Admittingly, Linda Ruffenach was enjoying life as a “solopreneur.” Having launched her startup consultancy firm Execuity Value Advisors in 2014, business was steady, and her list of clients stretched across the country.
Then she had a luncheon earlier this year with Katie Blakeley.
Before long, her one-person shop was making room for a tandem — as Execuity hopes to significantly scale up its transition management service heading into 2023.
The partnership pairs two former local CEOs who have extensive experience running large businesses that underwent an acquisition under their leadership. Now, they are teaming up to provide founders the preparation they wish they had when they were going through the exit process, several years before any type of negotiations start to take place with a possible buyer.
“We both have a pay-it-forward mentality,” said Ruffenach said. “I ran a $100 million-plus business. She’s run a $50 million-plus business. To find two women who have done that and who are working together — that’s a rare find.”
When she met with Ruffenach earlier this year, Blakeley was about six months removed from being the vice president of pet insurance at MetLife. This was after PetFirst was acquired by MetLife in early 2020. Blakeley was CEO of PetFirst when it was acquired.
Ruffenach worked at Accent Marketing for more than 19 years — including four as the CEO — before it was acquired first by a parent company, then by another buyer.
“At the root, I think we both share the same core value in that we want to help founders and leaders identify their purpose so that they can leverage that in their businesses,” Blakeley said, “Because I think when there’s clarity of what the founder wants — personally and professionally — that helps the strategy for the rest of the business in terms of a timeline.”
The duo first met each other in 2004 through mutual connections after Accent Marketing and PetFirst both shared a co-founder: Landson Robbins. Furthermore, MetLife Pet Insurance, formerly PetFirst, occupies the building in Jeffersonville, Indiana, that Accent Marketing used to occupy at 400 Missouri Ave.
Blakeley — who was named to Louisville Business First's 2016 Forty Under 40 class and one of our Most Admired CEOs in 2019 — said that she ultimately chose to step down from her position at MetLife because she realized she “was a much stronger fit culturally in a smaller organization where I could personally have more impact."
Her husband, Chris, is a co-founder of Repaytient, a Louisville-based startup that was named one of our Ky Inno's Startups to Watch 2022.
“He and I both have a strong appetite for just an entrepreneurial work environment,” she said. “In a classic startup sense, I think, for both of us, that’s the type of environment we thrive in.”
‘There’s no right or wrong path’
Execuity has approximately 15 clients, ranging from startups to companies with $30 million-plus in revenue. Blakeley said one of the firm’s primary goals for 2023 is to quadruple that number.
One of its local clients is TitleWise, the developer of a web-based tool for creating digital reports and databases catered to the needs of real estate title abstractors.
Execuity has also worked with GlowTouch Technologies founder Vidya Ravichandran — one of our recently named Most Admired CEOs — to help her scale up her operations. It has also helped findCRA with sales and marketing strategies, as well as providing counsel on management, financial and market growth plans.
Ruffenach — who also serves as an entrepreneur-in-residence at the University of Louisville’s Forcht Center — said that three years ago, she started to place a higher emphasis on transition planning by becoming certified in the field by the Exit Planning Institute. Beginning in the new year, Blakeley will begin the same certification training.
According to data from the institute, three out of four founders report “profound regret” within one year of selling their businesses. The two largest reasons are attributed mainly to founders not getting the amount of monetary proceeds that they thought they would or they did not do enough to plan for the next chapter.
Ruffenach said the conversation starts with the founder’s long-term vision when it comes not only for their own family, but also the startup’s employees and the legacy they wish to create.
“There’s a ton of emotions that go along with it, and there’s no right or wrong path. You’ve got to figure out what’s right for you,” Ruffenach said. “You're going to have a lot of people in your ear whispering to you and telling you what to do, but very few will ask you ‘What do you want to do?’”
