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Ken Gordon, Finance Expert in Washington, DC, United States
Ken Gordon

Finance Expert in Washington, DC, United States

Member since April 26, 2018
Ken is a finance expert with 25+ years of leadership experience at startups and Fortune 100 companies. He has supported a $2.5 billion Raytheon division and advised CEOs, private equity investors, Members of Congress, and senior DoD officials on finance and operating strategy. Ken enjoys freelancing as he seeks to leverage his decades of finance and advisory experience on new and exciting challenges.
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Career Highlights

Education

Case studies

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Employment

  • Founder and President

    2014 - PRESENT
    The Granada Group
    • Identified, measured, and tracked critical financial metrics driving performance, valuation, and operational efficiency. Helped a client grow operating margins by over 100% by defining, implementing and monitoring profit improvement initiatives including developing a lifetime analysis to isolate unprofitable customers as well as benchmarking overhead spending against peers to identify opportunities for cost rationalization.
    • Built financial models to support internal projections and external fundraising activities. Provided a sell-side client with financial projections that helped to crystallize that the company was worth 60% more than the value reflected in a Letter of Intent under consideration.
    • Supported client fundraising, built pitch decks, compiled financial projections, made introductions to investors, participated in negotiations and advised on term sheet submissions helping to raise $20+ million of capital for early-stage companies.
    • Assisted companies and private equity firms in the identification of acquisition targets in targeted industries for five completed transactions; led outreach efforts to potential acquisition candidates to assess their interest; negotiated deal terms; developed the investment memorandum with comprehensive market analysis, operational assessment, financial projections, and post-close investment thesis execution.
    Focus areas: Valuation Analysis, Growth Capital Raising, Operations Finance, Finance Strategy, Fundraising, Financial Management, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A)

  • Cofounder and CEO

    2014 - 2018
    Zone2
    • Co-founded company and developed an operating plan, competitive and go-to-market strategies, cost model, and developed relationships with key strategic partners.
    • Completed three-statement financial projections, including a detailed expense model and bottoms-up revenue projections, as well as a capitalization table to support investor discussions.
    • Led fundraising efforts for an oversubscribed round of $200,000+ from individual investors.
    • Built the company to 11 employees, developing and executing against operational goals, leading and directing activities in support of critical milestones, and allocating resources to support execution.
    • Co-authored a patent awarded on the use of a particular type of data to support athletic training.
    Focus areas: Cost Management, Budgeting, Strategic Planning & Execution, Finance Strategy, Fundraising

  • Chief Operating Officer

    2011 - 2013
    CSSI
    • Held management role with responsibility for a $70 million revenue division and 300 employees.
    • Grew revenues at a 22% annual rate with significantly higher increases to operating margin.
    • Redesigned processes and IT infrastructure supporting business development, financial management, business operations, and human resources to successfully scale accelerating growth and establish a more competitive strategic position.
    • Restructured the employee accounting framework after a significant decrease in spending from a large customer nearly resulted in a reduction of 5% of the company's workforce. The new framework enabled the company to avoid salary reductions and limited the number of employees impacted by this event by 66%.
    • Identified and engaged with a significant, dissatisfied customer and implemented corrective actions successfully reestablishing and growing relationship, preserving 30% of divisional revenue.
    Focus areas: Corporate Finance, Cost Management, Cost Estimation, Financial Management, Finance Operation Improvements, Operations Finance, Finance Strategy, Investments

  • President

    2007 - 2011
    Antelum Capital Partners
    • Founded and raised capital for Antelum, a search fund focused on leverage buyout opportunities. Developed the investment memorandum, investor presentation, and financial projections, and sourced and built a pipeline of potential investors.
    • Instituted a strategy consulting practice as an additional service, advising small companies on finance strategy and capital structure.
    • Created and managed buy-side deal pipeline that identified 795 acquisition opportunities in 30 months.
    • Completed financial analyses of potential target companies to assess ROI for contemplated transactions.
    • Built and managed a business development pipeline process for consulting practice, bringing on nearly five new clients per year.
    Focus areas: Valuation Modeling, Valuation, Leveraged Buyout Modeling, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Financial Statements, Finance Strategy, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A)

  • Director of Strategic Accounts

    2003 - 2006
    Raytheon
    • Managed the strategic planning process for a $700 million portfolio of information systems.
    • Led teams in building and executing strategies to pursue opportunities in targeted industries and improving business development efforts by implementing a disciplined and quantitative approach to growth. These efforts led to 14% annual growth and a 9% increase in operating margin.
    • Contributed to several successful multi-billion dollar business development opportunities, applying an understanding of the customer environment to help shape proposals and performing competitive analysis to evaluate the efficacy of Raytheon's differentiation relative to competing proposals.
    • Supported the evaluation of acquisition candidates to assess their strategic fit with the Raytheon business unit. Assessed target company product offerings and mapped them to Raytheon product lines to determine strategic fit, the technological innovation opportunities from target company intellectual property, and the strategic value of the target company's customer base.
    • Integrated acquired companies into Raytheon operations, enabling established product lines to incorporate the innovative technologies of acquired firms.
    Focus areas: Business Planning, P&L Forecasting, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A)

  • Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of Defense (AT&L)

    2001 - 2003
    U.S. Department of Defense
    • Served as Chief of Staff acting on the Under Secretary's behalf to oversee $140 billion of the Department of Defense's budget as well as 237,000 personnel.
    • Participated in the Defense Acquisition Board oversight of multi-billion dollar defense systems to incorporate private sector best practices.
    • Oversaw strategies to engage Capitol Hill, the White House, and the media on major defense program procurement decisions, resulting in broader acceptance of major Department actions.
    • Implemented the creation of an oversight board to address the Department of Defense's anti-terror data mining policies after international publicity surrounding these activities and was appointed as the board's first Executive Director helping to significantly reduce criticism for these efforts from Congress and the media.
    • Appointed to this employment position by the President of the United States to serve as a member of the Senior Executive Service.
    Focus areas: External Financial Reporting, Budget Controls, Budgeting

  • Professional Staff Member

    1997 - 2000
    U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science
    • Drafted legislation and contributed to Congressional oversight of science and technology programs to improve management of these initiatives.
    • Negotiated with senior agency officials to balance Congressional and Executive Branch priorities.
    • Built an issue coalition to pressure NASA to enact significant changes in acquisition policy resulting in $674 million of revenue being made available to commercial providers.
    • Intervened on behalf of a company disputing the unfair award of a $29.2 million contract, leading to a reversal of the decision and a final award in their favor.
    Focus areas: Cost Management, Cost Benchmarking, Capital Budgeting, Budgeting

Education

  • Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in Finance
    2004 - 2006
    University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business - Philadelphia, PA
  • Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering
    1990 - 1991
    University of Southern California - Los Angeles, CA
  • Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering
    1985 - 1989
    University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, MI

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