Business Brokers & M&A Advisors in Charlotte, NC

Jay’s father, Brad, was a serial entrepreneur growing and selling 3 of his own businesses. Brad saw an opportunity to take his real-world knowledge to assist other closely held business owners with their exit strategy. After graduating from Appalachian State with a Finance degree, Jay started Viking M&A with his father in June 1996. In 2015, Jay bought out his father and continued to grow the business opening up additional offices. Today, Viking has 13 offices and is the largest of its kind in the Southeast. Jay continues to be recognized as a trusted top producing business intermediary in the Carolinas, while helping lead and guide the Viking team with record growth. Jay’s dedication and experience, combined with his passion for serving business owners, are found in hundreds of successfully closed transactions and satisfied client testimonials.

Jay has served on the board of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) – Charlotte Chapter, including Vice President and then President. He also has served as chairman of the Department of Finance Board at Appalachian State for over 10 years, helping give back to students at his alma mater.

Jay lives in South Charlotte, and is happily married to Deanna, and have a blended family with 5 children.

Robert joins Viking Mergers & Acquisitions with 35 years of business experience and a successful entrepreneurial career. At 29, driven to build his own business, he left a prosperous career in hardware and software sales to start a distribution business in his garage supplying engineered parts to the OEM and MRO market. His vision was to bring high-quality engineered parts and technical services into niche markets and to raise the bar on the customer experience. After nearly 22 years of developing the people, the processes, and the strategies to grow, the business was acquired by a $4 billion global Swedish company on February 1, 2017.

Since that time, Robert has invested in multiple start-up companies with the “Wolfpack Investor Network”, (WIN), and is an Advisory Council member and Board Observer with CoPeace, a Public Benefit Corporation / holding company based in Denver, CO focusing on Impact Investing in the sports and health segments. Robert brings his entrepreneurial mindset to each discussion and is committed to putting his passion, energy, and experience to work for our clients.

Robert and his wife Susan have been married 32 years and live in South Charlotte. He has a B.A. in Business Management from NC State and is the youngest of five children from his family. They have two grown boys, one an NC State graduate and the other a University of South Carolina graduate. Robert enjoys playing golf, tennis, traveling, and spending time with his family.

Trevor comes to Viking Mergers & Acquisitions with over 19 years of operational leadership experience in Corporate America, where he was a management executive for the Lash Group, one of the nation’s largest reimbursement services firms under a parent Fortune 24 Company.

While working for Lash Group, Trevor developed and executed business strategies for a large profile of patient management programs. These programs are designed to address reimbursement and patient access issues for pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers and biotechnology firms. Trevor’s extensive experience in negotiation, project management, problem solving and communication enables him to have terrific insight on the process of selling your business.

Mike comes to the Viking team with over 30 years of leadership and entrepreneurial experience in accounting and finance, operations, and sales. He has a broad background across a variety of businesses, in nature and in scale, as well as extensive merger and acquisition experience. He has been successful in industry consolidation, turnaround, and start-up situations.

Soon after beginning his career as a CPA for a major accounting firm, Mike was recruited into a client’s corporate accounting group, where he quickly determined that his interest – and value – was with the company’s operations. That led to a series of divisional CFO roles for a number of different businesses, culminating in Mike becoming the corporate CFO. In that role Mike played a key part in developing and executing the growth strategy for the business, focusing on industry consolidation. Over the ensuing 8 years, the company completed more than 40 deals and was itself later sold at a substantial market premium. Mike then went on to run an industry-leading, multi-site manufacturer, where he led a dramatic turnaround in profitability. Following Mike’s exit from the corporate world, he chose to focus on more local and entrepreneurial ventures, first in consulting and later starting his own distribution business in Charleston, SC. Through that experience, he came to appreciate the unique challenges and opportunities of business ownership. Those insights along with his extensive management and deal experience are ideally suited to assist Viking’s clients.

Throughout his career Mike has come to be known for his objectivity in making important business decisions, his innate analytical skills, and his ability to connect with people from all walks of life. Mike aligns well with all of Viking’s core values, in particular integrity, innovation and collaboration.

Mike is the youngest of seven and the only family member to earn a college degree, a BS in Accounting from the University of Scranton. He and his wife Niki have five children. Away from work they enjoy boating, playing tennis, and cooking.

Mark has spent most of his 30-year career working with large and small private equity owned companies preparing businesses for sale and working as an executive on the management team to develop and execute a plan to maximize market value for an eventual sale. He comes to Viking with a strong skill set honed over decades of corporate experience necessary to close deals. These skills include financial analysis, business valuation, due diligence, marketing, negotiating and arranging both equity and debt financing.

