Founders, operators, investors, legal counsel, credit specialists, and capital-markets veterans working together from first conversation through long-term growth.
Leadership & Operating Team
Built to evaluate every path forward.
Our team combines the judgment of business owners with institutional transaction experience. We bring operating, investing, capital-markets, legal, and credit capabilities to each partnership.
Managing Partner
Stephen Sheriff
Stephen Sheriff is a founder, public-company operator, independent sponsor, and go-public advisor with over a decade of experience building, scaling, and exiting businesses. He is Founder and Managing Partner of Sheriff & Co., a founder-led, family-owned independent sponsor platform that acquires, integrates, and scales businesses across consumer-facing and essential services sectors, where he leads deal origination and platform development. As former Chief Operating Officer of Kaival Brands (NAS: KAVL), he delivered 25%+ net revenue growth, 120%+ gross profit margin expansion, and a 20% OpEx reduction while leading operations, investor relations, sales, and financing strategy. He founded Riverhill Ventures in 2012 and has invested in more than 40 companies since then. From 2019 to 2025 co-owned and operated a ten-plus-unit Playa Bowls franchise, scaling it to 350+ employees and eight-figure annual revenues while outperforming platform peers by up to 30%.
Managing Partner & General Counsel
Aaron Schleicher
Aaron Schleicher is a Managing Partner & General Counsel at Sheriff & Co. with extensive experience in capital markets, M&A, and high-stakes transaction execution. Previously a capital markets partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and in-house counsel to a global S&P 500 technology company, he has advised issuers, investment banks, private equity firms, and management teams on IPOs, equity offerings, strategic acquisitions, business combinations, and other mission-critical financings, with more than $10Bn in aggregate transaction value. In addition to his transactional work, Aaron brings significant experience in SEC reporting, public-company disclosure, corporate governance, and compliance.
Chairman
Alan Sheriff
Alan Sheriff has more than 40 years of buy- and sell-side experience across investment banking, capital markets, M&A, and venture investing. Prior to Catalyst, he served as Vice Chairman of the Corporate & Institutional Bank of PNC Financial Services Group. He co-founded Solebury Capital in 2005, which was acquired by PNC in 2014, and served as its Co-CEO until 2020, building it into a premier equity capital markets advisory platform that advised on 1,100+ transactions totaling over $500Bn.
Vice Chairman
Barry Hopkins
Barry Hopkins is a senior operating executive with more than 40 years of experience across tobacco, consumer products, retail, performance management, and regulatory compliance. He held senior leadership roles at Altria, including Vice President of National Accounts and Regional Vice President leading a 600+ person sales organization managing a $1.2Bn operation. He later joined Turning Point Brands, where as acting COO of the combined VaporBeast/Vapor Shark businesses he helped grow revenue from $48mm to $98mm in under eight months.
Senior Associate
Charles “Charlie” Rushing
Charles “Charlie” Rushing is a Senior Associate at Sheriff & Co., where he supports the firm's executive leadership team and helps advance day-to-day operations across the firm's portfolio. He plays an active role in transaction management, investor relations, and administrative oversight.
Operating Partners
Operators built for transformation.
Senior leaders who bring operating discipline, commercial judgment, and functional depth to the businesses we support.
Operating Partner
Dawn Johnston
Dawn Johnston is a transportation executive and turnaround leader with more than 25 years of experience across operations, enterprise risk, regulatory compliance, and organizational transformation at motor carriers, brokerages, private fleets, and private-equity-backed businesses. She currently serves as Chief Compliance Officer of Go2 Logistics, leading a transformation of the company's safety, compliance, risk, and governance functions. Previously, as Chief Administrative Officer and President of Shared Services for the $1.4Bn R&R Family of Companies, she reduced corporate overhead by 28%; at private-equity-backed Roadrunner, her risk-financing initiatives generated $12mm in savings. She founded Logix Advisory Group, advising transportation and logistics organizations on regulatory turnarounds and enterprise risk, and is a United States Air Force veteran who served in Logistics Operations.
