Why We Like It

Pet care is on track to become a nearly $400 billion global market by the end of the decade. Yet much of the industry is still delivered by small, independent operators built around local relationships, personal trust, and highly fragmented infrastructure.In this episode of "Why We Like It", Sam is joined by Jeff Halverson, CEO of Access Holdings portfolio company Wagway, and veterinarian and entrepreneur Andrew Findlaytor to unpack where the opportunity sits.They explore what makes a great local pet care business scalable without losing what made it special, where shared infrastructure and technology can create real operating leverage, and why the best consolidation models may be those that strengthen founders rather than replace them.The conversation also moves into veterinary care, affordability, workforce pressure, the “spectrum of care,” and how AI and automation could reshape everything from booking and customer experience to clinical workflows and the role of the veterinarian.Disclosure: Jeff Halverson is not compensated for this endorsement and is also not an advisory client of or investor in Access Holdings or its affiliates, but there is a conflict of interest in endorsing Access Holdings because Mr. Halverson is the CEO of a portfolio company held by an affiliate of Access Holdings. Therefore, advice or opinions of Mr. Halverson regarding Access Holdings or its affiliates may be influenced by such arrangement

Fire and life safety is one of the hottest sectors in the lower middle market, with over 240 deals in 2025 alone, roughly 50 acquisitions a quarter, and a total addressable market now pegged at $35 to $40 billion. So why is capital piling in now, and how much runway is actually left?In this episode of “Why We Like It”, Sam sits down with two people who see the sector from opposite sides of the table. Luke Webb, Managing Director, Business Services at Lincoln International, has advised on more than 100 transactions including the sale of Guardian Fire Services to Investcorp and Altus Fire and Life Safety to Apax. Scott Elkins, CEO of Zeus Fire and Security, is a second-generation entrepreneur who has completed 25 acquisitions, scaled to eight regional hubs and nearly 1,000 team members, and won EY's 2025 Entrepreneur of the Year for Greater Philadelphia.Together they unpack the investment thesis behind the consolidation wave, why we may only be in the "third or fourth inning," what separates a business that commands a premium from one that doesn't, and how Zeus's "house of brands" model preserves decades-old local reputations while integrating everything on the back end. They also get into the technology shift reshaping the industry, from analog to AI, and from capturing events after they happen to preventing them before they do, plus where the whole space is headed over the next decade.A look at both halves of a fast-moving market: the person advising on the deals, and the person building the platform from the inside.

Accounting has been around for five thousand years. The modern profession has been around for one hundred. And for most of that century, almost nothing about it has actually changed.Then in five years, it all moved at once. Over $200 billion of private equity capital across roughly 150 deals. Eleven of the top thirty US firms now PE-backed. AI absorbing workflows that hadn't been touched in a generation. The industry that quietly underwrites every business decision in the economy, being rebuilt in real time.In this episode of Why We Like It, Sam Tidswell-Norrish sits down with two people on opposite ends of the same grid.Frank Longobardi spent forty-five years inside the profession, the last of them as CEO of CohnReznick. He explains what private equity actually saw that the partners didn't - the capital problem, the governance trap, and the moment a generation of partners realized their equity was worth multiples of what they'd been told.Ariel Harmoko is the co-founder and CEO of Artifact, the agentic AI platform now cleared by HMRC to file tax returns directly with the regulator. A former Formula 3 driver and Cambridge machine learning researcher, he delivers one of the sharpest unscripted answers we've had on the show - on where the $900 billion value-creation story actually lives, and who really wins the next decade.Two generations. Two vantage points. One profession being re-engineered in real time.

Conference realignment. The transfer portal. A $20.5M-per-school revenue-sharing mandate that didn't exist two years ago. Streaming platforms spending north of $14B on rights. Sports is being rebuilt from the ground up and on this episode, Sam talks to two people whose careers have shaped many of the defining moments along the way. Chris Bevilacqua built the proof of concept that became every conference media network you know today.Chris Marinak spent nearly two decades inside MLB, helping deliver innovations like the pitch clock and the ABS challenge system.Now both at Playfly Sports, they discuss media rights, college sports, hyper-personalization, and what fans should expect over the next five years.

Every year, the private equity industry gets more competitive. More capital chasing a similar supply of deals. Valuations staying firm. The arbitrages of buying low and selling high evaporating. For over a decade, outcomes were supported by multiple expansion and leverage. That era is over. Performance now depends on operational improvement and revenue growth, and the firms that can deliver real value creation are pulling away from those that cannot.In this episode of Why We Like It, Sam Tidswell-Norrish sits down with Sean Mooney, founder and CEO of BluWave. Sean is a 20-year private equity veteran who went from PE partner and investment committee member to building BluWave, a platform now trusted by hundreds of top PE firms and thousands of portfolio companies to connect investors with pre-vetted operators, consultants, and interim executives across due diligence, value creation, and exit preparation.They go deep on where firms consistently get it wrong, why people remain the single biggest lever in value creation, how revenue growth has overtaken cost cutting as the primary driver of exit valuation, and why AI is rapidly shifting from buzzword to tactical deployment. Sean shares what he calls the three board meeting problem, a pattern he sees play out across the industry, and a decision-making framework from US military doctrine that changed how he operates in uncertain environments.The conversation closes with four factors Sean believes every founder should evaluate before taking PE capital for the first time. Together, they explore why operational value creation is no longer a marketing narrative but the primary source of returns, and why the firms that run the business of private equity like a business are the ones building durable, long-term performance.