Grant Thornton Transaction Advisory Services (TAS) practice in Houston has added two new team members with the hiring of Edward Kleinguetl and Traci Twardowski, who join as managing director and director, respectively. Mr. Kleinguetl will also lead Grant Thornton’s national Transaction Integration offering within the TAS practice.
“As we demonstrated last year with the addition of Brandon Cradeur, who has deep energy and private equity experience to lead our TAS practice locally and our Transaction Advisory Energy Team nationally, the additions of Ed and Traci highlight our firm’s commitment to bringing to our client base talented TAS professionals in Houston and across the country,” said Michael Bennett, managing partner of Grant Thornton’s Houston office.
“Ed’s integration consulting expertise will aid those companies seeking to grow through acquisitions, while Traci’s deep chemical and resin sector knowledge will be integral as we continue to see a considerable amount of consolidation and transactions in that segment within the energy industry,” said Mr. Cradeur. “They bring a wealth of international experience and unique perspectives, given their previous industry roles, and their remarkable skill sets add to our already impressive bench strength of 20 dedicated transaction professionals within our National Energy TAS team.”
Mr. Kleinguetl and Ms. Twardowski will be members of the National Energy TAS team, which offers M&A advisory; buy-side and sell-side due diligence in the areas of financial and tax, human resources, information technology and operations; tax structuring; lender services; post-close transaction support; and merger integration.
Mr. Kleinguetl is an experienced executive and transaction investment advisor, and has provided strategic investment advisory services to grassroots refineries, petrochemical and LNG facilities, transaction integration, transaction carve-out and performance improvement projects. He has served clients across a number of sectors such as energy, downstream refining and petrochemical, mining and minerals, oilfield services, construction and engineering, healthcare, quick-service food, technology and banking.
Prior to joining Grant Thornton, Mr. Kleinguetl spent four years with KBC Advanced Technologies, a London-based engineering consultancy focused on the global and petrochemical sectors, where he served as executive vice president of consulting. He focused on refinery and petrochemical investment support projects, including greenfield, acquisitions and joint venture investments, in China, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Brazil.
Previously, Mr. Kleinguetl was a partner and founding member of the Transaction Integration practice of a Big Four firm, handling multi-national, multi-cultural transactions. He also served as chief financial officer of a private equity portfolio company and a senior vice president of sales and marketing for an industrial services firm focusing on the refining, petrochemical and other processing industry sectors. He received a bachelor’s in business administration from The Ohio State University.
Ms. Twardowski has broad-based global expertise in mergers and acquisitions, business development, strategic planning and forecasting, investor relations, pricing and process optimization, as well as operational and functional integration activities.
Prior to joining Grant Thornton, Ms. Twardowski held a number of management roles at Celanese Corporation, a global chemical and specialty materials company, most recently serving as the global product strategy manager for the ultra-high density polyethylene business. In that role, she managed a diversified end-use product offering, ranging from medical implants to water filtration applications; optimized the global product portfolio and manufacturing assets for growth opportunities; and oversaw the global supply/demand dynamics to ensure effective production capacity utilization and regional balance. Previously, she served as a manager in the Transaction Services group of a Big Four firm, where she planned, coordinated and directed multidiscipline teams in the execution of financial, operational, information technology and tax due diligence investigations for both financial and strategic buyers. Ms. Twardowski received a bachelor’s in business administration from Texas Christian University.
© 2013 PEPD • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 2-14-13
