Todd is a Managing Director with Lazear, where he leads client engagements involving sell-side M&A, ESOP formations, and distressed company situations. With more than 25 years of investment banking experience, he focuses on delivering strategic transaction services for middle-market companies and private equity firms.

Before joining Lazear, Todd spent ten years leading his own merchant banking platform, Shaker Investment Partners, where he served as both advisor and principal on numerous transactions and held operating roles within portfolio companies. Earlier in his career, he was a Vice President with KeyBanc Capital Markets in Cleveland, advising middle-market companies across a range of industrial sub-sectors on M&A and capital-raising initiatives.

Todd began his investment banking career at Wachovia Securities (now Wells Fargo Securities), where he served as a Vice President in corporate finance. He earned his MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and his BBA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

If you had to pick three words that best represents Lazear’s culture, what would they be, and why?

Creative – we don’t have a prescribed way of looking at a transaction. Every deal is bespoke and designed to achieve outcomes specific to the client.

Rigorous – from the carefully crafted team to the internal process of designing a transaction to the delivery of our execution every transaction is done with great care, planning and diligence

Confident – when you hire Lazaer you get the best. And we know it.