Advocate Construction is an award-winning, industry-leading building envelope construction company. With a footprint across the entire mid-section of the US, Advocate is the fastest growing company in the residential construction services sector.

The mission is simple: Take companies built on the passion, hard work and personality of entrepreneurs through the transformative process of building the platform for sustainable growth. Growth Phase Advisors uses financial and operational tools, along with an unwavering commitment to high-performing culture to ensure companies survive and thrive by establishing the solid platform - built by a seasoned team of professionals too expensive to hire on your own - necessary to scale up operations . GPA is the evolution of decades of deal making, financial engineering and business management offering entrepreneurial, fast-growing companies access to skills, knowledge and acumen that only comes with a high-powered CFO/COO.The overarching concept - a scalable platform that can be utilized for nearly any type of business in growth mode - is still one of my proudest achievements. throughout the process, two critical lessons were learned: 1) Being a pioneer in an industry is hard work. You are an educator and a volunteer long before you are a successful salesperson of a new concept or technology. That is why having adequate capital prior to jumping off is critical; and 2) Choose your partners carefully. Finding capital for the right idea is relatively easy. Finding people who share your passion, moral compass and drive, not so much.My experiences in entrepreneurship, coupled with the big bank training and deep knowledge of finance and accounting led to GPA. Growth Phase Advisors is the vehicle we use to translate our experience and share it with entrepreneurs with high-growth opportunities still forming the operating environment to facilitate scalability.

Built the operating platform and led this company's growth initiative, resulting in a 5x increase in revenue and a stable platform for continued, profitable growth. US Equipment is a distributor of aggregate processing equipment to the mining, recycling, demolition and road construction industries. Located in Chicago, US Equipment represents industry leading manufacturers including McCloskey International, MDS International and MWS Washing Equipment across the Midwest USA.

Bianco family office real estate investment, development and consulting company.

Tired of the chaos of merger-mania in the banking system at the turn of this century, and armed with an MBA from UChicago, I embarked on an entrepreneurial path. I was part of several teams that conceptualized, built and sold various companies over a ten-year period.

Involved in sales and relationship development, credit analysis, operations management and bank funding activities. Held several management and sales roles across cash management, commercial banking customer service and remittance banking operations. Certified Cash Manager. Extensive relationship management, personnel management, technology, business process outsourcing and process improvement experience. Blah blah blah...Commercial banking was a great place to start my career. Solid training at a great institution, First Chicago, gave me a business and management foundation that I still draw upon today. At a young age I was afforded the opportunity to manage Fortune 100 relationships and participate in all aspects of global corporate finance. Of course, First Chicago became NBD Bank, which became Bank1 and ultimately Chase. The turmoil of merging every two years was exhausting on the employees and the clients. As a customer-facing professional, I felt my reputation was at stake and I was powerless to achieve the positive change necessary before I went berserk. And, since Mr. Dimon seemed to have a firm hold on the top job, I decided it was time to move on.