Operating Partner
Frank Vignone
Frank J. Vignone is a senior executive and strategic advisor with nearly four decades of leadership experience across consumer products, beverage, retail, and commercial operations. He currently serves as Senior Vice President of Sales at Turning Point Brands, leading a national sales organization of more than 150 employees, and is the founder of FJV & Associates. He was a founding partner of Global Brewing Solutions, whose custom brands reached the #2 craft-beer position for national retailers including Circle K, Wawa, and RaceTrac.
Advisors
Specialized perspective when it matters.
Focused operating, credit, finance, and commercial expertise across the situations we evaluate and the businesses we support.
Senior Operating Advisor
Gregory Benoff
Gregory Benoff is a founder-operator with more than a decade of experience building and scaling businesses across consumer products, wholesale distribution, e-commerce, and health and wellness. His experience spans commercial growth, strategic partnerships, global sourcing, supply chain, working capital, and operations. Earlier in his career, Gregory worked in credit and risk advisory at KPMG.
Advisor
Daniel Sheriff
Daniel Sheriff is a finance professional with deep analytical and credit expertise across private credit, corporate banking, and structured credit. As Co-Founder and Co-Head of Catalyst Strategic Credit Group, he applies financial modeling, underwriting, and capital-structuring experience to evaluate and execute complex credit solutions for growing companies.
Advisor
Thomas Petroski
Thomas Petroski is a finance, strategy, and commercial executive with more than 13 years of experience across consumer products, multi-unit retail, franchising, and e-commerce. His background spans FP&A, pricing and profitability, product innovation, business intelligence, and M&A support, with a focus on turning complex operating data into clear financial insight.
Advisor
Lamar Thomas
Lamar Thomas is a sales and business development leader with 9+ years of experience growing major CPG portfolios across grocery, drug, dollar, and convenience channels. At Heineken USA, he directs a $400mm portfolio, increased territory ACV share from 11.4% to 14.2%, and reduced trade spend by 6%. In earlier roles at Heineken, he secured thousands of net-new distribution points across key accounts. His prior experience also includes category analytics at Nestlé Purina PetCare.
Stephen Sheriff is a founder, public-company operator, independent sponsor, and go-public advisor with over a decade of experience building, scaling, and exiting businesses. He is the Founder and Managing Partner of Sheriff & Co., a founder-led, family-owned independent sponsor platform that acquires, integrates, and scales businesses across consumer-facing and essential services sectors, partnering with owners across the full range of strategic alternatives rather than a predetermined investment thesis or exit plan. He leads deal origination and platform development, and brings an owner's perspective to every partnership: he has built companies and carried decisions that shape the lives of employees, customers, and families.
Stephen concurrently serves as Founder and Managing Partner of Catalyst Corporate Advisory, an affiliated corporate advisory franchise. Before Catalyst, Stephen served as Chief Operating Officer of Kaival Brands (NAS: KAVL), where he delivered 25%+ net revenue growth, 120%+ gross profit margin expansion, and a 20% OpEx reduction despite increased revenue and the integration of key new hires and infrastructure. He led operations, investor relations, communications, sales, and financing strategy, working directly with the Executive Chairman, CEO, and Board across Nasdaq compliance remediation, S-1/10-K/10-Q oversight, and bank syndicate restructuring.
Stephen has been an active investor and operator for over a decade. In 2012, he founded Riverhill Ventures, where he has invested in 40+ companies including some of the most notable consumer companies of the past decade, which include exits to both strategics and IPOs. From spring 2019 through February 2025, Stephen co-owned and operated more than ten quick service restaurants as a franchisee of Playa Bowls, consistently outperforming platform peers by up to 30% and scaling the business to 350+ employees and eight-figure annual revenues. The systematic controls and procedures he and his team designed were subsequently replicated systemwide.
Earlier in his career, Stephen worked at Solebury Trout (now Solebury Strategic Communications), a healthcare and life-sciences focused investor relations firm. He received his B.A. in Counseling Psychology from Delaware Valley University, where he also served as Associate Head Coach for the Men's and Women's Tennis programs.
Stephen resides in Bucks County, PA, with his wife, four children, three dogs, and zero personal space.
