Secure Your Future with Solutions by an Experienced Team that Understands Education and Its Challenges
STAKEHOLDERS IN YOUR SUCCESS
Led by a team of experienced professionals, our strategic services meet the needs of all types and sizes of education institutions and other regulated industry entities. We can facilitate necessary change and deliver lasting results, with measurable growth and outcome improvements, that enable adaptation to an increasingly challenging environment. Please contact us today to learn how Collegio Partners can help your institution secure its sustainable success.
DIFFICULT TIMES DEMAND INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS
The past several years have been difficult times for many educational institutions. A recent Forbes analysis projects that between 500-1,000 universities and colleges will close their doors in the next one to two years. For private and secondary schools, a recent Brookings Institution study indicates that many of them “are likely to get pummeled financially.”
Now more than ever, innovative strategy, restructuring, and facilitated access to financing sources are essential not only for survival but long-term success. For the many institutions struggling against heightened odds in these unprecedented times, Collegio Partners provides a lifeline and a pathway to long-term stability and success.
Educational institutions no longer can afford to operate on the basis of yesterday’s assumptions and expectations. Today’s leaders facing the challenge of sustainability need new thinking, strategies, and tool kits. To secure their future, they must invest in a true partner who is an integral member of your team.
STRATEGY AND RESTRUCTURING
Historically, organizations seeking assistance in managing change have turned to consultants. Collegio Partners are not consultants in the ordinary sense of the term. They are partners in the fullest sense of the word. Our model is not one of assigning consultants who divide their time among clients. Rather, we integrate one or more of our highly experienced senior executives into your leadership team on a full-time basis. This relationship leaves little chance of mis-execution and makes us true stakeholders in your success.
It goes without saying that a distressed education entity needs to rethink strategy. No matter how many bases it covers, strategy by itself cannot achieve sustainability. Rather, it must be coupled with effective execution. Toward this end, Collegio Partners will be fully engaged in:
Helping optimize your administrative structure;
Managing important landlord and key vendor relationships in a constructive manner;
Effectuating cost take outs and containment via best practices;
Balancing change with regulatory compliance;
Mitigating legal risks;
Implementing zero-based budgeting;
Educating personnel in smart expense management;
Rigorous balance sheet analyses; and
Providing project management to ensure outcome delivery with certified Six Sigma partners;
Should you require, Collegio Partners can help secure your sustainability via access to sources for debtor in possession financing.
IT'S ABOUT YOUR STUDENTS
Effective restructuring is not solely about cost cutting. It requires a deep understanding of your student value proposition. Collegio Partners stand ready to ensure your unique mission.
TRUE PARTNERS MATTER
Even in difficult times, when people know that change is essential, restructuring can be unsettling and threatening. If not managed properly, it will adversely impact morale and performance resulting in a downward spiral. Collegio Partners understand not only the risk of inaction, but the perils of poor execution. As an equal stakeholder in your future, we will solve problems without creating new ones.
Contact us and find how our services can benefit your company.
COLLEGIO PARTNERS
LEADERSHIP TEAM
RICK INATOME
Managing Director
Rick Inatome is Managing Director of Collegio Partners, LLC. Mr. Inatome has extensive experience in building or restructuring education and business entities that are beset by an economic trauma, regulatory sea change, or imperatives of change management.
Mr. Inatome has founded and managed various private equity funds, created billion-dollar companies, and effectuated multiple corporate turnarounds. Numerous entities have benefited from his organizational growth and turnaround expertise. Highlights of his restructuring achievements include the re-engineering of a large computer network integration firm, at a time when the industry was being disintermediated by “build after order” entrants. He accomplished this outcome by restructuring assets, consolidating underperforming distribution channels, and integrating several competing chains into a single multi-billion-dollar distribution network. The company’s primary business was sold in 1998 to Compaq Computer Company for over $300M.
At the request of a major private equity firm, Mr. Inatome recruited a team to lead the reorganization of an education system requiring the closure of two schools and preservation of another school. The latter institution’s sustainability was achieved by renegotiating complex leases. Through these efforts the institution has solidified its financial position, is operating more efficiently, and is generating better student outcomes.
