My guest today is Rich Manders, who has essentially done everything that a CEO and Entrepreneur can do: He has founded companies, operated and grown them substantially, sold them (several times), acquired them (several times), and now acts as a coach for other CEOs and Entrepreneurs looking to do the same.

Rich Co-Founded and led iAutomation, a Massachusetts-based machine control and automation company, and grew the company from $0 to $90M in sales with 180 employees. After selling that business to The Riverside Company (a leading global Private Equity firm), Rich stayed on with the business, and alongside his partners at Riverside, he grew the company by a factor of 6x, resulting in a 50%+ IRR to his original investors after its next sale to Saw Mill Capital.

Alongside Riverside, Rich has played a key role in seven completed acquisitions and has evaluated dozens of others from the perspective of both a buyer and a seller. Rich has Board experience across several different private companies, and alongside his business partner, now runs Freescale Coaching, where he coaches entrepreneurs and CEOs and helps them grow their business beyond their wildest dreams.

Rich’s entrepreneurial success story is the subject of a Harvard Business School case study, which is where I was first introduced to him in my second year of study there. Since then, Rich has taught several courses and seminars at Harvard, among other leading business schools. He relies on his decades of experience as an Entrepreneur and CEO to inform his structured, systematic, repeatable, and process-oriented approach to growing world-class private companies.

Please enjoy!

Rich Manders: Lessons from Founding, Growing, Buying, Selling, Coaching, and Investing in SMBs