Aaron Schleicher is a Managing Partner & General Counsel at Sheriff & Co. with extensive experience in capital markets, M&A, and complex transaction execution. He has advised issuers, investment banks, private equity firms, and management teams on IPOs, equity offerings, strategic acquisitions, business combinations, and other mission-critical financings that often shape key inflection points in a company’s growth trajectory.
Prior to joining Sheriff & Co., Aaron was a capital markets partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and served as in-house counsel to a global S&P 500 technology company. His experience includes more than $10Bn in aggregate transaction value across M&A, capital markets, and securities matters. Separate from his transaction practice, Aaron has substantial experience advising on SEC reporting, disclosure, corporate governance, and compliance matters that support companies before, during, and after significant strategic events.
Aaron has been recognized by Best Lawyers in America: Ones to Watch (2024-2025), and as a Rising Star by New York Super Lawyers (2022-2025). He earned his J.D., magna cum laude, from Tulane University Law School and his B.A. from Bates College.
At Sheriff & Co., Aaron works with business owners, investors, and management teams to structure and execute acquisitions, financings, and other consequential transactions with institutional discipline, sound governance, and a focus on long-term value creation.
Alan Sheriff is a strategic and analytical senior business executive with a proven track record of executive leadership across the financial services industry. Mr. Sheriff currently serves as Chairman of Sheriff & Co. Most recently, he was Vice Chairman of the Corporate & Institutional Bank of PNC Financial Services Group, the sixth largest bank in the United States. Mr. Sheriff has more than forty years of comprehensive buy and sell-side finance experience spanning investment banking, capital raising, private and public equities, M&A and venture capital investing.
Mr. Sheriff co-founded Solebury Capital in 2005 and served as its Co-Chief Executive Officer from 2005 until he retired in 2020. Under his guidance and leadership, Solebury Capital became the premier independent equity capital markets advisory firm, known for bringing deep product expertise, market knowledge and unbiased advice to its clients. Solebury Capital has worked on more than 1,100 equity transactions totaling more than ~$500Bn of IPO, follow-on, and block trade issuance, representing a higher market share than any investment bank. Mr. Sheriff personally provided capital markets counsel to financial sponsors such as Bain Capital, Ares Management, Apollo, KKR, American Securities, TH Lee, Freeman Spogli, TSG Consumer and many others. Mr. Sheriff has also worked directly with companies such as Nielsen, HD Supply, Dunkin Brands, Canada Goose, Snapchat, Bombardier Recreational Products, Aramark, Black Knight Financial, Floor & Decor, Revolve, Planet Fitness and Casper Sleep.
Mr. Sheriff also served as a co-founder of a successful SPAC franchise, Tailwind I, II, and International, where he raised over $1Bn and was responsible for developing comprehensive financing structures for 3 prospective SPAC mergers, 2 of which successfully closed. He is also a founding board member of Tailwind 2.0 Acquisition Corp, which raised $150mm in an IPO in December 2025.
In addition, Alan was also co-founder and co-chairman of Rosemont-Solebury, a $100mm private equity fund, that invested alongside some of the top private equity firms such as KKR, Blackstone, Carlyle and Ziff Media.
Prior to founding Solebury Capital, Mr. Sheriff held several senior-level positions at Credit Suisse First Boston, including serving as Co-Head of Equity Capital Markets for the Americas from 1999 to 2005. Mr. Sheriff also chaired Credit Suisse’s Equity Valuation Committee from 1999 to 2005 and sat on the firm’s Investment Banking Committee from 2001 to 2005. Mr. Sheriff began his career at Salomon Brothers Inc, where he worked from 1983-1992.
Mr. Sheriff graduated from the University of Rochester in 1981 with a B.A. in Political Science, Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa. He also received an MPA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He has been a member of The Council on Foreign Relations since 1999. Mr. Sheriff serves on the nonprofit Boards of the Travis Manion Foundation and the Telfair Museums. Additionally, Mr. Sheriff runs The Sheriff Group, making family investments in start-ups across a variety of industries. He is also a director of the Sheriff Family Foundation, a family-run 501c3 focused on veteran’s organizations and youth education.
