A partner in the work, for as long as it takes.
Dale Meador is a financial operating advisor to founder-led companies, and the capital behind them. The lens is financial. The work runs across the whole leadership team, on what makes the business worth more. The person accountable for your outcome is in that work with your team, with the right specialists brought in when it calls for them. Few clients, held for years, so the work goes deep enough to change how the business runs.
You have probably read more about building a company than most advisors have. You know what good looks like. The gap is getting it to run that way, every quarter, with your team.
A financial operator, in the work with your team.
Dale has founded and exited two companies of his own, including a CPA firm. He has carried a P&L himself, with real money on the line. That financial operator's instinct, brought to strategic and organizational work, is rare in this field, and it is the core of how Cadence works: value built to a standard an investor would underwrite.
Over the past decade he has worked with seventeen founder-led companies representing more than $500 million in combined enterprise value, several carried through recapitalizations and exits. The engagements run long, five years and more, because the test of structural work is whether it survives a hold period and a change of hands. Capability that depends on the advisor was never structural.
The practice takes few clients and holds them for years, senior-owned start to finish, with the right specialists brought in when the work calls for them. The practice is built for depth instead of reach. That is what changes how a business actually runs.
“There are times you need to be in the room, not leading the room. You can't do that without someone from the outside.”
The measure that matters: what your business becomes worth, and whether your team can run it without you.
The work exists for one reason: to help people realize their aspirations.
What we value.
Five values run through the work, and one mantra keeps them honest.
Radical Transparency
Open book, and open with each other. Your team sees how the work moves the numbers, and people say the hard thing early instead of late.
Long-Term Growth
We grow ourselves before asking it of anyone else, and we build relationships meant to last. The work is measured in years.
Intelligent Design
We think before we build, so what we make is deliberate, useful, and made to anticipate what comes next.
Disciplined Improv
Master the standards first, then improvise. Discipline is what earns the freedom to adapt.
Make It Beautiful
We honor the people we serve by going the extra mile on fit and finish. First class, as a matter of respect.
Shiny faucets save lives. Details matter, and the small disciplines are where excellence shows.
Dale writes on this work at Value Excellence. Read before you call. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack.
