May 2025: The 5 Most Common Deal Killers (And How to Avoid Them)

Griffin Brand is the Vice President of Corporate Development at HighGround. He focuses on connecting with founders and other industry leaders, facilitating the due diligence process, and executing acquisitions to help grow the HighGround family of brands. He is passionate about partnering with talented founders to preserve their legacy and accelerate the growth of their company.

Prior to joining HighGround, Griffin worked in Real Estate Private Equity as the Director of Investor Relations for Wellings Capital. He began his career spending 8 years as an Army Ranger, deploying multiple times throughout Europe and Afghanistan.

Griffin holds a Bachelor’s degree from Davidson College where he played football, was in Army ROTC, and was the President of Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). He resides in Raleigh, NC with his wife, and their young son. Griffin enjoys traveling, staying active through fitness, playing pickleball whenever he gets the chance, and spending time with his family.

Amy is the Assistant Controller at Highground providing support to all companies in the Highground portfolio with day-to-day accounting issues, Treasury and month-end close.

Amy comes from the solid waste industry where she started as an Admin in the sales department working with all departments to provide premier services to customers. The last 10 years she was part of the Controller team and focused on managing all aspects of accounting for multiple locations including but not limited to forecasting, budgeting, month-end close, internal controls, and working with leadership teams to find cost and operational efficiencies. Over the last 18 years she’s been through multiple acquisitions/mergers and has experience with ERP system changes and upgrades.

Amy graduated from the University of North Texas with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Master of Science in Accounting – Management and Entrepreneurial. Amy and her family live in McKinney where her 2 children are finishing high school and starting college. With the newly found free time due to the now older children she enjoys spending time with friends and family and time outdoors and enjoying her backyard.

As Director of Data Analytics, Ben is the primary point of contact across all Brands for all things Power BI. He is responsible for ensuring all data is accurate and is presented in a consumable format, as well as establishing consistent reporting across all Brands.

Ben has 7+ years experience working as a Data Analyst in many different industries, and has continually improved his skillset to increase what he has to offer. Everywhere he has worked Ben has increased the consumption of data by leadership, enabling them to make informed decisions that best support the growth of the business.

Ben graduated from Appalachian State University with a BS in Mathematics and currently lives in Eugene OR. In his free time Ben enjoys listening to audiobooks, playing with his dog, or biking.

As Chief Growth Officer at HighGround, Patrick Kinsella leads all aspects of the company’s growth. He is responsible for partnering with the HighGround family of brands in all areas of marketing, business development, sales, and strategic planning to drive targeted revenue growth and customer delight.

Patrick has 20+ years of experience leading high-performing teams in publicly traded and privately held firms and brings his proven expertise in creating value through launching new service offerings, driving commercial excellence, and developing leaders to the HighGround family of brands.

Patrick graduated from Cornell University and holds an MBA from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. He resides in Atlanta, GA with his wife and daughter, with whom he enjoys spending time outdoors. He also enjoys his time given to the Metropolitan Youth Symphony Orchestra, an organization that serves the youth music community of Greater Atlanta.

As Chief Technology Office, Paul Craft leads the overall IT infrastructure and strategy at HighGround. He is responsible for evaluating, integrating, and supporting new and existing systems across the portfolio of businesses.

Paul has over 20 years of experience in IT, most of that time as one of the founders of HighGround’s platform company. As a previous founder, Paul oversaw staying at the forefront of technology in the restoration space. As a result, a significant focus has always been on developing and improving process efficiency through technology.

Paul enjoys spending time with his wife and three teenagers. When he’s not working, he can usually research new software and how best to implement them into our operations.

Monika Jensen is the Recruiting Manager at HighGround. Monika oversees all recruitment for the brands and works with each brand to implement best practices to efficiently grow the business.

Monika went to a local community college for Business Administration and started off in Human Resources. In her 12 years of experience, she has shifted her focus to Recruitment with proven success. She has worked with several start-up companies helping them create recruitment processes, manage the hiring and onboarding procedures, and review the analytics to achieve growth and expansion in each business across multiple industries.

When Monika’s not working, she has an active 11 year old son that keeps her busy. Monika is bilingual with fluency in American Sign Language and is an active part of the Deaf community. In her free time she likes to spend time with family, explore the outdoors, painting, and doing crafts or home projects.

As the Director of Human Resources, Sandi oversees all Human Resource needs for all of our brands. She provides support, continuity and efficiencies that create best practices, retention and provide an exceptional employee experience.

