by Vyvyan Tenorio
These are fiercely competitive times. Nowadays, dealmakers that is, successful dealmakers require a special X-factor to make things happen. Since almost anyone can throw money around, buyers need to wow sellers with something extra, like brains or talent. (Indeed, buyers need to first find sellers to woo.) What is this elusive It? You know what they say: You’ll know It when you see It.
And so once again we offer “Faces of the Middle Market.” This year we feature 13 thirty-something individuals who, on testimony from colleagues and clients, help separate winning from losing. Like seemingly everyone else in finance, they are focused, networked, hard-driving individuals with BlackBerry-powered time management skills and lots of frequent-flier miles. They’re your basic workaholics barreling through Harry Potter-like challenges. What makes them different? Each of them, at a relatively young age, is a seasoned professional with particular strengths. Their successes duly noted and amply rewarded, they are rising or newly risen stars.
But there is another recurrent theme among this season’s crop of overachievers it’s the lure of the middle market as their workplace of choice. Many young professionals typically run the gamut of work experiences in the early years big firm, little firm, consultant to big companies and little companies but given the opportunity to choose, many of our Faces say the middle market offers them the greatest job satisfaction.
The middle market fosters close ties between entrepreneurs and senior executives. As Bank of America Securities LLC’s Sean Minnihan on page 56 says, “When you work directly with a CEO who has built a company directly from scratch and help them sell it, it’s really a crowning point of their life’s work achievement.”
Many are specialists in their craft. For principals like TA Associates Inc.’s Hythem El-Nazer (facing page), TSG Consumer Partners’ Hadley Mullin (page 58) and General Atlantic LLC’s Jonathan Korngold (page 52), it’s a way to get ahead of the pack. Others, such as attorney Brette Simon (page 64) of Los Angeles law firm Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, revel in their regional strengths. Still others, like Ryan Robson at London buyout boutique Sovereign Capital Partners LLP (page 62), find enterprising niches.
The midmarket universe is often populated with low-key principals, like Timothy Kuehl, a buyout partner at Minneapolis-based Norwest Equity Partners (page 54), who modestly point to old-fashioned teamwork and entrepreneurial spirit as key ingredients for success at smaller firms. This deep pool of talent may often be overshadowed by their high-profile counterparts, but they’re bound to be recognized and ultimately given credit where credit is due.
Faces of the Middle Market
- The cold caller
- The well-read adviser;
- A legacy in healthcare
- Big town funk
- Payer’s pal
- In control
- Smooth skating
- The SPAC lady
- The high-yield guy
- An unconventional track
- The bulldog banker
- Numbers man
- Battle-tested
In control
by Christine Idzelis
Hadley Mullin of San Francisco private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners is known for her problem solving, something portfolio company executives clearly appreciate. Last year, she sourced and completed two investments for TSG: pet-care products maker Radio Systems Corp. and prestige makeup marketer Smashbox Cosmetics. She also led the firm’s exit from artesian water bottler Voss of Norway ASA. The firm sold its interest to Norwegian investment group Vann AS in March 2006, generating an internal rate of return of 82.1%, Mullin says.
Last year, says the personable 32-year-old, was a good year. No surprise, then, that Mullin was promoted last summer to managing director and partner. Mullin is one of six partners at TSG, a firm solely focused on branded consumer businesses. The firm has been ramping up its staff. Including three new hires set to start this summer, TSG will have 16 investment professionals at offices in New York and San Francisco.
Mullin hadn’t always staked out an ambitious career in finance. Her sophomore year in high school, the native Californian flew to the East Coast to visit Dartmouth College, where she eventually earned a degree in government in 1996. It wasn’t the academic prestige alone that won over the 16-year-old. The regular running shuttle from the Hanover, N.H., campus to a nearby ski area immediately caught her attention. “That was one of the key reasons that I applied early there,” she says.
She earned her stripes at Bain & Co., where she worked for about four years before pursuing an M.B.A. at Stanford University Graduate School of Business. She interned at TSG while at Stanford, but after graduating in 2002, she returned to Bain, which had sponsored her business degree.
At Bain, Mullin spent a significant amount of time in private equity, providing due diligence for sponsors. She worked directly with senior management to tackle major strategic and operational issues, and she tended to specialize in the consumer products and retail sectors. “Bain was a phenomenal training ground for a transition into private equity,” she says.
In 2004, Mullin moved to TSG, where she took to nurturing businesses like Voss. Voss bottles its water at a source in southern Norway, but its New York unit, Voss USA Inc., handles the sales and marketing.
Ole Sandberg, Voss founder and CEO of the U.S. unit, speaks highly of Mullin’s attentiveness. “If you have a problem, you can always reach out to her,” he says, recalling numerous times when he called her late at night with strategic or operational matters. Mullin would work through them and come up with something the next day. “She’s extremely efficient,” he says, and has a great knowledge of the U.S. markets.
“If I were to do another startup, the first person I’d reach out to would be Hadley,” Sandberg adds. Although the business is no longer a part of TSG’s portfolio, Mullin was asked to remain on its board.
Mullin, based in San Francisco, spends a third of her time working with portfolio companies, such as Smashbox Cosmetics, which in less than a year had tripled in profitability, Mullin says. “Any of our CEOs can call any of our team 24/7 if they need support,” she says.
Mullin still loves outdoor activities, though most of her free time today is reserved for family her husband, whom she met at Dartmouth, and her 2-year-old daughter.
Balancing family time with work commitments is one problem with no easy solution. But she quickly adds, “It’s been a blast.”