Fred Thiel
Activating Strategic Value | Sr Advisor to CEOs/Boards of Directors and PE/VC firms | Chairman & CEO | Speaker | Author
Thiel Advisors, Inc. Stockholm School of Economics
Irvine, California
Fred Thiel is a senior advisor to management teams, boards of directors, private equity and venture capital firms, and sits on private and public company boards.
He is a respected expert and frequent speaker on the Internet of Things (IoT) (Impacts on Businesses and Tech Companies) and the digital transformations of companies and industries, providing deep technology industry expertise and strategic advice on transformational value creation – the process of generating growth and shareholder value.
Fred has over 25 years operating experience leading companies in the technology, data communications, Internet, M2M, Automation, Big Data, digital media and software industries. He has repeatedly driven rapid growth and generated hundreds of millions of dollars in shareholder value.
As a CEO, Fred led companies through rapid growth to IPO, repositioned companies for high-value exits to strategic and financial acquirers, led M&A and roll-up strategies, as well as successfully executed corporate turnarounds and wind downs.
Fred’s deep industry expertise spans IoT (Internet of Things), M2M (machine to machine communications), Big Data software, predictive analytics, enterprise software, wired and wireless data networking and communications, data storage, industrial automation, Internet media and digital marketing,
Fred is a frequent speaker and futurist in the areas of IoT, smart systems, collaborative and autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, inference engines, predictive analytics and Big Data.
Fred attended classes at the Stockholm School of Economics and executive classes at Harvard Business School and is fluent in English, Spanish, Swedish and French.
Fred is a current member of WPO and former chapter chairman of the YPO California Coast chapter.
Specialties: Value creation, strategy, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), growth, transformation, SaaS, digital media, enterprise software, M2M, IoT, automation, board of directors, exit strategies, building management teams, and product/market fit.
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Thiel Advisors is a boutique advisory firm that helps clients create long term enterprise value, as well prepare and position them for maximum valuation at sale or when seeking growth investments or private equity.
Over the years, we have helped clients create hundreds of millions of dollars in enterprise and shareholder value – and in one case our efforts directly contributed to a company’s valuation increasing from 0.5x revenues to 7.0x revenues in under three years, resulting in an IPO and secondary offering on a major exchange at a valuation of over $300,000,000.
Our team has a unique blend of experience in senior operating roles as CEOs and senior executives, as well as a unique understanding of the investor/buyer perspective and mergers and acquisitions through experience leading deal teams at private equity firms and corporate development functions.
Our industry expertise spans software and hardware technologies, industrial technology, IoT, mobile, digital media, internet marketing, e-commerce, cloud, SaaS and telecommunications, with a focus on mid-market sized companies (revenues of $25M – $500M).
In addition to our mid-market value activation practice, we also help growth oriented private equity firms with > $1B AUM define and execute value creation strategies for existing and potential portfolio companies. Our private equity clients include some of the most reputable top global firms in the industry.
We also offer leadership mentoring and coaching to a select group of CEOs, management teams and boards of directors that want to build world class organizations and value growth engines.
The Thiel Advisors’ Network of industry experts, intermediaries, and capital providers is a powerful asset that our clients can leverage as needed for insights, expertise, and access to key decision-makers in North America and Europe.
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Dorner Mfg. Corp.
Company Industries Industrial Automation Hartland, Wisconsin
Founded in 1966 and based in Hartland, Wisconsin, Dorner (EQT Partners portfolio company) is a privately held World Leader in the design, applications, manufacturing, and integration of conveyor systems. Companies from over 1,200 different industries worldwide turn to Dorner to achieve improved efficiency, productivity, and a positive ROI.
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Utimaco GmbH
Company Industries Information Technology and Services Aachen
Utimaco (EQT Partners portfolio company) is a worldwide supplier of professional cyber security solutions based in Aachen, Germany. Since 1983, Utimaco has been developing hardware-based, high-security appliances (Hardware Security Modules) and compliance solutions for telecommunication provider regulations (lawful interception and data retention). Today, Utimaco is a world-market leader in both segments.
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EQT Partners/EQT AB
Company Industries Venture Capital & Private Equity
Technology, media, and telecom focus for private equity firm working across various global funds. Involved in pre-deal evaluation and post-transaction value creation.
EQT invests in good companies across the world with a mission to help them develop into great and sustainable companies. EQT is divided into separate investment strategies – Equity, Mid Market, Infrastructure and Credit – guided by a responsible ownership approach and an industrial growth strategy.
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Post-Lean Institute
Company Industries Management Consulting
Chairman Advisory Board – Based in Silicon Valley, the Post-Lean Institute (PLI) is a global research and consulting firm helping corporates and private equity firms navigate, exploit and engage in disruptive innovation. We work with boards and CEOs to provide executive education, workshops and strategic advice. The foundation of our work is Post-Lean Thinking, our effort to reinvent management science for the post- industrial transition human civilization is undergoing.
