Michael Burcham partners with CEOs to help them grow enterprise value, avoid the errors that erode it, and exit with a reputation that compounds across a career.
Michael is not an advisor who studies Private Equity from the outside. He has lived it on the inside, every day, for more than thirty years.
He has more than a decade of experience in each seat, and he brings that experience into every engagement. The experience of an operator who's lived the pressure. The insight of an investor who's seen the patterns of success (and failure) across a portfolio.
As an operator, he has raised capital, scaled teams, executed strategic plans, and successfully exited multiple businesses.
As an investor, he knows the decisions that move the multiple, the initiatives that lead to scale, and the activities that look productive but add little value at the exit.
PE-backed CEOs are measured on specific equations. EBITDA growth, multiple expansion, organic versus inorganic contribution, and working capital efficiency. Michael frames every conversation in the language of value creation and builds his work around the PE timeline, not a generic leadership arc.
Michael works as an advisor to CEOs of private equity-backed companies. You have a value creation plan to deliver and a five-to-six-year window in which to deliver it. Perhaps it's your first time as CEO. Or you're working on building a business that's scaling beyond anything you've experienced before. You're making decisions for the first time, whether that's first exit, first acquisition, or first significant integration.
You've made a decision to hire a CEO. A turnover of a CEO will cost you at least a year of the hold period, which reduces the rate of return for your firm. So, you need them to be successful. Michael's job is to help your CEO think about how to prioritize the work, scale the venture, and focus on the three to five most critical things that will create the greatest possible enterprise value and returns for you and your limited partners.
Michael spent the first two decades of his career building healthcare companies. He led Theraphysics, ParadigmHealth, and Narus Health. He's now an executive partner at Shore Capital, where he sits on the investor side of the table. He has also taught entrepreneurship at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management for over twenty years.
Michael has founded, scaled, and exited three companies for a combined value of more than $750 million. During that time, he raised ten rounds of capital and sat through more than a hundred board meetings as the operator in the chair.
Michael is an executive partner at Shore Capital, where he has worked across more than eighty portfolio companies and $17 billion in enterprise value. His role spans strategy, talent development, and CEO support across the portfolio.
Michael taught entrepreneurship at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management for over two decades. More than 5,000 MBA students engaged in his classes on building and scaling ventures.
Michael works with CEOs as a thinking partner across the full arc of their PE-backed engagement. It's a six-month minimum commitment and a monthly cadence with quarterly in-person sessions. Together, you'll identify the three to five things that matter most, and then work through them relentlessly. Michael shares his experiences and lessons learned as a three-time CEO.
A first exit, or preparing the company for sale
A first acquisition, or integrating one without losing the value of what was bought
Stepping into the CEO seat for the first time, or running at a scale beyond anything previously done
A high-stakes call where you don't have a trusted sounding board: restructure, termination, capital decision
Decoding what your board is really asking, and what the silence in the room means
Workshops are half-day or full-day sessions with a leadership team or board. They're tailored to the business and the market conditions. Michael creates the environment for the team to engage openly, and guides the conversation from there.
Executive leadership team effectiveness
Strategic planning
Leading change through acquisition integration or major transformation
Building a psychologically safe environment for healthy debate
Having the difficult conversation: terminations, sale preparations, closures
Preparing the leadership team for the sale of the company
Michael is a keynote speaker booked by corporate audiences, conferences, and leadership events. He speaks on leadership, value creation, building culture, decision-making under pressure, and the realities of building and scaling a business. Each keynote is tailored to the audience.
Leadership and decision-making under pressure
Value creation
Building and scaling businesses
The realities of operating inside private equity
Capitalizing on market trends
Chair of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, appointed by President Obama to advise the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on entrepreneurship and innovation policy.
Founding CEO of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, now one of the leading startup organizations in the country, having served over 14,000 entrepreneurs since 2010.
Inductee of the Nashville Entrepreneurs' Hall of Fame, recognizing his lifetime contribution to helping entrepreneurs build and scale ventures.
A framework for turning ideas into investor-ready businesses, drawn from twenty years of teaching entrepreneurship at Vanderbilt. For first-time founders raising capital.
Buy the Book
A book on the patterns of behavior that kill ventures, drawn from thirty years of advising. For founders who want to recognize the traps before they become fatal.
Buy the Book
A book for CEOs of fast-growth private equity-backed companies. For the leader who is now expected to deliver value creation at speed and scale.
Buy the Book
Every entrepreneur begins with a spark of belief; a vision only they can see. But between idea and impact lies the emotional terrain of entrepreneurship.
Buy the BookTell Michael a little about your situation and he'll respond personally.
Thanks. Your message is with Michael, and he'll respond personally. Expect to hear back within a few business days.