In another turnaround, led by a venture fund, Mr. Inatome purchased the assets of one of the largest international print chains from bankruptcy court and consolidated it with several competing underperforming chains. This restructuring and expansion occurred at a time when the industry was challenged by new digital disruptors. He transformed old tech centers into new digital centers, and they soon achieved one of the highest center profitability in the franchise industry. It sold at 7X RoC to the family office of a noted pizza empire scion.
On behalf of a CEO network fund, he helped acquire a series of auto dealerships “out of trust” assets as the industry was consolidating. Mr. Inatome led a series of consecutive turnarounds that resulted in their sale to major chains such as Auto Nation at 5X RoC.
At the request of a leading education venture capital firm, he led the restructuring of an internet education company shortly after a failed IPO. Within 18 months, during which time the business model and costs were restructured, the entity was sold to an international satellite technology firm.
As a transformative business leader, Mr. Inatome’s legacy includes being an architect of the digital age. Working with other pioneers such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, he established a disruptive technology distribution channel that introduced the personal computer first to the public and then to corporate America. He is among a select group of tech giants in the Computer Hall of Fame and is in demand as a consultant, mentor, and public speaker.
Mr. Inatome has served on many major corporate, education, and charitable boards. He served on the startup advisory boards of Microsoft (which he chaired) and Apple and the advisory councils of Hewlett-Packard Company (Compaq) and International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation. Mr. Inatome was Chairman of Michigan Virtual University, trustee for the Cranbrook Science Institute and Henry Ford Hospital, and on the Advisory Boards of the University of Michigan-Dearborn and the Michigan State University Broad School of Business. He has served on the Boards of Educate, Atlantic Premium Brands Ltd., Automobile Club of Michigan (AAA Michigan), Great Lakes Angels, The Auto Club Group, R.L. Polk & Co., CarFAX, Saturn Electronics & Engineering, Fortune 500 NYSE Inacom Corporation, Laureate Education, Inc. (SIU), and Sylvan Education Ventures. Mr. Inatome also has served on the boards of the Michigan Cancer Foundation, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Chamber of Commerce, Hudson Weber Foundation, and WTVS. He currently is Chairman of Léman Manhattan Preparatory School in New York City.
Mr. Inatome was appointed by the Governor of Michigan to the Michigan Information Network and as Chairman of the Michigan Technology Council. Michigan State University has honored him as a Distinguished Alumni and with the Financial Leadership Award from the Broad School of Business. He was named Michiganian of the Year by the Detroit News and Entrepreneur of the Year by the Harvard Business Club and Inc. magazine. Most recently, he was selected by the Royal Order of Francis I to be inducted into knighthood –a prestigious honor established two centuries ago by the Royal House of Bourbon recognizing a select number of individuals for their significant contributions to society.
Mr. Inatome holds a B.A. degree in Economics from Michigan State University.
SCOTT THOMPSON
Managing Director
Scott Thompson is a managing director of Collegio Partners, LLC. Mr. Thompson has held senior financial leadership positions in both business and education. His background includes organizational restructuring in diverse industries including education, travel, technology, manufacturing, and customer service.
Most recently, Mr. Thompson oversaw the restructuring of an educational entity entailing a $270M recapitalization. Through this process operating, leasing and financing costs were reduced by $110 million, and litigation exposure reduced by over $300 million.
Mr. Thompson also had leadership roles in turning around several unprofitable businesses in the travel technology field. He has also worked domestically and internationally to complete twelve acquisitions in travel technology and consolidate operations, resulting in unprofitable businesses turning profitable, reducing costs by $200 million and achieving regulatory compliance.
Mr. Thompson’s leadership was responsible for improved productivity (using Six Sigma, lean manufacturing, and process by design methodologies: and cost efficiency with a tier one automotive supply entity. This process also included an international plant rationalization and consolidation. Through his efforts, cost reductions of $75 million were realized.
Mr. Thompson received his MBA from Duke University and a BBA in Accounting from University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he was a four year letter winner, captain and a member of the NCAA national champion men’s basketball team. Immediately after graduation, he commenced his professional career as a certified public accountant (CPA) with KPMG. Mr. Thompson serves on various boards. He is Six Sigma certified.
