Jeff Dixon

About Jeff Dixon

Professional finance and operations executive with broad experience working in CFO and COO roles in the US, in high growth businesses. Industry experience includes business services, media (events, exhibitions, conferences and publications) and information technology (SaaS). Over 12 years’ working in private equity backed entrepreneurial environments from ‘start-up’ to $300m revenue, including turn-around stages, recession mitigation planning, fast organic growth and acquisition integration business challenges. Strong international M&A experience of acquisition strategy development, target assessment, due diligence processes, tax structuring and operational integration of businesses in the US, South Africa, Brazil, the Middle East and across Europe. In depth knowledge of designing, building and executing integration plans across multiple business functions to enable comprehensive alignment of the acquired businesses. Comfortable in entrepreneurial and ambiguous environments where problem solving and focus on medium term goals is key. Decisive and strategic thinker who listens first and drives change across business departments, working alongside CEOs, business owners and department leaders. Change agent with leadership abilities and the capacity to build, train and mentor highly productive finance and human resources teams. Ability to reshape teams, mentoring and developing individuals both in the US, the UK and at remote locations. Strong communication and problem-solving skills with the ability to bridge technical and business audiences, whilst building consensus and support. Broad experience in FP & A projects having lead the development of short and medium term business plans / budgets to facilitate corporation sales (PE turns), refinancing for acquisitions and projecting business growth. Strong Excel skills from building financial models to align with strategic plans and including commercial factors. Early Big 4 background. Successes: • Formed the accounting and finance foundation to enable the carve out of Clarion Events as a standalone business unit and grow from $50m in revenue to $300m over 7 years while completing and integrating 19 international acquisitions. • Established a new technology start up in the US market, employing a team of 15 staff across sales, engineering, programmers and customer support. • Re-built a US finance team and stabilized the accounting software to enable reporting of financial and KPI data to Group parent company within 2 months. Transitioned accounting systems from Quickbooks to Workday.

Experience

1. Chief Financial Officer

   Heartland Business Systems

   Jan 2023 — Present · Chicago, IL, US

   Heartland Business Systems is a leading IT solutions and managed services provider. Headquartered in Little Chute, WI, Heartland provides cloud computing, cybersecurity, data management, IoT consulting, software development, and other IT-related services to the enterprise, SMB, government, education, and healthcare markets. Following the investment by Alvarez & Marsal Capital Opportunities in August 2022, the CFO position was created to build on the financial foundations of the group and execute on the acquisition strategy.

Education

• University of Warwick

  Accountancy & Finance, BSc (hons)

  1995 — 1997

• ICAEW

  ACA - CPA Equivalent, Accountancy

  1997 — 2014