The mission of the Post-Lean Institute is to develop a post-industrial management science and provide leaders, organizations and investors with the tools and practices to build the future.
PLI was founded by Frode Odegard in 2004 as the Lean Software Institute and later renamed to the Lean Systems Institute. Our initial mission was to reinvent Lean for modern knowledge-based organizations. We spent ten years helping corporates redesign themselves for improved innovation and execution across a range of complex and knowledge-intensive verticals. These included enterprise software, aerospace & defense, game development, medical devices, mobile, and mass media. Our research and field work led to the development of the Lean Systems Framework, a comprehensive organizational design framework, for which Frode was awarded a Fellowship by the Lean Systems Society.
In 2014 we began a new chapter, observing that exponential technologies were undermining all the common assumptions in organizational design. After a study of 12,000 years of economic history we concluded that humanity was transitioning to a post-industrial civilization. We embarked on a quest to develop a new management science with new solutions and new practices suitable for the world that is now emerging. We refer to this as Post-Lean Thinking because its emphasis on just-in-time micro-organizations, looser relationships between people and organizations, and disruptive instead of incremental innovation.
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Graham Partners – Senior Advisor
Graham Partners is a private investment firm focused on investing in businesses with proprietary technologies, advanced manufacturing know-how, innovative product development capabilities, and strong growth potential. Graham Partners targets businesses with EBITDA between $5 million and $50 million, and will invest in smaller companies to the extent they complement one or more of its other holdings.
Company Industries Venture Capital & Private Equity Newtown Square, PA
Graham Partners is a private investment firm with $1.6B in committed capital focused on investing in businesses with proprietary technologies, advanced manufacturing know-how, innovative product development capabilities, and strong growth potential.
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Predixion Software, Inc.
Company Industries Computer Software Aliso Viejo, CA was a Board of Directors Advisor until 2016
Predixion Software, Inc. was founded on the belief that predictive analytics has the power to create a smarter, safer and healthier world. Predixion Software is the only advanced analytics solution that can embed predictive models on a device, on a gateway and in the cloud – so the analytics are where you need them, when you need them. Its patent-pending Machine Learning Semantic Model (MLSM) enables analytics to be easily embedded into a variety of production environments including existing applications, databases, real-time streaming engines and even directly on to connected or disconnected devices. This unique capability gives Predixion an advantage over traditional analytic tools that cannot handle the speed and volume of streaming data or the real-time actions required when dealing with use cases that involve devices or machines with limited connectivity. Advanced analytics and automated actions on the device or machine are required to realize the return made on connecting all these things,
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Involved until 2015
Board of Directors Senior Advisor – 2008-2014 Advantech B+B SmartWorx (exit to Advantech 2015)
Company Industries Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing Ottawa, IL
Graham Partners portfolio company. B+B SmartWorx provides world-class, wired and wireless, industrial M2M (machine-to-machine) data communications technologies known for rugged reliability, ease of use, and ease of implementation. Company was acquired by Advantech in December 2015.
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Board of Advisors 2008 until – Dec. of 2015 – AssetPoint (exit to Aptean 2015)
Company Industries Computer Software Greenville, SCTriton Pacific Capital Partners Portfolio company. TabWare is a leading enterprise asset management (EAM/CMMS) software solution for large manufacturing, oil and gas exploration, and processing companies. TabWare is offered either as a SaaS or perpetual license.
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CEO & Chairman of the Board – 2014 – until November 2015 – Local Corporation (sale of assets to media.net)
Company Industries Internet Irvine, CA
(NASDAQ: LOCM) Joined board of directors as independent director in January 2013 and elected Chairman in January 2014. Appointed as CEO by Board of Directors in May 2014 to diversify revenues away from dependency on legacy Google search arbitrage and declining high risk Yahoo! search feed businesses. Developed and implemented strategy to create two new innovative business lines (programmatic retargeting and white label search on mobile and other non-computer devices). Yahoo! search feed business set-backs resulted in company seeking strategic alternatives in spring of 2015 resulting in sale in November 2015.
CEO Lantronix 1998-2002 (NASDAQ:LTRX IPO 2000/Secondary 2001);
CEO GameSpy Industries / 2003 – 2004 (exit to IGN 2004);
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enabling the ability to connect things
to networks
Marketing Equation – Fred Thiel
you are listening to Listenup Show Startup Entrepreneur Podcast podcast with Fred Thiel
welcome everybody we’re gonna be talking today with Fred about digitized businesses
Q: explain what you do and who you are
Challenges of IoT – AI
