Joseph Durnford, the Chairman and Senior Managing Director at JD Merit, has successfully structured, negotiated, and completed over 150 M&A transactions with a total value of nearly $4 billion. Durnford’s insights on how to gain liquidity and maximize value from private company ownership are immense and are drawn from his experience serving as a director for both private and public companies.

Durnford holds the Series 24, 27, 7, 63 and 79 licenses. Durnford has been awarded Deal Maker of the Year, Deal Maker of the Decade, Deal of the Year by M&A Advisor magazine and is an M&A Advisor Hall of Fame Inductee. He was also one of the Top 200 Boutique Investment Bankers in the United States in 2012.

JD Merit CEO Craig Dickens is an experienced entrepreneur, certified M&A advisor, investment banker, and angel investor. He is responsible for creating a culture of boutique personalized service and for recruiting experienced and excellent people to build the JDM team. Mr. Dickens’ experience with virtually every kind of business dynamic allows him to best guide clients towards rapid growth, business optimization, and profitable exit.

Mr. Dickens serves on the management committee for CDI Global, JD Merit’s sister organization, which represents cross-border merger & acquisitions in over 30 countries globally. His access to world-class buyers and capital partners is an important part of the service the company provides for all JDM clients.

As the Chief Compliance Officer and Chief Operations Officer for JD Merit, Joel Price is focused on facilitating and maintaining compliance while emphasizing effective and scalable processes. He has accumulated a broad and diverse background in financial services during his career. Price spent 12 years as President of a broker-dealer, four years managing and overseeing more than $200 million in assets, and 10 years as the HNW Accounts Portfolio Manager.

Price lives in Gig Harbor, Washington with his wife and four children.

Jeff Sasakura currently leads the firm’s deal completion team to ensure that all clients receive personalized and effective representation. He has worked in all aspects of mergers and acquisitions to bring transactions to fruition.

Sasakura began his career as an analyst. During his career, he has helped close over 30 M&A transactions totaling over $800 million. He brings vast knowledge of M&A transaction execution, deal structuring, data analysis, and market positioning to every engagement. Sasakura is a Series 7, 79, and 63 Registered Representative and a Certified Mergers & Acquisitions Advisor (inactive). He lives in Denver, Colorado, with his wife and two children.

Drew Goodmanson is a several time founder/entrepreneur that has built and sold several companies. Prior to joining JD Merit, Goodmanson built a boutique consulting firm that helped dozens of companies build strategic plans to accelerate growth and maximize their value prior to an exit.  As Chief Strategy Officer for JD Merit, Goodmanson brings his experience in growth, strategy and valuation maximization to clients. 

Goodmanson lives in Franklin, Tennessee with his wife and two children.

David Barnes, Managing Director at JD Merit, has over 30 years of investment banking experience, having closed over 350 M&A transactions with a combined enterprise value in excess of $9 billion. He has been a member of the NASD with Series 7 and 63 licenses since 1997.

Barnes worked as Managing Director at Cowen & Company’s Financial Sponsor Coverage Group, as well as at Houlihan Lokey.

Barnes was Head of Corporate Development at Lumio, Inc., where he created the fifth-largest photovoltaic solar sales and installation company in the country. He was also Vice President in charge of mergers and acquisitions at Protection One.

As Managing Director, David Wanetick provides clients with unique perspectives in articulating the value of their companies. His ability to communicate business strategy to our team and clients has resulted in great success. He is an expert in valuing intangible assets as he has valued thousands of patents and created the Certified Patent Valuation Analyst designation. As the author of Business Model Validation, Wanetick has a keen sense for explaining companies’ business models to investors and strategic acquirers. He has negotiated a wide variety of financial transactions and even authored The Strategic Negotiator and created The Institute for Strategic Negotiations.

Chris Barnes is a Managing Director at JD Merit with three decades of experience in investment banking, principal investing, and corporate development. He has successfully structured, negotiated, and closed over $1 billion in capital raises and $1 billion in M&A transactions.

Barnes has worked with a number of leading financial services firms including Lehman Brothers, Tucker Anthony Sutro, and Cleary Gull. He also successfully ran his own investment banking firm (Sarowdin Partners) for 10 years which focused on providing senior-level, Wall Street-quality investment banking services to companies at the lower end of the middle market.

Barnes holds the FINRA Series 7, 79, and 63 licenses.

Sean Ostrander is a Vice President with JD Merit and has been with the company since 2014. He has executed sell-side and buy-side transactions on over 20 closed transactions totaling over $500 million in enterprise value. His expertise includes financial analysis, valuation, deal structuring, data analysis, and market positioning across multiple verticals. He is also the in-house Excel shortcut wizard.

Previously he spent two years as an Account Manager with Corelytics, serving various technology and business services clients. Ostrander is a Series 79 and 63 Registered Representative and a Certified Mergers & Acquisitions Advisor (inactive).

Jodi Roberts graduated with a Marketing degree from the University of Northern Iowa with a focus on sales and advertising. Since becoming certified in Pragmatic Marketing, Roberts has been a pioneer in implementing personas and customer segmentation in marketing automation. She was part of the beta team implementing personas into HubSpot and spoke at HubSpot’s national conference, INBOUND.

Roberts has led marketing in organizations from start-ups to fastest growing Inc. 500/5000 companies.

She enjoys drumming, loving on her two sons, and talking tech with her programmer husband. Roberts and her family enjoy Midwest living and call Des Moines, Iowa, home.

Blake Swanson is a first-year Analyst at JD Merit & Company, having first joined through our internship program. He is responsible for providing analytical support on capital offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and other financial advisory services. Before starting at JD Merit, Swanson interned with Pacific Capital Resource Group, a financial advisory firm based in Bellevue, Washington.

He graduated from the University of Washington Foster School of Business and received a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration with concentrations in Finance and Information Systems. Swanson is currently pursuing his SIE, Series 7, and Series 79 exams.

As JD Merit’s Office Manager, Mindy Bills is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day office operations and procedures of the firm. She has experience in supporting the executive team, maintaining financial records, managing vendors, and onboarding new hires. She is a highly analytical team player with excellent multitasking abilities and a flexible approach to managing competing priorities.

Bills leverages her extensive military background in training, planning, and operations to manage the office organization effectively and efficiently. Her strategic planning and operational experience are invaluable to JD Merit & Company in ensuring that our transaction team has the necessary support.