Brian Gross
Managing Director
WindLake Capital Advisors, LLC

Brian is the Founder and Managing Director of WindLake Capital Advisors, LLC, a leading national provider of customized investment banking solutions for middle-market companies. Leveraging over 15 years of experience in the legal and financial services industries, Brian brings extensive merger, acquisition and corporate finance knowledge to each client transaction.

Prior to forming WindLake in 2001, Brian served as Managing Director for a boutique investment bank where he was responsible for executing several of the firm’s largest and most complex M&A and corporate finance transactions. Since 1997, Brian has played a meaningful role in the successful closing of over 25 middle-market M&A and financing transactions with a total market value exceeding $1.7 billion.

Before entering the investment banking industry, Brian was a tax attorney with the international accounting and consulting firm of Coopers & Lybrand, LLP, where he advised clients on issues involving mergers, acquisitions and divestitures of both public and private companies. Previously, Brian was in private law practice where he counseled middle-market business owners on corporate, partnership, and taxation issues pertaining to equity transfers of closely-held companies.

His career began with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission where he served as a Securities Law Extern with the Enforcement Division. In this role, he worked with staff attorneys in the investigation of cases involving insider trading, fraudulent accounting practices, and the sale of unregistered securities.

Brian received his BS degrees in Finance and Management from Northern Illinois University; his JD and MBA degrees from IIT Chicago – Kent College of Law, and has completed specialized graduate training in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and private equity in both the business and law schools of the University of Chicago. Brian is a licensed member of the Illinois Bar.

Functioning as a consultant to Cook Associates, he provides advisory support and guidance in all facets of the firm’s growing M&A practice. Brian co-founded the CookSelect® program, an innovative and tailored service offering designed to meet the unique needs of owners of closely held businesses in search of customized private equity solutions. In this capacity, he focuses the alliance on structuring recapitalization transactions with enterprise values in excess of $100 million.

Through a separate and distinct affiliation with DSI Global M&A, a boutique investment bank specializing in international mergers and acquisitions, Brian is an Affiliated Member of the International Network of Merger & Acquisition Partners, a global, deal driven, collaborative team of 250 M&A advisors located in 62 offices in 34 countries worldwide.