The technology partner dealmakers trust at the table.
Ortulum Advisory Partners helps investors and acquirers understand what they're buying
— and their portfolio and target companies deliver on what was promised and what is
possible. From first-call diligence through post-close value creation.
I work across the full deal lifecycle — bridging the gap between investment thesis
and technology execution for investors, acquirers, and the companies they back.
Most diligence engagements end with a report. Many of mine don't — I'm frequently
retained afterward to help execute the roadmap those findings created.
M&A Technology Diligence
Multi-domain assessments that translate technical complexity into investment decisions.
I focus on the deals where technology is the thesis — where architecture, roadmap
credibility, and team capability are the investment.
Software & product diligence — SaaS, data platforms, AI/ML
Architecture, scalability & R&D maturity
Security, compliance & regulatory risk
Roadmap credibility & team capability evaluation
Risk profiles and investment recommendation reports
Value Creation & PMI
Post-close engagement that turns diligence findings into execution — technology
roadmaps, integration strategy, and operating model design for portfolio and newly
acquired companies that need to make good on the value-creation plan.
Post-merger integration (PMI) strategy & planning
Platform modernization & cloud transformation
Engineering org design, scaling & talent strategy
Interim C-level technology leadership
Value-creation milestone tracking & reporting
Healthcare & AI Strategy
More than a decade of direct domain experience at the intersection of clinical
operations, AI architecture, and regulatory compliance — brought to bear on investments
where getting healthcare technology right is non-negotiable.
HealthTech platform & product diligence
AI/ML strategy for clinical & operational workflows
Executive-level AI, technology, and product leadership for portfolio companies,
newly acquired businesses, and early-stage ventures that need a seasoned technical
operator without the timeline or cost of a full-time search.
AI product readiness & CAIO-level roadmap development
Bridge leadership during exec search or transition
Proof, Not Promises
Diligence that becomes value creation
A sample of engagements where the findings didn't stop at a report. Sometimes that meant
getting a client deal-ready before it ever went to market. Sometimes it meant staying on
after close to execute what the diligence found. Details are generalized to protect
client and sponsor confidentiality.
Diligence → Value Creation
$100M Growth Investment — Data Intelligence Platform
Engaged for buy-side technical diligence on a European cybersecurity and
data-intelligence platform ahead of a $100M growth investment. Findings shaped
the deal — and led to a retained role as fractional technology advisor, executing
the platform modernization roadmap the diligence identified.
Led sell-side technology diligence for a healthcare revenue-cycle platform spanning
six clinical and administrative systems and multiple prior acquisitions — assessing
architecture, data integration, and security. Deliverables included a mock buy-side
diligence report — deliberately graded to a tougher standard than the deal was likely
to face — and a prioritized, cost-estimated remediation roadmap the client acted on
before going to market.
Sell-Side Readiness · Healthcare
Technology Readiness — Care Communications Platform
Assessed architecture, security, SDLC maturity, and AI strategy for a healthcare
after-hours patient communications and care-triage platform ahead of a sale process —
producing a prioritized remediation backlog and an investor-facing technology
narrative for the buy-side process.
Sell-Side Readiness · Life Sciences
Exit-Readiness Roadmap — Laboratory & R&D Data Platforms
Led sell-side technology diligence for a laboratory information management platform
serving regulated industries — healthcare, life sciences, forensics, and
pharmaceuticals — alongside a modern R&D data platform the company had recently
acquired. Assessed architecture, data integration, AI readiness, and the technical debt
of unifying the two platforms, with direct discovery access to the target's C-suite and
product leadership. Produced the same exit-readiness deliverable set: a mock buy-side
diligence report and a prioritized, cost-estimated remediation roadmap ahead of a
sale process. The company sold within the year for $200M.
Select Engagements
90+ PE-sponsored technology diligence engagements, working alongside top-tier private equity sponsors
30+ years hands-on executive leadership, digital transformation, product engineering, solution architecture
BlackstoneKKRTPGBain CapitalIBMWells FargoLucent Technologies / Bell LabsUPS
About Steven
Investor. Operator. Technologist.
Steven founded Ortulum Advisory Partners after nearly 20 years at IBM and more
than three decades as a hands-on technology leader across global enterprise, private equity,
and early-stage ventures.
Underneath the résumé is one recurring problem, worked from three directions over three
decades: making sense of data trapped across systems that were never built to share it.
He was part of the UPS team that built the logistics industry's first real-time package
tracking system in 1993 — a fragmented, multi-custody network with no continuous record
of state, solved for freight instead of patients. He later contributed to commercializing
distributed-systems research at Bell Labs' New Ventures Group, then spent nearly two decades
at IBM — including building connected-care applications on Watson Health that ingested
wearable and clinical data years before "digital health" was its own category.
He now finds the same failure pattern — fragmented, disconnected data architecture — as
the single most recurring root cause across the 90+ technology diligence engagements
he's led for private equity and strategic acquirers. He also lives inside it: a Type 2
diabetes diagnosis and a hundred-pound weight loss, tracked through more than a decade of
connected devices, made the problem personal long before it became a specialty — a story
Global Healthcare Magazine
featured in June 2026.
During his IBM tenure, he spent several years as an M&A technology strategist,
leading and supporting 25+ strategic acquisitions within the IBM Software Group.
Those engagements established the diligence and integration discipline he now brings
to investors and the companies they back.
He has led 90+ PE-sponsored technology diligence engagements — working alongside
firms such as Blackstone, KKR, TPG, and Bain Capital — across software/SaaS, HealthTech, FinTech, logistics,
and tech-enabled services. He specializes in the deals where technology is the thesis: where the architecture,
the roadmap, and the team's ability to deliver are the investment.
In healthcare, he brings direct domain experience from IBM Watson Health — including designing and piloting
a continuation-of-care application for Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular disease management — and fractional
CPO and CAIO engagements with early-stage healthcare and digital health companies.
He holds executive education credentials from Harvard Medical School
(AI in Health Care, 2025) and MIT Sloan (Digital Transformation:
Platform Strategies for Success, 2019).
Other career highlights include:
Business & Systems Analyst at UPS:
Contributed to the design and implementation of the enterprise-wide networking solution that enabled the logistics industry's first "real-time" package tracking system, helping establish the standard for supply-chain visibility.
Member of Technical Staff at Bell Labs (New Ventures Group):
Part of the team commercializing distributed operating system research and IP networking during the first wave of the Internet.
Architected a 1997 "webphone" reference design with DEC and contributed to integrating the PersonalJava API with the native Limbo programming language
for the Inferno RTOS, helping enable the first generation of "information appliances."
VP of Architecture & Strategy at Wells Fargo:
Architected the multi-year modernization of a $200M GRC product portfolio, transforming legacy systems into a unified, enterprise-grade strategic asset.
"There is something quietly radical about a man who describes himself as his own Internet
of Things device… He wears a continuous glucose monitor every day… diagnosed
with Type 2 diabetes, and subsequently lost one hundred pounds — a sequence of events that
became the compass by which he has navigated nearly everything since."
I build technology that improves lives, and I have the receipts, both personal and professional.
Featured in Global Healthcare Magazine — June 2026
AI in Health Care: From Strategies to Implementation — Harvard Medical School, 2025
Digital Transformation: Platform Strategies for Success — MIT Sloan
Charlotte, NC · Available globally for PE engagements
Whether you're evaluating a platform before close or trying to make good on the
value-creation plan post-acquisition, I'd like to understand your situation.
Engagements typically start with a 30-minute conversation. No retainer required
to have that call.
As Featured In Global Healthcare Magazine — "Teaching Capital to Understand Code, and Code to Serve the Patient"
