A member of Venture 17 and President of Assurgo Enterprises, Gerry Robitaille is a highly regarded business executive and corporate finance advisor. Focused on a mix of leadership responsibilities, operations management, governance and corporate finance mandates related to acquisitions, management buy-outs and infrastructure financings, Gerry has established himself as an effective leader and trusted advisor, representing a diverse portfolio of successful organizations.
With a career spanning more than 25 years, Gerry was a business owner in the 1990’s. After selling his company in 1995 Gerry began his Investment Banking career for Foundation Group Mergers and Associations Ltd. Focused primarily on the buy-side, Gerry led transactions valued up to $100 MM securing such notable acquisition clients as PCL and Finning (Canada). In 2002 Gerry was recruited by BW Technologies / Honeywell Life Safety where he served as Vice President, Corporate Development. In this position he was responsible for growing sales, driving innovation with product development and full P&L responsibilities for the newly formed fixed division. Gerry was responsible to coordinate the process for the sale of BW to a UK supplier for $260,000,000, and ultimately it all became part of Honeywell Life Safety. In 2006 Gerry transitioned to Executive Consulting with Private Equity where he filled a variety of roles that included sourcing transactions as well as proposing equity and debt structures to acquire control of small and mid-sized entities and turning around underperforming investments. Gerry then joined Graham Construction as Director, Infrastructure Financing in 2009 where he developed public infrastructure, oversaw equity investments and acted as operation period Project Director and Governance Board Chair for an infrastructure consortium. In his role Gerry led a consortium to successfully finance, design, construct and maintain public schools (value over 30-year contract of $253 MM), successfully negotiated with the Province of Alberta to allow the Graham led consortium to be sole bidder on $556 MM project to finance, design, construct and maintain 19 schools and was Graham’s lead in a team to construction and operate of the Regina Waste Water Treatment plant. In 2014, through Assurgo Enterprises, Gerry became CEO of Unified Valve Group where he assumed responsibilities for all aspects of the company’s operations and financing, selectively investing capital to improve efficiency and expansion while instituting innovations in offerings that further reduced reliance on financing through working capital reduction.
Graduating from the University of Alberta in Finance and Accounting, Gerry has since supplemented his education through various programs including International Business Brokers Association (Mergers &Acquisitions), Toronto Stock Exchange, Public Company Management and Rules, as well as The Canadian Institute of Chartered Business Valuators (CICBV – Business and Securities Valuation, Tax and Law).