Who We Are

Paul Lambert

Paul has over 25 years of leadership as a four-time CEO, two-time founder, and private equity partner. He has executed nearly $1 billion in M&A, scale-ups, and turnarounds across industries from food safety to automotive.

Paul is an avid outdoorsman, hiker, biker and Mountain Safety first responder. He holds a BSEE from Carnegie Mellon and a CSO from Wharton. As a mentor for Carnegie Mellon’s Project Olympus, you can find him coaching our next generation of leaders when not working with clients.

Matt Duckworth

Matt bridges operations and capital markets, guiding businesses through growth, acquisition, and transformation. He has co-founded multiple companies, served as CFO and advisor to some of the Southeast’s top-performing enterprises, and taught Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures as an adjunct professor. Matt brings the rare combination of financial strategy and operational know-how that helps companies scale with discipline and creativity.

Dylan Cullers

Dylan Cullers is an accomplished professional with a strong background in finance and strategic development. With Blackstone’s PSSI investment, $275M+ in Buy-side & Sell-side M&A, roll-ups, and scale-ups within the specialty chemistry and pest control industries. He has held senior level management roles with a deep understanding of operations and finance, scaling businesses by strategic vision, operational excellence, and high-performance culture. Dylan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and a Master's degree in Economics with an emphasis in Quantitative Analysis from Western Illinois University.

Ralph Manaker

Ralph brings decades of legal, M&A and operating leadership to the firm. At U.S. Travel Systems he served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Treasurer, then President, leading some 50 acquisitions that grew the company from startup to more than $1 billion in sales. After EDS acquired it, he ran the business, renamed BTI Americas, as President and later CEO, doubled it to about $2 billion in airline sales, and led a management buy-out in 1998. As Co-President of BCD Travel he led some 40 domestic and international acquisitions; when he left, BCD was the third-largest corporate travel agency in the world, with sales of over $25 billion. Since 2008 he has run Fieldstone Equity, a family-office fund investing in manufacturing, medical device, market research and sanitation services.

Ralph holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a law degree, both with honors, from Syracuse University, where he also taught law as an adjunct professor. Before moving into business, he was a partner in a New York civil litigation firm.

Jay Lopez

Owner, operator and investor across two dozen-plus companies. Former medical-device CEO and private equity partner. Builds BCP’s AI-powered deal-sourcing and market-intelligence systems.

Economics, Stanford | MBA, Washington University