John Ferrara
Founder & President
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John Ferrara has dedicated his 35-year career to serving as a trusted advisor to privately held businesses. Representative of over 300 engagements, he has acted as investment banker, management consultant, interim executive, investor, founder, and board member. John has been recognized as one of the Top 50 M&A advisors in the U.S., received the M&A Advisor Lifetime Achievement award, and honored as an M&A Advisor Hall of Fame inductee. During his 20-year leadership tenure, he has led Capstone through two rounds of growth financings and nine strategic transactions, including the most recent public merger with Huntington Bank (NASDAQ: HBAN).
John started his career with Lehman Brothers’ M&A group in New York, later moving to their capital markets group in London and the Middle East. Following Lehman, he served as a founding member of Rodman & Renshaw’s M&A practice in NY. After a break to play baseball in Australia, John joined Deloitte’s strategy consulting group in Los Angeles. He went on to start a corporate finance practice for Arthur Andersen, where he became a partner, and held various national and global leadership positions. He ultimately purchased the practice he founded at Andersen and rebranded it as Capstone Partners in 2002.
He holds dual BA degrees from Wesleyan University and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. John has also pursued post-graduate work at Harvard Business School, the Sloan School of Management at MIT, and the London School of Economics. John is author of the children’s book “Beyond the Waterspout”, and contributing author of “Best Practices of the Best Deal Makers” and “Agile M&A”. He is the founder of the Spirit Triumph Cancer Foundation and the Ferrara Community Impact Foundation. John is married with three children and lives in Boston.