Barry Hopkins is a senior operating executive with more than 40 years of experience across tobacco, consumer products, retail, business development, performance management, strategic planning, organizational development, and regulatory compliance. He most recently served as Executive Chairman and Interim Chief Executive Officer of a Nasdaq-listed company.
Earlier in his career, Barry held senior leadership roles at Altria, including Vice President of National Accounts, where he led a team responsible for more than 50% of Philip Morris USA sales and delivered consecutive market-share gains over a three-year period. As Regional Vice President, he led a 600+ person sales organization managing a $1.2Bn operation that consistently exceeded sales, market-share, and revenue expectations.
After retiring from Altria, Barry founded Ideas in Motion and later joined Turning Point Brands (NYSE: TPB), where he held senior leadership roles across sales, marketing, executive organizational development, and post-acquisition integration. As acting COO of the combined VaporBeast/Vapor Shark businesses, he helped grow revenue from $48mm to $98mm in less than eight months. He also helped develop performance management and strategic planning systems that contributed to eight record-setting quarters of revenue growth.
Dawn Johnston is a transportation executive, turnaround leader, and revenue growth advisor with more than 25 years of experience leading operations, enterprise risk, regulatory compliance, insurance, and organizational transformation across motor carriers, brokerages, private fleets, private-equity-backed businesses, and government. Throughout her career, she has frequently been brought into organizations facing significant operational, regulatory, or financial challenges to stabilize the business, rebuild accountability, reduce enterprise risk, and create sustainable operating structures. Her leadership experience spans organizations ranging from privately held transportation companies to enterprises exceeding $1.8 billion in annual revenue.
Dawn currently serves as Chief Compliance Officer of Go2 Logistics, where she was brought in to lead a broad transformation of the company's safety, compliance, risk, and governance functions. Her work has extended beyond traditional compliance into organizational restructuring, fleet and maintenance strategy, driver qualification and workforce standards, insurance and captive strategy, claims oversight, regulatory readiness, and executive governance. She works closely with executive leadership, private-equity stakeholders, counsel, operations, and other business functions to integrate compliance and risk management into the company's broader operating strategy.
Prior to Go2, Dawn served as Chief Administrative Officer and President of Shared Services for R&R Family of Companies, having previously served as its Vice President of Risk Management. She directed shared services across HR, finance, accounting, IT, procurement, facilities, risk, and compliance for a $1.4 billion multi-entity transportation organization supporting 549 employees and more than 1,300 independent contractors. Her restructuring initiatives reduced corporate overhead by 28%, contributed to more than $7 million in annualized procurement savings and $4.4 million in facilities savings, and reduced transaction costs by more than 60% across trucking and brokerage operations. Following R&R's closure, Dawn was retained by Huntington Bank to provide executive continuity through the company's wind-down, coordinating business, administrative, risk, and closure activities.
Earlier in her career, Dawn served as Vice President of Safety & Risk Management for private-equity-backed Roadrunner, where she led enterprise safety, fleet maintenance, insurance, claims, dispatch, and regulatory compliance. She restructured insurance and risk-financing programs that generated $12 million in savings over three years while significantly improving claims performance, including a 73.7% reduction in total auto-liability paid and a 50% reduction in workers' compensation claims. As Director of Operations for Pfister Bulk Transport, Dawn led operations, safety, compliance, risk, and cross-border transportation during a period in which the business grew from approximately $18 million to $100 million in revenue. Her work included self-insured benefits and workers' compensation programs, technology implementation, fleet and operational strategy, and cost-reduction initiatives that included more than $2 million in fuel savings. She previously held transportation operations leadership roles with private-equity-backed BAR-S Foods.
She has advised the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, Wisconsin State Patrol, Division of Motor Vehicles, engineering organizations, and private industry and has collaborated with the Federal Highway Administration, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, AASHTO, MAASTO, law enforcement, and other stakeholders on freight transportation policy, commercial vehicle safety, permitting, infrastructure, and regulatory initiatives. She is founder of Logix Advisory Group, through which she has advised transportation and logistics organizations on regulatory turnarounds, enterprise risk, insurance, governance, operational discipline, and transaction readiness. She is a United States Air Force veteran who served in Logistics Operations and brings an operator's perspective to compliance and risk, building programs that protect the business while supporting operational performance, profitability, and enterprise value.
