Jim Foley

Jim Foley is a Partner at Kirtland Capital Partners, a Cleveland-based lower middle-market private equity firm founded in 1977 that has invested in family- and founder-owned businesses for nearly five decades. He joined Kirtland in 2000 and has spent more than two decades on one of the firm's long-tenured investment teams, focusing on transaction execution, financial diligence, and portfolio-company value creation.

Before joining Kirtland, Foley built a finance and transaction-services background in Cleveland. He worked as a Manager in the Transaction Services (transaction diligence) group of PricewaterhouseCoopers, and earlier served as a Vice President in the Commercial Lending Division of KeyCorp (KeyBank). This combination of lending and M&A diligence experience underpins his role evaluating and structuring Kirtland's control investments.

Foley is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, where he earned a B.A. in Economics with a minor in Accounting (1985–1989). His areas of expertise include mergers & acquisitions, due diligence, private equity investing, and financial analysis; he has spoken publicly on M&A diligence, including at the Alliance of M&A Advisors (AM&AA) 2023 Winter Conference on the primary areas of M&A due diligence.

Note: Kirtland's public team roster is periodically updated and Foley may not appear on the current live page; his affiliation and Partner title are corroborated by the firm's email domain and by the 2023 AM&AA conference listing.

• Invests as a control/lead equity investor in lower middle-market companies — this is buyout/growth private equity, not angel or seed investing (the "Angel Investors / Seed Round" stub labels appear to be inaccurate for Kirtland).
• Firm targets companies with revenue > $10M (typically $10–50M) and EBITDA > $1M (typically $1–6M), writing equity checks of roughly $15–75M per platform deal.
• Concentrates on three verticals: precision machining & engineered products (medical device components, aerospace & defense), branded food & beverage (including pet and nutritional/sports supplements), and business services.
• Says "yes" to businesses with: tangible organic or acquisition-driven growth opportunities, attractive/achievable margins, a defensible market position, and manageable customer concentration (generally <30% for any single customer, <50% for the top five).
• Prefers founder- and family-owned businesses with strong management teams; will consider underperformers where the need is a capital infusion rather than a full operational turnaround.
• Positions the firm as a "business builder" that adds value through investments in leadership, business infrastructure, and sales & marketing — geography limited to U.S./Canada-headquartered companies.