Meet the Team
David Wimer – Founder, CEO & Chief Value Advisor
“There is one question every business owner needs to answer: To Value-Prep, or not to Value-Prep?”
David Wimer, CBI, M&AMI and Fellow of MAS is founder of Simplified Value-Prep®, his proprietary business value-maximizing process. With 40+ years’ experience as an owner-operator, turnaround executive, family office and M&A advisor, David knows true value in business. He is a national speaker and instructor as a subject-matter-expert on value-preparation and business readiness in the privately-held business sector. Since 2019 his courses have been taught nationally to M&A Advisors. In 2022, Wimer authored and released The Business True Value Series. The Advisor’s Guide to Business Wealth (Munn Avenue Press) outlines the importance of finding, building, and protecting true value for their business owner clients. A companion novella, The Tale of Mac & Murphy (Munn Avenue Press) shares the fictional story of two business owners, Mac an optimist and Murphy a pessimist. Mac & Murphy reveal why value-prepping is critical to value-growth, value-protection and value-readiness.
Throughout his career experiences, David found that one misstep could mean thousands or millions in losses or value impairment. His proven system, Simplified Value-Prep® and its COACH Method™, map each step a business owner must take when attempting big strategic financial moves that affect company value such as to RENEW, BUILD, BUY or SELL a business. David’s mission is to educate advisors and their client business owners on the benefits of starting the value-prepping process early, easily and efficiently. Simplified Value-Prep® is a practical and easy-to-use tool to finding, building and protecting business true value. As a universal tool and process, Simplified Value-Prep can be applied in any Virtual Data Room (VDR) environment, available as a monthly subscription with value-added services.
John McGee – Board Member
“Applying the strategy of social resourcing, the value of collecting people, to global business.”
John has dedicated a lifetime to collecting people, a process he founded and brands as “social resourcing”. Sometimes his strategy has helped to define his journey, other times it has helped others find their path. Either way, he has always measured his success by those around him. John is a seasoned professional with a proven commitment to translating business opportunities and objectives into bottom-line results. John’s passion lies in creating thriving organizations that excel at their mission by utilizing his diverse and strategic skills and experiences.
John is proud of his 20-plus years of service to the community as an employee, volunteer, and financial supporter. Today John enjoys a fulfilling career in the profit sector, where he is the President of Blue Sky EXP. Blue Sky creates both physical and digital environments that allow its clients to realize revenue goals by bringing the company’s products and services to life.
Kathy Olson – Board Member
“When trust is built, relationships flourish. Success is built on transparent communication, especially in negotiation.”
Kathy Olson is CEO of Windmill Consulting, a firm that focuses on deploying business development, networking, and sales processes for organizations desiring to profitably grow product lines and service offerings. Her business coaching oftentimes uncovers hidden, key differentiators that are leveraged for company hyper-growth. Throughout her 25-year career, Kathy found that effective business development leadership requires organizational discipline and market disruption. By applying consistency to networking and relationship-building, she teaches others how to convert prospects, end users, customers and clients into raving fans. Using a targeted, measurable sales approach, Kathy delivers a scorecard vital to any company’s mission for growth.
As a former Director of Sales, Kathy developed expertise in the technology industry with a virtual vault room solutions-provider. There she grew a professional network of M&A advisors, business brokers, private equity firms, investment bankers, Fortune 500 banks, accounting firms, law firms, and manufacturing organizations. In addition to technology, Kathy has diverse, firsthand sales and marketing experiences in the construction and manufacturing industries. As a former owner of a construction company for 15 years, she is well-versed in contract negotiations, meeting federal governmental compliance standards and fulfilling material supply agreements with utilities and maintenance services.
Richard Puleo, Esq – Board Member
“Preparation is critical towards succeeding in any venture. The other quality is being able to understand, navigate and overcome the day-to-day complexities you face.”
Rich Puleo is a business attorney, early-stage investor & real estate developer, with a results-charged career. He provides legal counsel in the areas of real estate, estate tax planning, business sales and acquisitions. Rich is a candid and credible advisor offering notable legal and tax advice to companies and individuals in transactions with high-ticket aggregate value. As an investor, Rich has experiences working with a variety of entrepreneurial situations. He co-founded a De Novo Pennsylvania Community Bank where he served as Chairman. Rich is also highly respected by colleagues in legal and accounting fields in wealth preservation and tax planning.
