BRENT SMITH | CFO
Brent Smith is a transformational financial executive and strategic advisor to mid-market and enterprise companies. He partners with CEOs, private equity sponsors, lenders, and boards to deliver durable value creation across aviation, healthcare, services, logistics, roofing, industrials, automotive, finance, and consumer products. His work spans complex turnarounds, balance-sheet optimization, and building high-performance FP&A organizations that translate data into decisions.
Most recently, Brent served as Chief Financial Officer of flyExclusive, a NYSE-listed charter aviation company with roughly $300 million in revenue and a fleet of about 100 aircraft, the fifth-largest charter provider in the United States. Recruited to help lead the organization through becoming a public company via a SPAC, he oversaw the public-company proxy, including three years of audits and the MD&A, presented the investment case to investors, and stood up the public-company finance organization. He established the company’s first FP&A function, led early build-out for the new MRO business, managed HR, and oversaw analysis and administration of fleet sale/leasebacks.
Before flyExclusive, Brent was CFO of Air Methods, a $1.5 billion national air-medical transport leader and a portfolio company of American Securities. He led FP&A, operations analysis, tax, treasury, accounting, and IT, partnering with the executive team and sponsor to drive approximately 25% year-over-year EBITDA improvement through cost actions, price optimization, and network footprint work. He delivered over $50 million in savings, arranged financing for more than $75 million in helicopters, overhauled forecasting and cash reporting (including a 13-week cash flow), upgraded leadership in IT, FP&A, and Tax, strengthened cybersecurity and infrastructure, and launched a new procurement program.
Previously, Brent served as CFO of CROSSMARK, a $700 million global sales and marketing services company and Warburg Pincus portfolio company with over 30,000 employees across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand. He led the worldwide finance group—accounting, FP&A, treasury, tax, risk, procurement, and facilities—spearheaded a restructuring that delivered tens of millions in profit improvement, and negotiated an extension of the company’s revolving credit facility. He managed public term-loan investor and rating-agency relationships, served on multiple international subsidiary boards and a $200 million joint venture supporting Sam’s Club, supported a company sale process and debt-restructuring plan, and centralized billing and collections to reduce unbilled balances and double cash.
Brent’s 17-year tenure with NetJets, a Berkshire Hathaway company, is foundational. As CFO of NetJets Inc. from 2009 to 2015, he helped lead the company’s financial turnaround from a $700 million loss to record profits, directing a global finance organization of roughly 200 professionals across strategic planning, pricing and product, market research, procurement, accounting, FP&A, treasury, internal audit, facilities, risk, and tax. He eliminated billions in debt through aircraft-portfolio actions and delivered $500 million in cost reductions; refinanced a $600 million secured syndicated facility and supported a $1.3 billion commercial paper program; participated in the purchase of 670 aircraft totaling approximately $17.6 billion; set pricing, service-level agreements, and guaranteed maintenance programs; completed the acquisition and rapid integration of Marquis’s $495 million jet-card business; improved sales by 5–7% annually through product development; built market research and strategic analysis teams; optimized the leased-versus-owned portfolio; and overhauled internal controls. As CFO and CAO of Executive Jet Management, NetJets’ $400 million aircraft-management subsidiary with 200 aircraft, he took over after significant write-downs and controls issues and, in two years, reversed chronic losses to record profitability by right-sizing costs, rationalizing the owner base, overhauling pricing, and strengthening internal controls. Earlier at NetJets he began in FP&A as a manager and was ultimately promoted to Vice President of FP&A, building the function from the ground up, growing the team to about 20 professionals, instituting the company’s first planning and budgeting processes, and launching operational and financial reporting and analysis to support growth from roughly 100 to roughly 700 aircraft.
Earlier in his career, Brent held progressive finance roles at Borden, Inc., a $7 billion diversified conglomerate, across audits, SAP implementation, and budgets and forecasting; served as a Senior Accountant at Limited Brands; and began his career as a Senior Auditor with Arthur Andersen & Co. Through B.C. Smith Company (and previously Brent Smith Consulting), he advises companies on profit improvement, cash-flow and balance-sheet optimization, accounting-process design, and FP&A, often embedding with management teams to move quickly from analysis to execution. He holds an M.A. from The Ohio State University, a B.S.B.A. from Ohio Northern University, and is a CPA (Inactive).
