Today we’d like to introduce you to Steve Conwell.
Hi Steve, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
I got started way back in 1993 as a bright-eyed graduate of UNT, proud of my Bachelors and Masters of Accounting and not realizing the world I was getting into.
I started my career at EY in their financial statement audit practice, and I realized quickly that all of this was new to me. Most of it. While I was learning by trial and fire, I was building lifelong skills that went beyond public accounting – attention to detail, time management, emotional intelligence, budgeting, quality, due diligence, resilience, and more. My professional skepticism and audit skills would balance my positive outlook on life and motivating spirit. It’s true – sometimes, you have to trust your gut.
Fast-forward and I transitioned into technology risk and controls, “IT audit” and cyber security, application auditing, and more. Again, this was a whole new world – almost everything was new to me. This was a trend in my career – having to learn on the spot, figure things out, be the expert when you’d just learned something, lead when you’re the least experienced on the team. At the time, I didn’t realize these things would translate well in the business world-building companies.
I started my first company with my wife. I was contracting again with EY through my company ECC. Small at the time, it was an LLC and just me. When one of our team members left the firm, there was a need. I knew the role and skills required, and my wife knew how to recruit, so we found a great candidate the next day. While they went with someone internally, our company was born. We picked up EY and Deloitte as clients, then seven of the top 10 firms, providing top talent and running high-profile projects. We expanded into IT risk and controls consulting, building to 90 employees and contractors and ultimately selling the company in 2008 to the #9 public accounting firm. At the time, we thought we’d done really well.
Fast-forward again… I was an interim CFO to a Dallas-based residential real estate firm, and I was a client of a local exit planning firm. At the time, I’d never heard of this. What is exit planning? As I learned more about preparing your company for sale, maximizing your enterprise value (who knew?), in effect, becoming “built to sell,” I had an epiphany. When we sold our company, we easily left a few million dollars on the table. And we believed at the time we’d done the right thing, at the right time, the right way. We had no idea there was this world out there, people who did exit planning, brokers, and M&A advisors who worked with business owners to sell their companies.
I realized there were so many business owners out there who had no idea either what an exit journey looked like. That most companies never sold for maximum value, if at all. In 2017, Final Ascent was born.
We started in the exit planning, value building, and succession planning world, helping business owners get ready for an eventual exit. I brought in my two partners, Jude David, and Chase Kenner, to add M&A advisory services to our portfolio – now we could sell businesses, and we’ve been growing ever since. It’s exciting and fascinating – we’re trusted guides helping business owners navigate their final ascent to the summit, hence our company’s name.
I launched the Exit Planning Exchange’s 19th chapter in Dallas in May 2022, bringing professional advisors who work with business owners across their exit journey. I’m also the President of UNT’s Denton County Alumni Association, and I serve on three boards as well. While I’m busy, my family is the most important part of my life!
In December 2023, my bride and I will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. How time flies when you’re with your best friend! We have two grown children and a 19-year-old cat named Chelsea. We love spending time with friends and family, volunteering at UNT and other places,
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
If anyone says everything has been smooth sailing, turn and run. We’ve all experienced challenges along the way – it’s those trying times that strengthen your resolve, your resiliency and who help you understand what you’re really made of.
When I was 25 years old, there was a certain personality type that I had trouble getting along with. Even when the approach I was taking on a project was the right direction, I could never convince them. Then one day, I had a major epiphany. I thought, “What if I am the problem? What if I need to change?” I dove into soft skills and emotional intelligence books, like Daniel Goleman’s groundbreaking book “Emotional Intelligence” and “Working with Emotional Intelligence.” I was fascinated – there was information in these books on EQ traits that I never knew I never knew. I realized I needed to change my approach to communicate the way others would like me to communicate to them. To seek to understand, to active listen, and more. It was a revolutionary change for me.
Jumping ahead into my early thirties, I had another brutal setback that became the best thing at the time that ever happened to me. I was the COO of the Dallas Branch of a $525mm management consulting firm. Again, I was young, a good 20 years younger than all of the practice leaders I managed. One of them decided he wanted my job and went to the Office Managing Partner and said, in effect, put me in this role, or I quit. He got what he wanted. I got demoted to a Quality Manager role, and to make things worse, I now reported to the practice leader now. It was awful. A friend of mine, my mentor in the company, told me what transpired.
At first, I was really angry and upset. But again, God works in mysterious ways, right? I was looking in the mirror feeling sorry for myself when I realized two things: 1) I could be a baby and quit, leaving everyone high and dry, or 2) I could swallow my pride, roll my sleeves up, and do my level best in my new role. I chose door number two, and it was a pivotal moment for me in my career and life. You see, the company merged with another firm, growing to $2B in revenue and quadrupling the number of employees. We were implementing a new accounting system, and I was leading that for our office. Without going into all the details, our office was the only successful go-live of the software, and all of my hard work and effort, working with all the other offices and our national team to help them through the process, got me promoted to our Global Offices as a Director of Business Operations.
From there, I learned a lot about business and life on a macro and micro scale, what works and doesn’t work. My new boss was amazing – she was the best boss I ever had then or now, very demanding and a master at giving you accountability and ownership. To this day, I’m so thankful to have worked with her.
Shortly thereafter, we started my first company, and the rest is history.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Final Ascent is a premier M&A firm specializing in exit planning and value-building for lower middle-market firms in the U.S. Established in 2017 in Dallas, TX; we leverage cutting-edge technology and expertise from multiple disciplines to bring qualified buyers to the table for our business owner clients. We absolutely love what we do, which is more a passion than work. We serve as trusted guides through the exit planning and value-building processes.
What differentiates us from other firms is our M&A fees are success-based–we align our fee with our business owner’s success when they sell. Our extensive national network and pre-qualified buyer pool ensure clients that we will bring serious buyers to the table and sell your business for a good price.
Clients who hire Final Ascent gain access to experienced experts who are accomplished entrepreneurs. We’ve been in their shoes and grown businesses, managed a large payroll, and achieved the American Dream. We’re so proud of that because it’s so hard going through the blood, sweat, and tears building a company, and the last thing we want to happen is to have an owner in a situation where they’re undervalued or sadly unsellable. We understand the challenges our clients face and are qualified to guide them through all the complex stages of exit planning and M&A execution using proprietary guideposts and proven processes. Since we don’t take on clients unless we know we can take them to close, you have peace of mind as soon as we partner with you.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you, and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
I’d say don’t believe everything you hear, but that’s a story for another day. In truth, middle-market businesses were affected nationally due to supply chain issues that went well beyond their experience and capabilities. Not only did the price of goods and services go up significantly, but the cash conversion cycle stretched to the breaking point for many.
That extended to serious working capital deficiencies when the company’s cash was tied up on a container ship for several much past the normal delivery cycles. That did two things – it prevented some companies from buying more inventory for sale because their credit lines and cash were tied up offshore. The other thing it did was wreaked havoc on their ability to continue growing.
With all that said – I don’t want us to focus on the doom and gloom – we worked extremely hard, and the market did as well, to find ways to pivot product and service offerings to accommodate the new normal. On top of that, it became readily apparent that supplier diversification was critical to reduce the risk that extended delivery timelines, order fulfillment challenges, and working capital constraints had on mid-market businesses’ ability to grow, scale, and thrive.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://finalascent.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steveconwell/
Image Credits
Steve Conwell
HCK2
