Mark Schweizer

Littlejohn & Co., remote                                                                                                2022 – Present

Littlejohn & Co. is a private equity firm ($8B AUM) focused on middle-market industrial and services companies.

Operating Partner, Strategy

• Collaborate with investment and executive teams to design and implement strategies for achieving investment thesis objectives.
• Lead strategic initiatives at portfolio companies which lack resources necessary for success.
• Support due diligence activities by assessing strategy and commercial strength and opportunity of acquisition candidates.

Northwest Hardwoods (now NWH), Tacoma, WA                                                           2019 – 2022

NWH is the largest U.S. manufacturer of hardwood with 19 facilities in North America and more than 2,000 customers over 60 countries. Northwest Hardwoods was owned by Littlejohn & Co.

      VP, Strategy & Marketing                                                                                                 2019 – 2022

• Developed and lead implementation of overall business strategy and global marketing, with emphasis on price.
• Led implementation of pricing program resulting in 3 percentage point EBIT gain in first year.
• Developed commercial strategy with the potential to double EBIT with minimal invested capital.
• Led post-restructuring strategy designed to build core competencies that would support future acquisitional growth.

      GM, International Business Unit (interim)                                                                2019 – 2020

• Led transformation of the International Business Unit to a profitable business.
• Focused team on business profitability rather than bulk volume sales resulting in a positive EBIT business for the first time since 2017.
• Introduced standard operating procedures to address poor discipline for collections and claims reducing working capital by 50 basis points.
   

Cogent Link, Powell, OH                                                                                                          2016 – 2019

Cogent Link is a boutique consulting firm providing interim executive leadership and strategy development for technology, engineered goods, and industrial businesses.

Principal / Owner

Select engagements include:

• Interim President for cloud-connected building equipment business.
• Interim President for global, early-stage, advanced nanomaterials technology company.

NanoStatics, Columbus, OH                                                                                                    2015 – 2016

NanoStatics was a startup focused on nanofiber production technology.  

President and CEO

• Developed market-back economic and commercialization models of end-use applications resulting in a business plan with data driven timescale/ramp and focused target markets.
• Led transformation of business model to provide in-house application development to accelerate growth and drove acquisition initiative to fill critical capability gaps.
• Led sale of business resulting in a technology licensing/ownership transaction.

Sunpower, Inc., (now Ametek) Athens, OH                                                                          2009 – 2010

Sunpower was the world-leading developer of Stirling engines for ultra-efficient, hyper-reliable critical power generation applications and cryogenic cooling. 

President and CEO

• Developed market migration strategy to enable reliable and rapid market entry for new products while supporting and long-term growth in larger markets.
• Grew revenues by 38% and net profit by 50% in first year through introduction of disciplined process, data driven decision making, and customer-centric approach.
• Led all activities to sell the business to a strategic buyer, including positioning, business plans, presentation materials, and banker selection/engagement, resulting in a successful exit.

Diamond Innovations / Sandvik Hyperion, Columbus, OH                       2005-2009, 2010 – 2015

Diamond Innovations was a leader in highly-engineered materials for material-removal applications in automotive, aerospace, construction, electronics, mining and oil & gas markets.

VP Marketing and Business Development, Sandvik Hyperion                               2014 – 2015

A successful merger of Diamond Innovations with Sandvik Hard Materials resulted in Sandvik Hyperion.  Responsible for unifying product management, marketing, and business development across merged entities.

• Developed strategy for where to invest for growth and where to drive operational excellence in sales and manufacturing for the combined businesses’ portfolio of products/markets.
• Built a matrixed business-line organization with five global P&L units from the two merged entities.
• Developed performance requirements/metrics for manufacturing cost, delivery, and quality to be a world-class supplier to our customers.  
• Designed plans and roadmaps with manufacturing and R&D leaders for achieving performance targets.
• Delivered 15% top-line growth in first year.

President and CEO, Diamond Innovations                                                                  2010 – 2013

Recruited back to lead the company by Chairman and investment leader of the Sandvik acquisition team.  Full P&L responsibility for $275M business, with direct reporting of all global functions (Sales, Operations, Marketing, Product Management, R&D, IT, HR, Finance, Legal).

• Developed clear strategy with detailed, actionable plans/KPI’s that delivered 20% revenue growth and an incremental 5 percentage points of EBIT margin (approx. $14M EBITDA).
• Flattened the organization and created a culture of autonomy with accountability resulting in a high-performing organization and a 1.5% EBIT margin lift.
• Developed new customer-centric commercial model:  partnerships with key customers; tailored product/service offerings, rewarding hunting rather than farming, and alignment of emerging-market sales organization to end-user application resulting in 20% revenue growth.
• Spearheaded “rapid innovation” approach to R&D resulting in a 400% increase the number new products introduced to market each year and reduced the average time-to-market by 75%.
• Championed Lean as method for improved operations resulting in 20-50% reduction in manufacturing lead-time, a 10% reduction of inventory, two (2) percentage point improvement to gross margins including a 14.5% reduction in manufacturing labor costs.
• Consolidated global manufacturing footprint yielding 4 percentage points of EBIT improvement.  
• Rationalized investment of capital and resources with disciplined approach to concentrate business on high-priority growth markets.

VP Global Product Management and Marketing                                                          2005-2009

Recruited to Diamond Innovations after purchase by Littlejohn & Co. seeking world-class product management capabilities.

• Developed team of direct reports to work as bona fide P&L owners within a matrix organization resulting in improved operations and R&D activities.
• Delivered 10-15% EBITDA growth per annum (excluding ’09 recession)
• Reversed historical -10% per year price decline achieved 3% price increase by implementing value-selling changing narrative to life-cycle economics.
• Grew revenues in Oil and Gas sector by $22M in two years through identifying market-based performance criteria and focusing R&D efforts.
• Integral management team leader during sale of business.

Booz Allen & Hamilton (now Strategy&, part of PwC), Cleveland, OH       1997 – 1999, 2000 – 2005

Booz Allen & Hamilton was one of the largest and best-known general management consulting firms prided as the “practical strategist”. 

Principal

• Developed practice-area focused on product, marketing , and sales strategy.
• Heavy client engagement in the automotive and related industries.
• Strong use of quantitative analysis and rapid-experiment approach for informing data-driven decision making. 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
M.S.  Electrical Engineering. (GPA 5.0 / 5.0)                                                                                          1997

University of Cincinnati
B.S.  Electrical Engineering.   (GPA 4.0 / 4.0)                                                                                          1995