Meet the business brokers and M&A advisors behind every CGK engagement.
Eight senior named principals. One firm. Every engagement runs through a principal who has actually closed transactions in your size band.
CGK Business Sales is a national M&A advisory and business brokerage firm focused on privately-held companies in the High Main Street and lower-middle-market bands. Every engagement is led by a senior named principal from intake to wire. We do not hand sellers off to junior screeners, and we do not run engagements without a principal who has institutional finance and operating credentials to back the work. The team below is the team you will actually work with.
One senior principal runs your M&A engagement from first call to closing wire.
The single biggest predictor of whether a privately-held company closes at a defensible number is the seniority of the principal running the engagement. CGK runs every sell-side, buy-side, and business valuation engagement through a senior named principal with institutional finance training and real operating experience. The pages on this site tell you what we do. The team below tells you who actually does it.
Inside the Blueprint, the national business television program featuring CGK business brokers and M&A advisors.
CGK has been featured on Inside the Blueprint, a national business television segment that highlights the strategy, discipline, and outcomes that separate the M&A firms business owners should actually engage from the ones they should not.
The CGK business brokers and M&A advisors.
Each principal below is a named senior on the engagement, not a junior coordinator. Bios reflect institutional finance background, operating experience, and the credential stack each member brings to a CGK engagement.
Greg Knox
Greg Knox, MBA, CFA, CAIA has spent his twenty-five-plus year career in finance and business, including a diverse background in middle-market investment banking, private equity, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund, and institutional trading, at institutions including Deutsche Bank, T. Rowe Price, and Wachovia Securities. Mr. Knox also has experience as a multiple-time business owner, giving him insight into a founder’s mindset. Previous to his work at CGK, Greg spent multiple years with local, regional, and national business owners as a middle-market mergers and acquisitions investment banker and at an international business brokerage, where he was a top-ten M&A advisor worldwide for three consecutive years. Mr. Knox has a BA in Business Administration from Franklin & Marshall College, a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Cornell University, and a Master of Data Science from the University of Michigan. Greg currently holds the FINRA Series 79, 65, 63, and 55 licenses and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Charterholder, a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Charterholder, and a Financial Data Professional (FDP) Charterholder.
Derik Polay
Derik Polay has over twenty-five years of experience with mergers and acquisitions, distressed securities, and markets, worldwide. Derik also has seven-plus years of upper-management positions at small and middle-market businesses. Derik’s previous experience includes Managing Director at IFI Capital and Senior Vice President for Fulcrum Capital, where he focused on distressed investments and securities. Previously, as a top producer at APS Capital, Derik helped grow the business. Before his finance career, Derik held important positions in management roles and as a consultant, where he increased productivity, the quality of various products and services, and communication within major manufacturing, auto supply, and telecommunications companies. Mr. Polay holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from DePaul University.
Eric Lewis
Eric Lewis has over twenty years of experience in the financial industry. He has worked for a breadth of companies ranging from investment banks to proprietary trading firms. While spending the last ten years in the energy business, he built a physical commodities business and traded financial products. He has also created valuation models for physical assets, projects, and companies. His financial career has led him to work for Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Cargill, and TD Options, along with a few private financial firms. Eric is also the owner and founder of a digital marketing company. Eric holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Jason Clendaniel
Jason Clendaniel has been in business since he was seven years old. Whether mowing lawns, delivering papers, or shoveling snow, Jason learned business from the ground up. His professional career is multi-faceted and well-rounded. He has 20 years of experience in leadership and finance, ten years as a Naval Officer and ten years leading his own businesses. He has over ten years of experience working with S&P 500 companies in Sales, Business Development, and Mergers and Acquisitions. He also spent a year working with a Fortune 500 Company as an internal consultant and Industrial Engineer. He has a deep understanding of finance, operations, business development, and business valuation. Jason holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics with Honors from the United States Naval Academy.
