Operator on both sides of the founder-PE table.
built & run
sold
engagements to exit
led
operating
Twenty-plus years operating in regulated technology services.
I spent twenty-plus years operating Performive, a managed cloud services and IT infrastructure business I ran for most of its life. The SoftLayer-partner era, the convergence of cloud and managed services, the margin compression cycles that reshaped the category. We came in early, ran the playbook through to a credentialed exit, and along the way I learned what it actually takes to build a recurring-revenue services business in a category that doesn't sit still.
Today I am CEO of RedZone Technologies, a ParkerGale-backed regulated IT, security, and compliance platform. The mandate is one accountable partner across IT, security, and compliance for the regulated organizations that cannot afford to get it wrong. Different category, different chair, same operator instincts.
Few CEOs in this niche have lived both sides of this arc of the category. Fewer still have sat in both the founder’s chair and the PE platform CEO’s chair. The writing here is what I have learned worth sharing, for the regulated buyer who cannot afford to get technology wrong, for the founder considering the next chapter, for the operator looking at a serious platform, and for the partners thinking about how this category should be built.
Four tracks. One thesis underneath.
Each piece sits in one of four tracks below, with reactive commentary on industry moves running as a fifth thread on LinkedIn. Year-one weighting leans heavy on insights from the field and leadership; the mix shifts as the category authority compounds. The discipline does not.
Insights from the field
Cybersecurity, AI in services delivery, managed services, and regulated-industry operations. Where the proprietary research lives.
Leadership & The Work
How to run a services platform without breaking the people who build it. Hiring decisions, operating cadence, the post-acquisition discipline that decides whether integrations work. Operator-truth paired with customer-empathy, no hedging.
Platform Operator
PE partnership, M&A philosophy, platform-building mechanics. What collaborative PE actually looks like from the operator's chair. The bridge between founder legacy and PE discipline. Why most MSP roll-ups destroy value, and what the exceptions do differently.
Founders Who Stayed
First-person accounts from rollover founders at acquired RedZone companies. Why they stayed rather than fully exited. What changed post-close that surprised them. Social proof from the people actually doing the integration, not pitch from the acquirer.
Five audiences.
The writing serves five audiences. If you recognize yourself in one of these descriptions, this is for you.
The regulated buyer
CIOs, CISOs, and CFOs at US-headquartered organizations operating in industries where the cost of getting technology, security, or compliance wrong is measured in regulatory action, breach exposure, or customer trust. The writing here is what your technology partner should be saying out loud, and usually does not.
The founder considering a sale
You built a services business, mostly through partner-driven growth, and you are looking at the next chapter. The PE conversations have started. You want to know what a sale actually looks like from inside, and what working with PE looks like on the other side of the term sheet. I have lived both sides of that table. The writing is honest about what each side is solving for.
The operator looking for a platform
VP-level operators in MSP, MSSP, and cyber-services categories evaluating their next move. The writing here will tell you whether RedZone is a platform you would want to work at, and more broadly, what good operating discipline at a PE-backed services platform looks like.
The investor
LPs, co-investors, and the PE community tracking operator-CEOs across the regulated services category. The writing here is the working surface of an operator running a platform, what the daily decisions actually look like, and what the proprietary research being built underneath them is going to measure.
The PE community building this category
The partners thinking seriously about how regulated-industry technology services should be built. Not pitch. If you are evaluating how this niche is changing, this is the working notebook.
Growth recognized by the people who count it.
A career built around running services platforms through transitions the rest of the category did not see coming.
Performive in the cloud and infrastructure era. RedZone in the regulated platform era now. The bridge between founder economics and PE economics that most operators only see one side of. Each chapter taught me something the next required.
The most useful thing I can offer is what I learned the hard way, told straight, without the corporate framing.
RedZone. The work I am doing now.
RedZone is a unified IT, security, and compliance operator for regulated organizations, one accountable partner across the full tech-risk surface, where most of the industry offers three or four separate vendors and asks the customer to integrate the accountability themselves. The integrated security operations capability went live in April 2026.
Several pieces of the operating model are still building. The vendor SLA advocacy mechanism, where the operator catches vendor service-level misses, files the credit, and passes it through to the customer, is in productization; the launch piece will publish here once it is operational with real data behind it. The measurement framework anchoring how progress will be reported, branded as the Confidence Index, is in design.
ParkerGale Capital backs the platform. The thesis we built together is the work in front of us.
Three ways. Pick what fits.
Subscribe
An operator's notebook, published as it lands. Long-form articles plus occasional sharp takes when something moves in the industry. No filler.
Subscribe to the note →The two-post-per-week cadence on LinkedIn is where the sharp takes land, alongside threads and reactions to industry moves in real time.
Follow on LinkedIn →Direct
Speaking inquiries, podcast invitations, founders considering a sale, operators looking at a platform, partners curious about the work, reach out directly.
Get in touch →