Alan Wells

Alan L. Wells is a longtime Iowa telecommunications and finance executive who is now a Partner at Financial Advisory Partners, LLC, a boutique M&A and corporate-finance advisory firm operating through StillPoint Capital, LLC (FINRA/SIPC). Notably, the firm is largely staffed by his former Iowa Telecom colleagues — including Partner Craig A. Knock (Iowa Telecom's former CFO) and Partner Bill J. Kloewer (Iowa Telecom's former Controller) — which strongly ties the "Alan Wells" at fnlpartners.com to the former Iowa Telecom CEO of the same name.

Wells is best known for Iowa Telecommunications Services, Inc. (Iowa Telecom, NYSE: IWA), which he helped found in 1999. He joined as President and COO responsible for the company's start-up and operations, was named Chief Executive Officer in 2002, and became Chairman after leading the company through its successful IPO in 2004. Under his leadership the company's initial equity investors reportedly more than doubled their investment through the IPO despite the near-collapse of the telecom market during that period. He led Iowa Telecom for more than a decade, until Windstream Corporation acquired it in June 2010 in a transaction valued at roughly $1.1–1.2 billion.

Earlier in his career, Wells held a series of senior roles at MidAmerican Energy (NYSE: MEC) and its predecessors from the early/mid-1990s through 1999, including Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, President of all unregulated (non-regulated) operations, and Vice President of Corporate Development. His earliest career included positions with Deloitte Consulting, the Public Utility Commission of Texas, and Illinois Power Company. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Illinois State University, is a Certified Public Accountant of 20-plus years, and is a FINRA-registered investment banker.

Following the Windstream acquisition, Wells joined the Windstream board of directors in 2010 and served as its Chairman from May 2017. He has also served on the boards of Cline Tool and, historically, community and industry organizations including the United States Telecom Association, Newton Development Corporation, Progress Industries, Heartland Youth Choir, and United Way of Jasper County.

• His verifiable "investment" activity is as an M&A / corporate-finance advisor at Financial Advisory Partners, which represents clients in "mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, debt financings, equity financings, restructurings, joint ventures, and private equity investments," typically as a sell-side advisor to small-to-mid-market companies.
• Deep operator credibility in telecommunications and energy/utilities, plus hands-on experience founding, scaling, taking public, and selling a company (Iowa Telecom) — the profile of someone who evaluates deals through a capital-efficiency and disciplined-growth lens.
• The source stub labels him an angel investor writing seed-stage checks, but no public portfolio, check size, or stated angel thesis could be found to corroborate this — treat the "Angel Investor / Seed Round / seed check size" characterization as unverified.
• No self-authored thesis statement (blog, fund memo, or public talk on early-stage investing) was located.