Integration complexity scoring
  • Recommendations for deal structuring
Book a Discovery Call

Post-Acquisition Optimization

Ongoing

Hands-on cloud cost optimization for portfolio companies. FinOps strategy implementation, vendor negotiations, and architecture improvements that directly improve gross margins and EBITDA.

What you get

  • FinOps practice setup and governance
  • Cloud vendor contract negotiations
  • Architecture optimization for cost efficiency
  • Monthly reporting on savings and unit economics
  • Exit preparation and infrastructure readiness
Book a Discovery Call
AI Economics

AI Diligence and Unit Economics

Every target is an AI company now, and the premium is worth several turns of EBITDA. These engagements answer the two questions the deck does not: whether the capability is proprietary or a vendor passthrough, and whether gross margin survives the growth plan once inference cost is scaling with usage.

AI Diligence

2-3 weeks

Whether the target has AI capability or an API call any competitor can make. Capability assessment, data rights and provenance, model dependency and switching cost, and a written view on whether the AI premium in the model is supportable.

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AI Unit Economics Review

2 weeks

What AI costs this business per unit of revenue, and what happens to gross margin at plan volume rather than current volume. Model tiering, caching, and routing savings quantified by confidence level.

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Fractional AI CTO

1-2 days/week

Ongoing ownership of the AI roadmap, build-vs-buy and model selection, data readiness, and inference spend governance — accountable to the sponsor's value creation plan.

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Most engagements start with a fixed-scope, fixed-fee two-week AI assessment. Full detail on the five diligence tests, the assessment scope, and common questions is on the same page.

Executive Leadership

Fractional and Interim CTO

Diligence tells you what is wrong. Someone still has to fix it. For portfolio companies without the right technology leader in place, I step into the CTO role — part-time on an ongoing basis, or full-time for a defined stretch — and run technology as an operator accountable to the sponsor's value creation plan.

Fractional CTO

1-2 days/week

Ongoing senior technology leadership for portfolio companies that need CTO-caliber judgment but not a full-time executive. Roadmap ownership, engineering org design, architecture and build-vs-buy decisions, and cloud spend governance tied to unit economics.

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Interim CTO

3-9 months

Full-time executive coverage when the seat is empty. Steps in after a departure, during a carve-out, or ahead of a value creation push — stabilizes the organization, keeps delivery on track, and hands over a clean operation to the permanent hire.

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Most engagements start with a fixed-scope, fixed-fee two-week assessment — a complete piece of work on its own, with no obligation to continue. Full detail on both engagements, a side-by-side comparison, and common questions are on the same page.

In Practice

What these engagements look like

Four engagement patterns — diligence, portfolio optimization, carve-out separation, and one deal that didn't happen — with the findings and the numbers behind each. Drawn from 127 portfolio companies analyzed and 73 private equity professionals interviewed, so the figures are medians rather than best cases.

See Representative Engagements

Not sure which engagement fits?

Book a free 15-minute discovery call. We'll discuss your situation and I'll recommend the right approach.

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