A New Approach | Guiding Principles | Leadership Team

Larry Smith | Neil Smith | Michael Berman | Jennifer Berman

Larry Smith, CPA, CVA, CM&A, MBA

Larry is a Certified Public Accountant, a Certified Valuation Analyst and a Certified Merger and Acquisition Advisor. He is a member of the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts, Small Business Administration of New England and the Alliance of Merger and Acquisition Advisors.

He is a subject matter expert in operations and APICS (American Production and Inventory Control Society) subjects including supply chain management, production planning, distribution resource planning, multi-plant warehouse location systems, lot control, internal controls, etc.

As a CPA, he directs his energies toward specialized mergers and acquisitions areas that could affect a transaction including unique business transfer tax issues, creative transaction structuring alternatives, etc.  Larry has professionally negotiated multi-million dollar transactions for clients and managed diverse, multi-faceted teams through transactions.

Larry has authored articles for the Boston Business Journal, spoken at the Commonwealth Institute, has been a speaker at trusted advisory forums, has been on cable television and heard on local radio stations throughout the Northeast U.S.

He holds a Master of Business Administration from the F.W. Olin School at Babson College and a Bachelor in Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA.

Neil Smith, CSE, MBA

Neil is a Co-founder of Northeast Capital Alliance. Prior to establishing the Firm, Neil was an Executive with IBM. Among many, one of his most notable accomplishments at IBM was securing the single largest software transaction in the company’s history. His client was a global entity requiring multi-level communications and agreements across two highly matrix organizational structures. Neil closed the transaction through a consistent display of clear, concrete unique value propositions and sound, factual based negotiation principles. As he understands the myriad of business challenges that take place in transactions, he manages each transaction with individualized attention with a coordinated team-oriented structure and a solid strategy to deliver complex topics with clarity to obtain results. His process-oriented style guides all constituents through the complex maze of transaction management where risk is always present.

Since 1986, Neil has closed over 500 complex, solution-oriented transactions. His focus has been directed toward client improvement, improved ROI and value alignment strategies. He has applied his unique value toward companies of varying size and scope including – Fortune 1000, mid-size and emerging companies – to help them achieve their initiatives.

Our clients profit from his comprehensive business development acumen and keen judgment at critical junctions to negotiate complex business transfers. With roots in engineering, his unique technical insight helps our clients with value creation alternatives to maximize net worth. At key inflection points in a transaction, he quickly provides important strategic perspectives reinforced by decisive tactical steps needed to impact value in a transaction.

Our clients benefit from his sophisticated techniques and unique expertise which has yielded fair, equitable and profitable agreements. Neil is considered a thought leader in how to attract strategic premiums for business transfers.

Neil holds a Master of Business Administration from the F.W. Olin School of Babson College and a Bachelor in Computer Systems Engineering from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA. 

Michael Berman

As the former co-founder and EVP of The IDP Companies, Michael spent 10 years building market presence and value in the document management software and services marketplace. Michael’s experience in building successful businesses in the Invest and Harvest phases provide our clients insight to roadblocks along their business lifecycles. Furthermore, his focus on raising capital to build his businesses provides strategic value to our clients regarding the right funding sources that can assist at the right time.

Since 1972, Michael’s emerging markets expertise, corporate management and business development lends well to small and medium sized businesses who seek to:

• acquire complementary businesses
• grow the business foundation and infrastructure
• establish scalable processes
• sell at the optimal time

Michael holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Michigan.

Jennifer Berman

As a former co-founder and business owner of Elastic Ideas and Research – a brand and marketing research firm – Jen is acutely aware of the ROI and payback objectives that management teams face to operate privately-held businesses.

Her experience in brand management, marketing strategies and marketing initiatives provide our clients both tactical and strategic insight into value creation to open new markets and create new portfolio offerings for early, mid and late stage companies during the Invest, Harvest and Divest business lifecycle phases. Her discipline ranges from healthcare to emerging technologies with varying size and scope including large, medium and small companies to help them achieve their initiatives.

Jen holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Babson College.