Frank J. Vignone is a senior executive and strategic advisor with nearly four decades of leadership experience across consumer products, beverage, retail, wholesale distribution, and commercial operations. He currently serves as Senior Vice President of Sales at Turning Point Brands, where he leads a national sales organization of more than 150 employees, and is the founder of FJV & Associates.
Frank has built and led high-performing organizations across public and private companies, with deep experience in P&L management, salesforce development, succession planning, CRM modernization, data-driven analytics, and go-to-market execution. Earlier in his career, he held senior leadership roles at Altria and other organizations, where he drove revenue growth, distribution expansion, and market-share gains across multiple product categories, including a $750mm, 5,000-account business in Florida.
Frank was also a founding partner of Global Brewing Solutions, a craft-beverage brand-development company whose custom brands reached the #2 craft-beer position for national retail partners including Circle K, Wawa, and RaceTrac. He helped lead the business to a successful sale to a national brewer in 2018. His broader commercial network spans convenience stores, wholesale distribution, and specialty retail, with relationships across major chains and distributors including 7-Eleven, Circle K, Dollar General, McLane, Speedway, Casey's, and Publix.
Charles “Charlie” Rushing is a Senior Associate at Sheriff & Co., where he supports the firm's executive leadership team and helps advance day-to-day operations across the firm's portfolio. He plays an active role in transaction management, investor relations, and administrative oversight.
Charlie brings a relationship-driven and execution-oriented background spanning real estate, coaching, and team leadership. In real estate, he earned national recognition as a Five Star Professional “Rising Star” in 2023, advising clients across residential and commercial transactions and developing experience in negotiation, client management, and transaction execution.
A lifelong competitor, Charlie captained the Men's Division II tennis team at West Chester University from 2014 to 2018 and was a USTA Team Tennis National Champion in 2014. His athletic and coaching background informs the discipline, teamwork, and leadership he brings to clients and colleagues at Sheriff & Co.
Gregory Benoff is a founder-operator and investor with more than a decade of experience building, scaling, and advising businesses across consumer products, wholesale distribution, e-commerce, and health and wellness. His experience spans commercial growth, strategic partnerships, global sourcing and manufacturing, supply chain, working capital, inventory planning, distribution, marketplace operations, and operating infrastructure.
Since 2017, Gregory has founded and operated three consumer and distribution businesses: a vertically integrated private-label platform; a multi-brand advisory and wholesale platform serving more than 50 third-party brands; and a health and wellness wholesale platform working with nationally recognized category leaders. He has built operations from inception through scale, established direct international manufacturing relationships, managed seven-figure inventory and working-capital positions, and scaled warehousing infrastructure. His advisory and commercial work has focused on growth strategy and execution. Through his health and wellness platform, Gregory supported the sourcing, negotiation, and acquisition of a specialty healthcare practice.
Gregory is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Weatherfield Capital, applying a research-driven approach to public-company analysis, thematic portfolio construction, capital allocation, and risk management.
Earlier in his career, he spent five years at KPMG US LLP in its Advisory practice, supporting financial institutions, mortgage originators and servicers, government-sponsored entities, and fleet-management and financing companies across lending operations, credit risk, internal audit, regulatory remediation, and process improvement and system implementations.
Daniel Sheriff is a finance professional with deep analytical and credit expertise across private credit, corporate banking, structured credit, and institutional capital markets. As Co-Founder and Co-Head of Catalyst Strategic Credit Group, he applies financial modeling, underwriting, and capital-structuring experience to evaluate and execute complex credit solutions for growing companies.
Prior to Catalyst, Daniel worked at PNC Bank, where he underwrote sophisticated debt structures for companies ranging from $100mm in revenue to Fortune 500 scale. His responsibilities included credit diligence, financial analysis, underwriting, and complex structure negotiation. Earlier in his PNC tenure, he helped lead the bank's top marketing channel, generating more than $2Bn in new deposits within the first six months of launch.