Early in his career he served as Director of Acquisitions for a hotel management group that grew to over $1 Billion in turning around mis-managed and distressed hotel assets across the US. Rich graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C. with a Master of Law in Taxation. He obtained his J.D. from California Western School of Law, San Diego California. And earned his undergraduate B.A. at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Rich was admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He is a Licensed Pennsylvania Real Estate Broker.
Mike Verret – Board Member
“Every business owner knows 100% of what's important to communicate about their business, but only 5% is what the audience experiences and latches onto.”
Mike Verret has more than 25 years of experience in advertising and marketing. After investing 13 years in the agency world, he joined Hasbro Toys and Games on the global marketing team. There Mike developed marketing and retail programs for well-known brands such as Transformers, Tonka Truck, Jurassic World, Monopoly, Battleship and Trivial Pursuit. In 2015, Mike became the face of the Hasbro Gaming franchise, where he traveled the globe with the charge to establish the personality, attitude and style of the portfolio, by creating messaging the gaming audience could not forget. Mike left Hasbro in 2018 to pursue his own consulting practice to reach a wider audience.
For Mike, understanding an audience is critical and the imperative of delivering a memorable customer experience. Mike insists that the business part of audience messaging remain invisible while delivering an undistracted, unforgettable customer experience. Mike’s proprietary system, the Verret Audience Blueprint (VAB), translates this business thinking to an audience connection experience. Business owners already know 100% of what is important to them. The VAB process distills the 5% of what is important to their audience to stick in one of three ways -- First. Best. Or Different. Different is not about the business being different. It is all about the audience and how they see the business differently. Based on an elevator 8-floor metaphor, the VAB yields three C’s: compelling Conversation, producing rapid Connection, with high customer Conversion.
Mike has engaged his global practice, Verret & Associates, LLC for the past 4 years with audiences in the US, Hong Kong, India, Germany, Mexico, Brazil and the UK.
Mike Wolfel – Board Member
Mike is currently the President & CTO of Savana, a rapidly growing FinTech based in Malvern, PA. At Savana, Mike is responsible for all company operations and focuses on the strategy, market positioning, product management, architecture, and delivery of all products and services. Mike has spent the last 25+ years delivering high-value, high-impact operational systems in Financial Services, Banking, Lending, and Payments.
With a strong technology and product leadership background, Mike has a proven track record of delivering solutions that provide significant value to customers and partners. Prior to joining Savana, Mike acted as SVP and CTO at Epitome Systems, and also served as a consultant and chief software architect for GMAC Commercial Mortgage. Mike has a Bachelors in Economics from The Penn State University.
Mark Zeswitz – Board Member
“Leveraging the power of e-commerce has provided significant cash flow and value growth insights.”
Mark Zeswitz, CMA has served two companies in the past 34 years in various capacities in Finance & Operations. The first 18 years, Mark served in various accounting capacities for affiliates of a $450MM manufacturing, distribution, and real estate conglomerate. Throughout this time, he held corporate positions as an accountant, operations analyst, and accounting manager. His executive officer roles in a subsidiary included Vice President of Administration /General Manager. He eventually was named President after leading the subsidiary through a significant financial turnaround by focusing on cost initiatives such as optimizing delivery routes, streamlining product offerings, managing production waste, and generating 15% growth in new service markets while a mature industry was shrinking by 9%. His customer retention score was 98% during this same time. As President, Mark was instrumental in the sale of the subsidiary to an international publicly-held company.
Building on his corporate success, Mark joined a lower middle-market distributor of food service equipment & supplies that had served him. He was named CFO, reporting to the founder of this distribution company that experienced hyper-growth over the next 16 years. From its early entre’ into e-commerce and continual re-investment in technology and people, the company experienced 30+% average year over year growth while he was CFO. It is now one of the largest, privately-held businesses in the nation, with distribution centers throughout the US. In his current role, Mark is responsible for the organization’s risk management strategies and initiatives, providing advisory management to the business’ stakeholders, operating divisions, and service teams.
