Strategic Growth Through M&A: Insights for Mid Market Leaders

Event Details

When:

February 12, 2026 4 PM - 7 PM CST

Where:

Location Address

Carlucci Rosemont
6111 N. River Road
Rosemont, IL 60018
United States

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Overview

Body

As a leader of a middle market organization, you're part of an exclusive group with unique challenges and opportunities. Whether you're considering growth through acquisition or contemplating selling your business, our upcoming event, tailored for leaders like you, is a rare opportunity to gain valuable insights and network with industry professionals. Mergers and acquisitions are powerful tools for growth and transformation. Understanding the nuances of these strategic moves can make the difference between a good decision and a great one. This event is not just about the theory, but about providing you with actionable insights from seasoned experts who have successfully navigated the M&A landscape and led organizations through the process.

Speakers

John Waller

Prairie Capital Advisors

Managing Director

John Waller joined Prairie Capital Advisors in 2021, bringing over 30 years of investment banking experience and 25 years of advising middle-market companies on the sale and acquisition of entire businesses and business units. At Prairie, John leads and co-leads transaction teams and helps develop new business for the firm. As a trusted advisor to privately held companies and large corporations, John focuses on understanding a client’s business, exploring various transaction options, and presenting multiple choices to the client. He then guides clients through ownership transitions, corporate divestitures, and special situations. John is actively involved in all aspects of transactions, including managing the preparation process, reaching out to and meeting with potential acquirers or targets, and structuring, negotiating, and closing deals.

Nicole Lev Ross

Literal North

Founder, Managing Director

Nicole Lev Ross is a strategic leader in commercial diligence and the founder of Literal North. For over 30 years, she has driven transformation by reconnecting investors and executives with their most vital assets: their customers and channel partners. Nicole specializes in building customer-centric value creation strategies that mitigate risk and restart growth.

Having evaluated over 300 businesses throughout her career, Nicole and her team complement the standard Quality of Earnings analysis with a "Quality of Customer" engagement and analysis. The Literal North methodology validates investment theses, uncovers operational risks, and identifies channels to uncap stagnant sales in anticipation of post-acquisition integration planning. Nicole’s background includes diverse roles in business valuation, consumer product distribution, and corporate development. Nicole and her team cover a host of industrial sectors across construction, electronics, maintenance and repair, manufacturing and SaaS. Having lived and worked in major financial hubs including London, São Paulo, and New York, Nicole brings deep cross-functional and cross-cultural expertise to every engagement and has a global team of native language speakers ready to speak with your target market.

Nicole is an executive board member of CJE Senior Living and past board member of Rainbows for All Children.

Ron Brogle

Hyperion Materials & Technologies

Vice President, Corporate Development

Ron Brogle is Vice President of Corporate Development at Hyperion Materials and Technologies, a KKR portfolio company focused on hard and super-hard materials serving industrial manufacturing applications. As a member of the executive leadership team, he spearheads the company’s growth and profitability strategies through global mergers and acquisitions, leading the end-to-end M&A process. He also focuses on competitive intelligence, market trend analysis, and strategic planning support to Hyperion’s business units.

Prior to joining Hyperion, Ron was Vice President of Strategy & Corporate Development at Elkay Manufacturing, an Illinois-based global manufacturer of sinks, bottle fillers, and other solutions for residential and commercial interiors. During his tenure, Ron implemented Elkay’s strategic planning process, led transformative acquisitions and divestitures as well as the industry changing merger with the public company Zurn Water Solutions (now Zurn Elkay Water Solutions). His earlier experience includes a variety of engineering, marketing, strategy and corporate development roles at The Chamberlain Group, a manufacturer of access control related products. Ron holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Valparaiso University and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Jeff Roberts

High Street Capital

Operating Partner

Jeff is a manufacturing executive who guided Crafts Technology from a 100% ESOP to its acquisition by Hyperion, a KKR portfolio company, by fostering an employee-led culture and a technical sales strategy that operated as an extension of Crafts' customers' engineering teams. Post-transaction, he navigated the cultural evolution to private equity by leveraging KKR’s broad-based employee ownership strategy, which provided a natural transition from the previous ESOP model. Harnessing this shared-ownership mentality, Jeff supported the acquisition and integration of seven additional companies to build out Hyperion’s Precision Solutions division. He is now leveraging this experience as an Operating Partner for High Street Capital, an SBIC private equity firm on Fund VI, where he actively supports acquisitions and portfolio companies with a culture-first mentality. Jeff holds an MBA from Indiana University and a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University.

Hosted by: ACG

Chapter

Chicago