Daniel also served six years in the U.S. military, including four years in the Marine Corps as a Battle Tank Technician and subsequent service in the Army as an Infantryman, where he was awarded an Army Commendation Medal. He also serves as an active EMT and firefighter in Wake Forest, North Carolina.
Thomas Petroski is a finance, strategy, and commercial executive with more than 13 years of experience across consumer products, multi-unit retail, franchising, e-commerce, regulated consumer categories, and high-growth operating environments.
His experience spans FP&A, business intelligence, pricing and profitability, brand finance, product innovation, M&A support, and operational performance. He has worked across large SKU portfolios, multi-location businesses, and complex commercial environments where finance must connect directly to sales, marketing, operations, inventory, and product decisions.
Thomas has particular experience evaluating new products and categories, building go-to-market and profitability models, analyzing customer and SKU economics, supporting pricing decisions, identifying margin and working-capital risks, and helping management determine where investment or portfolio changes are warranted.
Across his career, he has developed a strong ability to work through fragmented data, inconsistent reporting, and situations where the underlying economics are not immediately clear. His work connects detailed financial analysis with broader questions around brand positioning, customer profitability, distribution, cost structure, operating leverage, and growth.
Through Sheriff & Co., Thomas supports financial diligence, operating analysis, and strategic evaluation across acquisition and transformation opportunities.
Lamar Thomas is a sales and business development leader with 9+ years driving growth in CPG portfolios from $200-$400mm+ across grocery, drug, dollar, and convenience channels. He has driven share, dollar, and distribution growth through retailer-specific initiatives, joint business planning, and data-backed category strategy and has led and coached high-performing teams against P&L goals.
As Account Lead for Central Chains at Heineken USA, Lamar directs a $400mm, 1.1mm-case portfolio delivered at 108% of target through account-specific promotion calendars and trade spend reconciliation. He increased territory ACV share from 11.4% to 14.2% by converting Nielsen and IRI insights into retailer-specific sell stories for Albertsons, Fiesta, Rouses, Spec's, and CEFCO and secured a revised beer department display policy and category pricing shift at Albertsons by developing and presenting a data-backed Category Action Plan. He reduced trade spend as a percentage of sales by 6% through balanced budget management and promotional ROI analysis and, on stretch assignment, deployed Power BI, Anaplan, and VIP into daily execution, increasing team display execution by an estimated 15%.
Previously, as Senior Category Manager, Lamar grew Dos Equis and Tecate share by 210 basis points across national drug and dollar accounts through joint business plans tied to retailer strategic initiatives and added 580 net-new distribution points at Family Dollar through a refreshed store clustering strategy with localized merchandising. He helped standardize the sales process for a 200+ person national team by pioneering Category Development Training and co-founded an internship and Global Graduate Program that has built a pipeline of 30+ category-focused interns. As Category Development Manager, he added 500+ points of distribution at Publix, Food Lion, Winn-Dixie, and Wawa, shifted 40% of promotional strategy to large packs during the COVID-19 pantry-loading period, and increased ad feature representation by 22% through category reporting, scorecards, and a distribution-gap hunting list. Earlier, at Nestlé Purina PetCare, he drove $200mm+ in sales for the Dog Business at Kroger as Category Analyst and served as the team's subject matter expert on 84.51° shopper data.
Lamar is his team's Microsoft Copilot Champion, leading weekly training sessions and helping 10+ teammates integrate AI into forecasting, sell story creation, and account planning. He has built three custom business intelligence applications that score in-store opportunity and share targets, adopted by two peer account teams, and led implementation of a new CRM tool across National Chains. He serves as subject matter expert for Nielsen IQ, Nielsen Spectra, Excel, and PowerPoint, leading trainings for national teams on data interpretation, sell story development, and executive presentation design.
Lamar holds a Master of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Marketing from Houston Christian University. He serves as HUSA Resource Group Chair, where he grew membership to 20%+ of the organization, launched mentorship and internship programs bringing in 30+ interns, and partnered with Pharrell Williams' Black Ambition to create a development checklist for future business leaders. He has coached and developed more than 100 athletes with The National Basketball Academy and Mamba Elite, 15 of whom earned Division I or II scholarships.