DONALD LIVELY
Managing Director
Donald Lively is a managing director of Collegio Partners, where his focus is on working with educational institutions to: improve key outcomes; expand their footprint and revenue base by pioneering into emerging international markets; strengthen marketing and admission processes; and facilitate development of performance optimizing cultures. He has held leadership positions and served as a tenured professor at multiple law schools, is a prolific author, and has been honored for his scholarship, professionalism, and creation of legal services programs serving disadvantaged populations.
Unable to secure support from mainstream universities for a differentiated institutional model, Mr. Lively left his first tenured professorship to establish a new law school. Toward this end, he parlayed his personal savings with a small group of investors to found an institution focused upon serving otherwise underserved demographics and graduating students who were practice ready. The school competed effectively with peer institutions on key outcomes and grew from 55 students at its inception to nearly 600. Less than a decade after its founding, the institution sold for 13X start-up cost.
Under his leadership, Mr. Lively established an institution that (i) produced students who outperformed incoming academic quality indicators, were heavily recruited by elite institutions as transfers, and graduated better prepared for practice; (ii) developed a moot court program consistently ranked at or near the top in the nation; (iii) earned national awards for innovation and professionalism; and (iv) achieved leadership in diversifying the nation’s least diverse profession (law).
At another institution, and at a time when enrollments had declined significantly nationwide and proprietary schools were experiencing a harsh regulatory environment, he helped lay the groundwork for a teach out. Attesting to the strength of the organization’s culture, Mr. Lively substantially downsized the faculty and staff as part of a massive cost reduction executed without incurring any lawsuits.
In a consulting role for a non-competing but endangered school, Mr. Lively identified and recruited an experienced admissions director and helped the institution increase the number of admitted students and deposits over the prior year’s total by 41% and 42% respectively. This effort was key to securing the institution’s viability. Mr. Lively also has guided the development of compelling brand identification, effective marketing strategies, and utilization of advanced metrics and innovative continuous improvement methodologies to optimize admissions processes and results.
Mr. Lively, in his leadership positions, has assembled and led strong teams of persons recruited from senior executive positions in law, business, and higher education. These teams, bonded by modern leadership principles of humility, indomitable will, personal vulnerability, and high EQ, facilitated and sustained continuous improvements in culture, engagement, leadership, and outcomes. During his tenure as a chief cultural officer, he developed and oversaw processes that established and sustained performance optimizing environments characterized by superior outcomes, consistent increases in 360 scores YOY, and student engagement scores that regularly outperformed the national average. Working with faculty, he facilitated development of a model for security of position that broke from tenure and was embraced enthusiastically.
Mr. Lively has served on the Florida Board of Regents Legal Education Advisory Commission; Fourth Judicial Circuit Committee on Professionalism; Key Leaders Oversight Committee Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent and Chronic Juvenile Offenders; University of North Florida Division of Continuing Legal Studies Institute Advisory Council; and Board of Directors of the Jacksonville Urban League. He has created two legal services entities, one of which won the Ohio State Bar Association Best Pro Bono Program award, that serve persons in disadvantaged communities. Mr. Lively has authored or co-authored 21 books, of which three received awards. He also has received the Florida Supreme Court Professionalism Award.
Mr. Lively earned his A.B. degree from the University of California, Berkeley; M.S.J. degree from Northwestern University; and J.D. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. He gained Six Sigma certification from Villanova University.
HARRISON HART
Vice President
Harrison joins Collegio Partners from Whittle School & Studios, a global network of K12 independent schools. Previously, Harrison was the third employee at Amerigo Education, a leading boarding provider for international students at U.S. high schools. At Amerigo, Harrison developed business-development and student-recruitment strategies and oversaw the fit-out of the three inaugural campuses. He received his B.A. in English from Dartmouth College, where he received the Research, Writing, and Information Technology Leadership Award for his oversight in hiring for the writing center.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
The recent public health crisis hastened and, in some instances, forced change at all levels of education. Today, in an environment of rising costs and doubts about ROI, the value of a college education increasingly is being questioned. For some institutions, this scenario means an existential crisis. Schools traditionally governed by slow motion processes must respond more nimbly with innovation, differentiation, and improvements that secure their viability and vitality. Collegio Partners, created and developed by experienced leaders in business, finance, education, and change management, recognizes the problems, has the solutions, and will help you transform challenge into opportunity.
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