Mario Wanderley
Managing PartnerMario Wanderley has over 25 years of broad-based business experience, including as an entrepreneur, finance and operating executive and investment banker. Mario’s experience spans several industries, including: technology, software, manufacturing, professional services, medical devices, ad tech, fintech, telecommunications and retail. As the co-founder of three companies that he later helped sell, and the CFO and COO of numerous other ventures, Mario has developed the ability to quickly identify and improve on the key operating and financial levers of a business to increase productivity and profitability and maximize cash flow and value creation. Mario is also an experienced dealmaker, with over $11 billion in domestic and international M&A, debt and equity financing transactions executed. Prior to founding Venture Growth Partners, Mario spent seventeen years with The Crowley Group – an entrepreneurial investment firm engaged in the start-up, acquisition and management of domestic and international businesses. During his tenure, Mario co-founded and acted as CFO, COO and Board Member of several businesses, including two companies backed by The Blackstone Group (the world’s largest private equity firm) and a joint-venture with AT&T – helping create over $500 million in Enterprise Value. The Crowley Group is currently a client of Venture Growth Partners. Prior to Crowley, Mario was an investment banker with J.P. Morgan & Co (in New York and Sao Paulo, Brazil), where he participated in the origination and execution of transactions across several industries in the U.S. and Latin America. Earlier in his career, Mario was the General Manager of a division of an industrial company, where he turned a money-losing business into the company’s most profitable and fastest growing unit by reducing costs, increasing productivity and acquiring blue-chip clients such as Alcoa, the aluminum multinational. Mario received his MBA with a concentration in Finance from the University of Virginia and his B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Operations from Universidade Salvador (Brazil).