In 2015, Mark purchased a regional publishing company, owned it for three years, and successfully sold it. He learned over those three years that his heart and passion were rooted in helping business owners with the important and personal decision to sell their business while guiding buyers through the acquisition process.

Mark is a graduate of Walsh University in Canton, Ohio. He began his career with Peat Marwick in Cleveland, Ohio and is a former CPA. He resides in Charlotte, North Carolina with his wife Angie and their six children.

Todd comes to Viking Mergers & Acquisitions with over 18 years of Investment Banking experience in successful sell-side, buy-side, and capital-raising transactions. Most recently he was a Director at Bourne Partners, a healthcare focused investment bank. Todd has advised founder owned, private equity backed, and publicly traded companies across a number of sectors and geographies.

Todd graduated from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a major in Finance and minor in Economics. He lives in Charlotte with his wife, Leah, and their two children, Andie and Grey. Outside of work, he enjoys cooking, traveling, and spending time with family.

Jeff joined the Lake Norman office of Viking Mergers & Acquisitions in 2017 after a successful 34-year career in the economic development profession in North and South Carolina. He spent twenty-eight years in Charlotte where he led those efforts for the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. In that role, Jeff worked with a very diverse client base of small family-owned companies to Fortune 100 corporations.

During his time at Viking, Jeff has worked with a wide variety of businesses including metal fabricators, plastics manufacturing, cabinet manufacturing, landscaping, screen printing & embroidery, distribution, B2B services, automotive services, building materials, construction, HVAC, plumbing, consulting, outdoor power equipment, commercial insulation, and motorsports businesses. His goal is to make the process seamless and an enjoyable experience for his clients.

Jeff and Angela, his wife of 25 years, live in the Lake Norman area and have a daughter, whom they adopted in Ukraine. They attend Grace Covenant Church in Cornelius and enjoy traveling, kayaking, motorsports, and supporting animal rescue groups. Jeff is a graduate of Furman University where he played soccer and was a member of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. He is also a graduate of the Institute for Organization Management at the University of Georgia and the Economic Development Institute at the University of Oklahoma. He is a past Charlotte Business Journal Top 40 Under 40 honoree.

Jeff currently serves on the board of directors of the 600 Festival Association and the Polymers Technology Center where he is Vice Chairman. He is also an active member of the North Carolina Motorsports Association, and the Sports Car Club of America. He also holds a NC real estate license.

Keenan brings over 30 years of successful business experience to Viking with over 20 years in Senior Management positions including CEO, President and COO.

Keenan has extensive experience and expertise in both the buying and selling of businesses. Having spent over 25 years in the Franchise Industry, he’s also very adept at working closely with entrepreneurs. His experience and skill-set enables him to develop productive working relationships with both sellers and buyers.

Keenan is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana with a B.S in Psychology and a minor in Business Administration. He’s married and he and his wonderful wife have four great children and four fantastic grandchildren.

Brando comes to Viking with over 20 years experience in investment management. Most recently he served as the Chief Investment Officer for a Charlotte based advisor managing close to $2 billion. Despite national recognition from the Wall Street Journal for his expertise in business and economics, his primary focus remains on guiding individuals through the process of building wealth, enabling them to improve their lives and the lives of those they care about.

Brando’s love of business started on the shores of Lake Erie as a youth while listening to his elders talk about the family marina. Shortly after starting his first venture in middle school, he won numerous awards nationally in high school focusing on business fundamentals and value creation. While playing soccer at Xavier University, he attempted to start an advertising company and found some of life’s most valuable lessons can only be learned through failure.

Since that time, he has built a successful career managing capital and learning about creating real value in business. He has been a portfolio manager on numerous funds that have received national awards for their performance in addition to advising various institutions on capital allocation.
Despite his accomplishments, he remains true to his humble roots and the effort it takes to succeed which can be summarized by a poster that hangs in his son’s room with the phrase;

“Success isn’t owned. It’s leased. And rent is due everyday“. – J.J. Watt

Brando and his wife of 23 years have three children and reside in Charlotte, NC. Between their kids’ activities, volunteering, work, and numerous hobbies, they find a ton of excitement in getting up each day and finding out what new surprises await them.

Haydn was born in Toronto, Canada before his family immigrated to Massachusetts at an early age. He then moved to Charlotte, North Carolina in 2006 where he has primarily lived since then. Haydn attended North Carolina State University where he graduated with honors in two degrees, a Bachelor of Science in Economics, and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in International Studies, concentrating in Economy & Environment.

