Jd Geneser

JD Geneser is a CPA and Partner at UHY LLP, where he leads Iowa's Transaction Advisory Services practice as a Managing Director of UHY Advisors. He joined UHY through the firm's combination with LWBJ, the West Des Moines- and Ames-based CPA, business-advisory and M&A firm (founded 1992) where he served as a Senior Partner directing the Capital Advisors consulting and investment-banking practice. He has more than 30 years of experience in business and financial operations, focused on mergers and acquisitions, due diligence, valuation, business start-ups, capitalization, strategic planning and succession planning, and frequently serves clients as an outsourced CFO.

Before his advisory career, Geneser held a series of senior operating roles in private and publicly traded companies. He was COO and CFO of GCommerce, COO of The Newton Group, COO of Data Transmission Network (DTN), and Director of Finance/Controller at Broadcast Partners. He began his career as an Audit Manager at KPMG. His LinkedIn and advisory profiles also associate him with Mango Seed Investments, reflecting his personal investing activity.

Geneser holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting & Finance from the University of Notre Dame. He is a licensed CPA in Iowa and a FINRA-licensed representative holding Series 7, 24, 63, 79 and 99 registrations (he is/was associated with LWBJ Investment Services, LLC as a registered broker-dealer representative).

In May 2012, Geneser was one of the co-founders of Plains Angels, an Iowa-based angel investor network and an initiative tied to the Greater Des Moines Partnership. He created the group alongside Iowa-ecosystem figures including Chris Sackett, Paul Juffer, Sheldon Ohringer, Mike Colwell, Tej Dhawan and Christian Renaud. Plains Angels remains an active part of his angel-investing identity.

• Invests primarily at the seed and pre-seed / early stage in scalable startups, chiefly through the Plains Angels network he co-founded.
• Sector preferences: pure technology, manufacturing/process improvement, agriculture/agtech, fintech and insurtech, and social/B2C and B2B software. Plains Angels explicitly does not invest in medical device, drug discovery, or alternative-medicine ventures.
• Geography: strong Midwest/Iowa orientation, supporting the Greater Des Moines startup ecosystem.
• Brings an M&A and investment-banking lens — looks for companies that are scalable and that can deliver strong financial returns to accredited angels, evaluated with the rigor of due diligence and valuation he applies professionally.
• Value-add beyond capital: deep operational/CFO experience (he has been COO/CFO of multiple companies) and an outsourced-CFO/strategic-planning skill set.