Introducing Ted Clarke Ted Clarke is an operator turned into a private equity investor and a shipping clerk turned into a CEO. Starting as a shipping clerk, Ted rose to become President & CEO of Products Research & Chemical Corporation (PRC), a global leader in aircraft and construction sealants and coatings. Today, Ted is a partner at Iron Path Capital, a private equity firm that focuses on specialty industrial investments, partnering with business managers on acquisitions and buying and building growth strategies using private equity capital. What You Will Learn Strategic pitching and selling to Private Equity Acquisition, recapitalization, and integration in PE Public companies Vs. Private Equity growth strategy Breakdown [00:59] Getting to Know Ted Clarke [02:35] Ted’s experience with acquisition and sales to PE firms [18:02] How to streamline the processes of integration of businesses [26:09] Ted's lessons from Public Companies and PE Firms [34:08] How Ted went from shipping clerk to CEO and writing two books  [41:23] Ted's Go-To Self-Improvement Resources [43:44] How to get in touch with Ted [44:15] Ending the show The Process of Integration How can the CEOs and Senior leaders of portfolio companies and PE enhance the integration process? According to Ted, they have to be intentional not just with the integration process but also with what they are trying to build and the culture they are trying to develop to achieve their goal. Ted's experience in integrating acquisitions is based on the metrics. That is understanding the market you want to be in, the technology, and the characteristics you want to have and making the message simple so that it can permeate down the organization. Ted also shares that as you evaluate the acquisition, you need to put the time and effort into understanding the history of the business, determining the cost and gross synergies, and how you will integrate the acquired business into your culture. Having an open culture with clear and simple approaches to what you are trying to accomplish makes the integration process easy and transparent. It makes it clear very quickly whether or not the business you want to acquire will buy into your culture, and you can make changes early on. How to Contact Ted Ted on LinkedIn Tedclarkauthor.com Thank you for tuning in! To get the newest Private Equity episodes, you can subscribe on iTunes or Spotify here. Lastly, if you have any feedback on the podcast or want to reach out to Alex with any questions, send an email to [email protected].