Kelly is a Managing Director on our Operations Team. She has been in the private equity industry since 2016, when she first started working alongside John, Scot, and Lauren at the prior firm. While acting as an Operating Executive there, Kelly served as the CFO of a $150 million wire harness and cable assembly portfolio company. Prior to her time in PE, Kelly led the Internal Audit departments of Tempur Sealy International, Inc. and Zep Inc. where she was responsible for acquisition integration, enterprise risk management, corporate governance, and Sarbanes Oxley compliance. Kelly spent the first 11 years of her career in public accounting. It wasn’t enough to earn her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting, Kelly returned to school as an adjunct professor in the Colleges of Business at Eastern Kentucky University and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga teaching Auditing and Principles of Accounting.
Kelly loves working in private equity and credits John and Scot for taking a risk on her as the first operator with a financial background at the prior firm. If you can’t tell from her busy and varied career, Kelly isn’t afraid of a challenge and now runs a fully operational farm with her husband and son! John was instrumental in encouraging Kelly to buy her first tractor and cows, and she now supports 30-40 cows, beehives, a vegetable garden, a fruit orchard, and a stocked pond (how she manages a farm and juggles portfolio companies? No idea). After a long day managing portfolio companies and chasing cows, she relaxes by spending time in her garden and feeding the fish in her pond. We’d be jealous of her idyllic home if she didn’t bring her honey and homemade jams to the office!