I take the seat when an organization needs a steady hand — fixing what's broken, scaling what's working, and building the team that keeps winning after I've handed off the keys.
Command focus
Twenty-two years ago I was running a single plant floor. Today I sit at the head of the table — but the job hasn't changed as much as people think.
A Chief's job is to make the call nobody else can make, then stay close enough to the ground to know if it was the right one. I've led through a hostile takeover attempt, three recessions, and one bet-the-company product pivot — the title changes, the responsibility doesn't.
Read the organization clearly — numbers, culture, talent, risk — before moving anything.
Make the call. A Chief who can't decide isn't leading, just observing.
Get the executive team and the board rowing in the same direction, with real accountability attached.
Be in the business, not above it — visible on the floor, in the field, in the room.
Build the systems and successors that keep results compounding long after the tenure ends.
Tilt a card — every mandate here was measured against a number the board actually cared about.
Turnaround · Industrial Conglomerate
Took the CEO seat eleven weeks before a covenant breach and rebuilt the balance sheet without a bankruptcy filing.
M&A Integration · Energy
Led the 100-day integration plan after a $640M acquisition, merging two operating cultures without losing the senior bench.
Public Listing · Consumer Goods
Built the governance, reporting, and investor narrative that took a family-owned CPG business to a public listing.
Scale-Up · Enterprise SaaS
Rebuilt the org chart twice in three years so headcount could triple without the decision-making grinding to a halt.
Operating Model · Manufacturing
Consolidated a sprawling plant footprint and rebuilt procurement leverage to recover margin lost to a five-year cost creep.
Governance · Aerospace & Defense
Brought in after an audit finding to rebuild board composition, risk oversight, and the compliance cadence from scratch.
Keep scrolling — the command pillars assemble into formation, then bank together as one.
Lead a $3.1B industrial conglomerate through a turnaround, a leadership rebuild, and back to double-digit growth.
Owned P&L across 340 retail locations, rebuilding the operating model after a private-equity carve-out.
Ran global manufacturing operations across 14 countries, including the integration of two major acquisitions.
Kellogg School of Management
2005
Nat'l Assoc. of Corporate Directors
2018
Purdue University
1999
Aspen Institute
2014
Marcus doesn't manage a P&L, he commands one. The Hartwell turnaround under his watch is the case study every board now references.
He ran the Caldera integration like he had equity in the outcome — and kept every senior leader we needed to keep.
Hands-on, numbers-first, and unafraid to tell the board what it didn't want to hear. Exactly what the seat required.
Board search, a CEO transition, or a turnaround that needs a steady hand — send a message and I'll reply within a business day.