Matthew Mistica
Matthew Mistica has more than fifteen years of experience in finance and entrepreneurship. Matthew has seven years of experience in Corporate Finance working for Chevron Corporation and Shell Oil as a financial analyst with various upstream drilling business units and downstream refinery margin optimization. In recent years, Matt’s entrepreneurial spirit drove him to start, grow, and eventually sell (with CGK) a successful biohazard remediation and hoarding removal company. He graduated at the top of his class with a Bachelor of Science from California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo concentrating in Finance with a minor in Economics. During his oil and gas tenure, he obtained his MBA from the University of Houston focusing on Business Management, and he was the recipient of the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence.
Wes McDonough
Wes McDonough has over twenty-five years of experience in M&A, corporate finance, and entrepreneurship. Previous to CGK, Wes held numerous positions, including accounting, payroll, billing, project management, and IT/application support at a privately-held, global talent solutions firm. Wes’s entrepreneurial spirit started at a young age and originated in music, where he studied, composed, and performed from his earliest days. Developing this talent into a successful music career, he found himself touring the East Coast, self-releasing an album that sold over five thousand units and attracting major record label attention. In doing so, he learned valuable business principles by managing, booking, promoting, and marketing himself and his band. Wes has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a minor in Vocal Performance, attending on a Presidential Scholarship and graduating as valedictorian of his high school senior class.
Matthew Zienty
Matthew Zienty has twenty-five years of financial industry experience in areas ranging from institutional equity trading, currency trading, financial sales, RIA valuations, payout and loan negotiations, and compliance. He has worked for notable firms including Deutsche Bank, SunAmerica Securities, and AIG Financial Advisors. Upon leaving AIG Financial Advisors, Matt went to work for AIG’s largest Managing Branch Office as Vice President, responsible for oversight of forty-five sales offices nationwide. In addition to sales, Matt was responsible for managing the firm’s litigation and arbitration issues. During his affiliation with AIG Financial Advisors, Matt was selected by their Executive Leadership Team to serve on the AIG Financial Advisors Management Advisory Committee and Subcommittee for Compliance. Matt has held the Series 3, 4, 7, 24, 53, 63, and 66 licenses, as well as the IACCP Designation. Matt graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Justice Studies.
Myres Tilghman
Myres Tilghman has had a twenty-five-year career in finance, investments, and capital markets. He has worked with both niche and regional investment banks up to multinational institutions. Prior to CGK, Myres spent eighteen years trading international derivatives for hedge funds and global investment companies, where he honed his knowledge of macro-economic trends. At the same time, Myres is a commercial real estate investor that carefully watches the small business environment. Myres holds an MA in Economics from the University of Richmond, as well as securities licenses and the professional designation of Chartered Market Technician (CMT). Native to North Carolina, he works from Baltimore covering transactions in the Mid-Atlantic region.
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CGK Business Brokers and M&A Advisors by Location
Sell your business by industry vertical.
CGK business brokers serve owners across healthcare, federal contracting, distribution, manufacturing, MSP, and construction industries. Each industry has its own diligence cadence, buyer pool, and value-driver story. Click any card below to see the playbook for your industry.
Healthcare
Sell a medical practice with payer-mix, clinical-credentialing, and Stark Law diligence discipline.
Visit pageFederal Contracting
Sell a federal contracting business with cleared-personnel, option-year, and 8(a)-graduate diligence discipline.
Visit pageDistribution
Sell a distribution business with customer concentration, recurring revenue, and logistics diligence discipline.
Visit pageManufacturing
Sell a manufacturing business with capacity-utilization, customer-concentration, and equipment-and-fleet diligence.
Visit pageMSP and IT Services
Sell an MSP or IT services business with recurring-revenue, contract-retention, and managed-services diligence.
Visit pageConstruction
Sell a construction business with backlog quality, workers compensation experience-modification-rate, and trade-bench retention diligence.
Visit pageCGK has offices across the country.
Whichever office you reach, you get the entire firm. Click any city to learn about that local presence and the named principal leading that market.