Upon graduation, Haydn developed a passion for entrepreneurship, specifically in the sustainability and real estate sectors. After running his own real estate investment company and becoming licensed in Florida and North Carolina, Haydn joined one of the fastest-growing solar companies in the country where he progressed to Director of Sales and built a team of 65 sales representatives. From there, he started a nationwide solar energy brokerage for residential and commercial properties, specializing in the marketing, sales, and consulting side of the industry. Through his company’s 30+ partnerships, he learned the importance of proper communication and creative problem solving with several parties involved.

Before joining Viking, Haydn worked with a sustainable agriculture technology company helping global businesses, nonprofits, and educational institutes start or scale their sustainability programs. This experience helped Haydn grow his strength in connecting with people from all different backgrounds. Haydn is now married to his college sweetheart, Morgan, and they love to travel every chance they get.

Michael joins the Charlotte office of Viking Mergers & Acquisitions. Prior to joining Viking, Michael was an Investment Lead and Operating Partner for a private equity group focused on acquiring and managing complex, multi-national corporate divestitures. With this group, Michael originated and acquired non-core divisions & geographies from Fortune 500 companies across the US, Europe, and Asia. Additionally, he led operations and go-to-market strategy for a talent assessment software company prior to the company’s exit in 2023 to a private equity group.

Michael started his career at a secondary private equity group focused on purchasing limited partner interests in fund-of-funds & tail-end funds from institutional investors with exposure across all asset classes. In addition to being on the investment team, Michael attended global investor annual meetings for private equity groups, led capital raising efforts, and helped launch a B2C home furnishings company.

Michael grew up in Traverse City, MI and attended the University of Michigan where he was a member of the club hockey team. After many cold Michigan winters, Michael and his wife, Allyson, moved to Charlotte to enjoy golfing, boating, and playing tennis for more than 4 months in the year.

Mary Lou plays a key role in managing and supporting many aspects of Viking’s internal operations. She wears many hats, including overseeing internal communications, managing special projects, planning and executing Viking’s annual company conference, handling IT needs, supporting the onboarding of new staff, and ensuring that the daily operations of the company run smoothly and efficiently. With a focus on connecting Viking’s long-term vision to practical implementation, Mary Lou works across teams to keep processes organized and aligned with company goals.

Before joining Viking, Mary Lou built a successful career in sales, marketing, and advertising, developing strategic, creative, and results-driven print and online marketing campaigns. Known for her ability to cultivate long-term relationships, she worked closely with both new and established clients to help grow their businesses.

Originally from New York State, Mary Lou graduated Cum Laude from Montreat College in 2019 with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. She brings more than 35 years of experience to her role, combining a deep understanding of operations with a strong background in client relations, business development, and strategic planning.

As Director of Communications, Amanda Uher leads Viking M&A’s communications and content strategy to support the firm’s brand, growth, and thought leadership initiatives. With more than 15 years of experience in marketing and communications, she oversees Viking’s messaging across all channels, ensuring consistency, clarity, and strategic alignment with business development goals.

Over the course of her career, Amanda has worked with multiple companies and publications to create helpful, authoritative content optimized for maximum visibility. Her background spans digital media, short-form, and long-form content, with a particular focus on supporting small- and midsize-business owners.

Originally from a small town outside Cincinnati, OH, Amanda has lived in Charlotte, NC, for over 20 years. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Dayton with minors in Marketing, Communications, and Sociology. Amanda is married to her hilarious husband, Matt. They have two incredible teenagers and one lazy dog.

As Brand Manager at Viking Mergers and Acquisitions, Lexie Crouch is a driving force behind the company’s visual brand identity. Her strategic approach ensures that all digital and print materials are on-brand, visually stunning, and compelling to buyers, sellers, and prospective clients. Lexie played a pivotal role in crafting Viking’s new logo and brand identity, reflecting the company’s dynamic growth. Collaborating closely with the marketing team, she uses her branding and graphic design background to produce marketing collateral that is both cohesive and impactful.

Lexie is a graduate of Clemson University (Go Tigers!) with a Bachelor of Science degree in Graphic Communication. Lexie lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband, two sons, and miniature dachshund. Lexie stays busy keeping up with her two young boys and enjoys spending weekends at the lake surfing, skiing, and playing pickleball!

Bernadette Mohamed joined the Viking Mergers & Acquisitions Team in January 2022, as the Client Services Manager. She brings over 25 years of administrative experience in office management, human resources and accounting. She approaches all aspects of any job with a positive, hard-working mindset, and is passionate about helping find solutions to any challenges.

Bernadette is well-versed in all the administrative and operational duties of running an office. Not only handling the day-to-day office administrative duties, but Bernadette also ensures the smooth operation of the firm with her robust knowledge in office management. Bernadette plays a key role in offering overall support to the Viking team and to our clients.

