Mike Brennan

Mike is a Managing Director with over 25 years of management, operations, and restructuring experience including positions as COO, Senior Vice President, and Lead Restructuring Advisor for turnaround clients and public and private corporations. Mike has extensive finance, restructuring, operations, marketing, merchandising, supply chain, and franchise development experience and regularly assists growth-oriented companies in creating and implementing strategic business plans.

Mike has worked with a wide range of clients to develop business plans and operations platforms ranging from start-up companies to Fortune 500 companies, including distressed and underperforming entities. He has assisted clients in the private placement of debt and equity to fund the working capital necessary to support and accelerate future growth. He also has extensive experience driving operational and financial performance improvements for firms across the real estate, hospitality, food and beverage products sectors, including back office, supply chain, and operational improvements.

Mike’s experience includes several key roles assisting clients with restructuring projects and transactions across the leisure and hospitality sector. Notably, he played an integral part in the restructuring of a privately-owned developer and operator of luxury vacation ownership properties in the US and Mexico, supporting the stabilization of the company’s operations, a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding, and eventual sale of all the debtor’s assets. He was instrumental in the interim management of the company’s vendor relationship including contract and various negotiations through the filing and sale transaction.

Mike has also served in strategic roles for several real estate and homebuilding client restructurings assisting with portfolio management, analytics, and vendor and contract management. He has provided operations and restructuring management support for a distressed real estate development portfolio of $700 million located across 15 states. Mike helped manage several aspects of the trustee assigned team’s daily operations during the restructuring, including third party relationships, tax obligations, insurance coverage and foreclosure execution. Mike also provided operational assistance to the asset management team in support of restructuring and portfolio sales transactions.

Mike’s expertise has also included the review and optimization of vendor contract management for a variety of the firm’s clients. With extensive merchandising and franchising experience, Mike has helped drive value in the negotiation and optimization of client third-party relationships, contracts, and services. Mike has streamlined third-party services for companies that include a multi-million dollar client in the restaurant food service industry, a leading international food franchise operator as well as several back-office service providers. In each of these projects, Mike’s role included interim management and authority to negotiate favorable terms on behalf of the company.

Prior to joining Mackinac Partners (acquired by Accordion in 2021), Mike was the Chief Operating Officer of Pazzaz, LLC, a franchise development company specializing in small space retail expansion across a variety of popular brands, including Papa Murphy’s Pizza. In this leadership role, Mike developed the operating infrastructure that spanned three Midwestern states. Mike was also instrumental in developing the Company’s business plan and in raising $5.7 million in growth capital.

Mike previously operated his own retail specialty consulting business, providing marketing and sales strategy assistance to various industry segments. In this capacity, Mike became President of a start-up office products distribution company where he developed and implemented strategic operational plans that doubled the Company’s existing revenue targets and solidified its future revenue and earnings growth.

Preceding Mike’s consulting and advisory roles, he was the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Merchandising for Office Depot. Responsible for $4.0 billion in annual revenues, Mike managed all aspects of the Company’s marketing and merchandising functions. Mike began his career in 1986 with Office Depot as part of Office Club, a San Francisco based start-up office products company that was acquired by Office Depot in 1991.

Mike graduated from Xavier University with a B.B.A. in Marketing, Merchandising, and Business Operations.