Sandi brings over 20 years of human resource experience and has worked for several corporate, manufacturing and start-up companies. Creating a Human Resource Department from the ground up is her specialty. A graduate of Robert Morris University, Sandi started her career in Hospitality Management. Sandi’s love for service and people landed her a role in Human Resources and she has never looked back.

Sandi enjoys spending time with her husband, two girls and a handful of life long friends. She is passionate about cooking and entertaining along with traveling, taking long walks and biking.

As the Vice President of Digital Marketing at HighGround, Brian provides strategic leadership and management for digital marketing initiatives including lead generation, customer acquisition, paid search, SEO, and social media marketing for our family of brands, in addition to supervising all website management components.

With 10 years of experience spanning eCommerce, Hospitality, Retail, and Payment Solution industries, Brian brings a successful track record of driving customer and revenue growth across various marketing channels, while increasing online visibility.

Brian graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with a MBA and a Masters of Science in Marketing Analytics. He received his B.B.A in Marketing from the University of North Texas. In his free time, Brian enjoys spending time with his family and his two young sons. He also enjoys traveling, remaining active through fitness, fishing and watching the Philadelphia Eagles.

Wendell is the Controller at Highground providing support to all portfolio companies with day-to-day accounting issues, Treasury, month-end close and system implementation.

Wendell is an experienced Finance & Accounting professional with a demonstrated history of working with entrepreneurial led companies in the financial services, building materials and healthcare industry. He has strong business experience skilled in helping drive strategy, Month-End Close, Budgeting, Reporting and Operations as well as experience with sell/buy side due diligence, CIM development and operating under private equity ownership.

Wendell graduated from Midwestern State University with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance. Wendell and his wife live in Northlake, Texas where they enjoy spending time with their three children. In his free time, he enjoys being outdoors as well as watching Manchester United and the Dallas Cowboys.

Ryan is the Vice President of Corporate Development at HighGround and focuses on sourcing, diligence, and execution of acquisitions to help grow the HighGround family of brands. He has significant experience working with founders and entrepreneurs during the sale process and appreciates the opportunity to help continue the founders’ legacy and work together to make their strategic visions a reality as part of a platform.

Prior to joining HighGround, Ryan worked in Private Equity as a Senior Associate with Princeton Equity Group and as an Associate with American Infrastructure Funds. Ryan began his career as an Investment Banking Analyst with Morgan Stanley’s Natural Resource Group and holds a B.B.A. in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin.

Ryan resides in Dallas and enjoys spending time with his wife and their golden retriever, Buddy. Ryan is from Colorado originally, and still is a fan of the Denver Broncos & Nuggets; although, after living in Austin, Houston, and now Dallas, he has become a fan of Texas sports and spends time watching the Longhorns and Cowboys as well.

As HighGround’s Chief Operating Officer, Matt Sands supports growth and operational execution across the entire portfolio of HighGround brands. He partners with brand leadership to develop and execute opportunities for sharing best practices and expertise across the HighGround family.

Matt brings over 20 years of restoration experience to the company, having started his career as a water technician and advancing to Chief Operating Officer of Dry Force, LLC prior to joining HighGround.

Peter Delich is the Chief Financial Officer at HighGround. Peter is responsible for overseeing all financial aspects of the company, which include oversight of accounting, tax, risk management, credit, and human resources.

With 20 years of experience in private, public, and private equity companies, Peter brings a track record of building high-performing teams that create value through continuous process improvement and collaboration. Peter graduated from Southern Methodist University with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology.

Peter enjoys family activities with his wife and two children, often chasing after their four dogs. A lifelong musician, he enjoys attending live performances with his family as often as possible. He also enjoys hiking, fishing, and spending time in the beauty of the mountains.

As Chief Information and Integration Officer, Prasun Chakraborty leads HighGround’s acquisition integration and data analytics strategy. He is responsible for integrating the company’s existing and acquired businesses across processes and technology. Prasun’s focus areas include profitability improvement strategies that are centric on continuous process improvement, systems integration, and actionable business analytics.

He has 25+ years of experience in multi-national corporations across mortgages, retail banking, technology products, and financial services operations, and brings in proven expertise to build, scale, optimize, and transform businesses.

Prasun graduated from National Institute of Technology, Warangal (India), and earned his B. Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering with Distinction. He received his MBA from NMIMS University, Mumbai (India). Prasun resides in Atlanta, GA, with his wife and their teenage boy. In his free time, he enjoys solving puzzles with his son and traveling with his family.