Prior to joining Viking Mergers & Acquisition in her previous role she was and Office Manager with Greater Temple Baptist Church for over 15 years. She was responsible for the overall administrative duties and assisting the staff and being a great support for the office staff. Before joining Greater Temple Baptist Church, she was the owner of Family Christian Day Care for over 14 years. Bernadette understands how to turn information into insights-and act upon them. She sold her first business at the of 28.

Bernadette was born and raised in Charlotte, NC. She is active member of Greater Temple Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C. She’s also active in the community and volunteers her time as a Community Outreach Worker with several outreach ministries.

In her spare time, she enjoys spending quality time with her family, traveling and cooking.

Ryan joined Viking Mergers & Acquisitions in 2022, initially serving as an Analyst where he led the firm’s business valuation efforts. In this role, he conducted valuations, financial analysis, and market research to support clients and advisors throughout the deal process.

He has since transitioned into an Associate Advisor role, where he supports M&A transactions across a wide range of industries. Ryan is involved in all aspects of the deal lifecycle, including client onboarding, marketing, financial analysis, buyer management, due diligence, and overall process coordination.

Ryan graduated from Appalachian State University with a bachelor’s degree in Finance & Banking, as well as an MBA with a focus in interdisciplinary business. His academic background, combined with hands-on deal experience, provides a strong foundation for delivering value to clients throughout the transaction process.

Outside of the office, Ryan enjoys staying active and spending time outdoors. His interests include golf, basketball, hiking, and other competitive activities, as well as spending time with family and friends.

Conrad was born in Waxhaw, NC, and has lived there his entire life. Conrad attended Appalachian State University, where he graduated with Summa Cum Laude honors, achieving a double major in Finance & Banking (BSBA) and Risk Management and Insurance (BSBA). During his time at App State, Conrad was heavily involved in his fraternity serving in executive positions as Secretary and Treasurer. Also, he served as the Risk Management Officer for the Interfraternity Council of App State.

Conrad’s passion for entrepreneurship and M&A was first sparked by his father, a seasoned professional who owns and operates his own financial advising firm. Pursuing his passion, Conrad completed a three-month internship with Viking, serving as a Financial Analyst, during his junior year of college. Presently, he serves a full-time position of Associate Advisor, where he collaborates closely with Managing Partners to aid in the successful sale or acquisition of business located in the greater Charlotte, NC area.

Committed to excellence, Conrad utilizes his expertise to offer unwavering support to business owners navigating the complex, stressful, and emotional landscape of sales and acquisitions. Outside of work, Conrad is an avid sports fan and golfer, as well as enjoying cooking and barbecuing.

Originally from Massachusetts, Franco lived in Chile during fourth and fifth grade and later moved to Maryland to attend the University of Maryland, bringing a bilingual, international perspective to his client work. He began in kinesiology before transitioning to economics and immediately grew a liking toward M&A. At UMD, Franco helped professionalize the College Park Student Investment Group (CPSIG) as Vice President and then President, rewriting its constitution, launching its student-run investment fund that achieved ~30% growth in his senior year, delivering regular education to members, and ultimately facilitating the fund’s sale to another student organization for continuity. He also co-founded DogHouseFit through the Startup Shell accelerator, gaining hands-on experience in customer discovery, product iteration, and operating discipline.

Franco also tested his skills in multiple competitive settings on different teams, including a first-place finish in Stifel’s M&A case competition, a top-10 national placement in J.P. Morgan’s consulting case competition, a Morgan Stanley stock pitch, and a third-place finish in the CFA Institute Research Challenge, the highest placement UMD ever achieved, with a fundamentals-driven thesis on Franklin Templeton. Professionally, he supported commercial real estate underwriting at Alma Bank and later joined J.P. Morgan’s Home Lending organization, where he worked on generative-AI enablement and created onboarding materials adopted by ~12,000 employees.

Franco earned a B.A. in Economics from the University of Maryland and is fluent in Spanish. Now putting down roots in Charlotte, Franco enjoys spending time with his family and girlfriend, getting outside to explore the Carolinas, and curating a growing collection of PSA-graded trading cards.

Mitchell joined Viking’s Charlotte office as a Financial Analyst in Fall 2024, supporting advisors across all Viking offices with business valuations, financial modeling, and in-depth industry analysis. Known for his analytical skills and keen attention to detail, Mitchell provides critical insights that empower clients to make informed financial decisions.

Graduating with honors from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Mitchell earned his degree in Information systems, blending his passion for business with a strong foundation in technology. His unique academic background allows him to incorporate innovative technology solutions into financial strategies, enhancing value for clients. Dedicated to continuous learning and growth, Mitchell is committed to making a lasting impact on Viking’s team and its clients.