Michael Rabin

Michael Z. Rabin is a consumer-industry M&A specialist whose career spans roughly 35 years in management consulting and investment banking. He earned a BA in economics, with general and special honors, from the University of Chicago, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He began his career with about 15 years in management consulting (including roles associated with firms such as Marakon Associates and Mars & Co.), advising Fortune 50 corporations across the chemicals, information technology, oil & gas, and consumer sectors.

He subsequently joined Goldman Sachs & Co., where he worked in the Mergers & Acquisitions Department and the Financial Sponsors Group. Around 2004 he moved to Sawaya Segalas & Co. LLC (later rebranded Sawaya Partners, and in December 2021 acquired by Canaccord Genuity to become CG Sawaya Partners), a boutique investment bank focused exclusively on the consumer industry. There he served for roughly 15 years as a Managing Director and senior partner, focusing primarily on the OTC (over-the-counter healthcare and personal care) sector. Over his tenure he reports completing more than 40 transactions involving over 150 brands, working with public companies, family-held businesses, and private-equity-backed platforms.

More recently, Rabin joined Zylö Therapeutics — a Greenville, SC-based drug-delivery / therapeutics company developing a sustained-release ("Z-pod") technology — where he is listed on the company's team page as Special Advisor, Strategy (some profiles list him as VP, Strategy), supporting business development and strategic partnerships.

His retained email domain, sawayasegalas.com, reflects the original Sawaya Segalas branding of the consumer M&A boutique where he spent the bulk of his banking career.

• Career focus is consumer M&A advisory, not documented personal angel investing — treat the "angel / seed" descriptor with caution until confirmed directly with him.
• Deep specialization in the OTC healthcare, personal care, and food & beverage segments of the consumer sector.
• In a widely cited market comment (The Deal Pipeline, 2010), Rabin — then a Managing Director at Sawaya Segalas — framed his read of the sector: *"Within the consumer sector, the food and beverage segment remains of strong interest for both strategic [buyers] and financial sponsors, driven by two primary trends: in-market consolidation and particularly heavy activity in contract manufacturing and private-label [segments]."*
• Sawaya Segalas positioned itself as a pure-play consumer bank; over its history it reported completing on the order of 111 transactions worth roughly $20 billion in aggregate value — the deal environment in which Rabin operated.
• Any current involvement with early-stage companies appears to run through strategy/advisory roles (e.g., Zylö Therapeutics) rather than a formal fund or published check size.