Brad Strahorn

Brad Strahorn spent roughly two decades in private equity operations at Thompson Street Capital Partners (TSCP), a St. Louis–based middle-market private equity firm founded in 2000 that has completed 250+ investments and manages about $4.5B across eight funds. Rather than sourcing deals, Strahorn led TSCP's Portfolio Support Group as its Director — the operating-partner function responsible for driving value creation inside acquired companies. In that seat he worked hands-on across the firm's portfolio, and he has described deploying a standardized cybersecurity model across 45+ portfolio companies under a single PE umbrella.

Before private equity, Strahorn spent about five years in operations and product development at Danaher Corporation, the industrial/diversified conglomerate known for the Danaher Business System operating playbook. His earlier career also includes roles associated with ComEd (Commonwealth Edison) and G-Bar Limited Partnership. He earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (Class of 2001).

Around 2022–2023, Strahorn transitioned out of the day-to-day Director role at TSCP (he no longer appears on the current TSCP team page) and became Managing Partner of Black Creek Cybersecurity, a St. Louis advisory firm. There he applies his portfolio-operations background to cybersecurity strategy for middle-market and PE-backed companies, positioning himself as a vendor-agnostic "truth teller" who has evaluated 20+ cyber providers across five major categories.

He remains an active voice on cybersecurity in the private-equity operating community — for example, he served as a panelist on the "Cybersecurity: opportunity and peril" plenary at PEI's Operating Partners Technology Forum in June 2021, appearing under his TSCP title.

• Operates on the value-creation / portfolio-operations side of PE, not as an angel or seed check-writer — his lens is "how do we make an acquired company better," especially operationally and on cybersecurity risk.
• TSCP's underlying mandate: founder-owned, already-profitable middle-market businesses in Life Sciences & Healthcare, Software & Technology, and Business & Consumer Services — companies where growth can be accelerated organically and through add-on acquisitions.
• Typical TSCP economics per third-party data: ~$5M–$50M equity checks (≈$25M sweet spot), growth-stage/control profile rather than early venture.
• A distinctive personal thesis is cybersecurity as a cross-portfolio value driver — standardizing security posture across many portfolio companies to reduce risk and protect enterprise value; this is now the core of his Black Creek work.
• Values direct, unvarnished assessment — his own positioning emphasizes being a vendor-agnostic "truth teller" who has independently evaluated 20+ cyber providers.