Chike Chukwu
Independent Sponsor | Search Fund | Acquisition Strategy & Deal Execution
Studied at Jones Graduate School of Business (Rice)
Works at BasalBridge Capital Partners
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Chike's Offerings
Custom hourly · $125/hr
Get help with Board & Investor Management, Deal Sourcing, and .
Chike’s Search Fund & ETA Qualifications
Coaches professionally
Experience level: Executive
Building a successful self-funded search requires much more than identifying businesses to buy. It involves developing a disciplined acquisition strategy, sourcing proprietary opportunities, evaluating businesses, communicating with brokers and sellers, structuring offers, and preparing for investor and lender conversations. My background in investment banking, private equity investing, financial modeling, and due diligence provides a practical framework for evaluating acquisition opportunities and making disciplined investment decisions. I work with aspiring searchers, MBA students, and acquisition entrepreneurs who want guidance on topics such as: • Developing an acquisition thesis • Deal sourcing and broker outreach • Reviewing CIMs and evaluating opportunities • Financial modeling and valuation • LOIs and acquisition structuring • Investor outreach and capital preparation • Commercial and financial diligence • Management meeting preparation • Independent sponsor best practices Rather than relying solely on theory, I coach from the perspective of someone who executed a self-funded search today. We'll work through real acquisition opportunities, discuss practical decision-making, and build the skills needed to navigate each stage of the acquisition process with confidence.
Chike can help with:
Board & Investor Management
Deal Sourcing
Due Diligence
Funding Strategy
Industry & Company Targeting
Investment Analysis
Investor Selection
Operational Strategy & Support
Process Roadmap
Thesis Development
Chike also coaches for Private Equity, Investment Banking, FP&A, and Life Coaching. View all.
About Chike
I have been teaching, mentoring, and coaching people since I was 12 years old. I began as a weekend mathematics tutor, but the relationships quickly grew beyond academics. Students began coming to me not only for help with mathematics, but also for guidance on school, discipline, confidence, and decisions about their future. That experience shaped something that has remained consistent throughout my life: I genuinely enjoy helping people understand difficult things, recognize what they are capable of, and turn that understanding into action. I continued tutoring and mentoring throughout high school and college, often working with people my own age. I was frequently told that people assumed I was older because of the way I approached problems, carried myself, and gave advice. Over time, my coaching expanded from mathematics to SAT and GMAT preparation, and later to finance, accounting, entrepreneurship, career decisions, and personal development. During my senior year in college, I created a project called Young Baller Investor for students at Jack Yates High School. The goal was to make financial independence feel practical and attainable. I walked students through how the decisions they make early in life—education, career choices, saving, investing, entrepreneurship, and personal discipline—can compound over time and create financial freedom. Professionally, I have worked across investment banking, treasury, consulting, business transformation, and private equity. My experience includes J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Computershare, and my current role in private equity. Across those roles, I have repeatedly found myself doing the same thing in different settings: breaking down complexity, asking the right questions, helping people see problems differently, and creating a practical path forward. Today, I work closely with business leaders on growth, pricing, operations, financial performance, and major strategic decisions. I also continue to mentor students and professionals who seek me out for guidance on careers, graduate school, finance, and navigating important life decisions. What connects all of these experiences is a simple pattern: I have spent most of my life helping people move from uncertainty to clarity, and from clarity to action
Why do I coach?
I coach because some of the most important changes in a person’s life begin when someone helps them see what they cannot yet see for themselves. I learned that early. When I started tutoring mathematics at 12, I initially thought I was simply helping students solve problems. Over time, I realized that the real barrier was often not the subject itself. Sometimes it was confidence. Sometimes it was discipline. Sometimes a student had never been shown how to approach a difficult problem in a way that made progress feel possible. Once that changed, their performance often changed with it. That lesson has stayed with me throughout my life. Whether I was helping a student prepare for the SAT or GMAT, teaching finance and accounting, mentoring someone through a career decision, facilitating a room of professionals through organizational change, or working with a CEO through a business problem, the underlying work has been remarkably similar: listen carefully, understand what is really getting in the way, create clarity, and help the person take ownership of the next step. I do not coach because I believe I have all the answers. I coach because I know how powerful the right question, the right framework, or the right conversation can be at the right moment. The most rewarding part for me is watching someone develop the ability to think and act independently. My goal is not for someone to leave a conversation impressed by me. My goal is for them to leave seeing themselves, their choices, and their possibilities more clearly than they did before. Lastly, I coach because of the personal fulfillment I get from seeing others improve, grow, and make meaningful progress toward achieving their goals.
Work Experience
Founder & Managing Partner
BasalBridge Capital Partners
February 2026 - Present
BasalBridge Capital Partners is a lower middle market investment firm focused on industrial, technical, and business services companies. Partnering with founders, owners, and stakeholders navigating ownership transitions, growth opportunities, and select complex situations.
Private Equity Investment Professional
Trek One Capital
June 2024 - June 2026
Evaluate and underwrite lower middle market acquisition opportunities across multiple industries, with hands-on responsibility for financial modeling, valuation, due diligence, transaction execution, and investment decision-making. Work closely with business owners, executives, advisors, and investment professionals to evaluate complex situations, identify key risks, and translate financial and operational information into clear decisions. My experience includes LBO and operating models, working capital analysis, pricing strategy, portfolio company initiatives, investment committee materials, and coordinating financial, operational, and legal diligence. This experience is especially relevant for clients seeking guidance on private equity careers, financial modeling, investment analysis, deal processes, business strategy, and understanding how investors evaluate companies and management teams.
Post Exit / Earn Out
Computershare
August 2022 - October 2023
Managed cross-functional work following a major business divestiture, helping teams navigate the operational transition from one ownership structure to another. I designed operating models, identified transition gaps, coordinated stakeholders across functions, established new procedures, and developed KPI dashboards to track execution. The experience strengthened my ability to help people operate through ambiguity, break complex transitions into manageable workstreams, communicate across different perspectives, and move from strategy to execution. This experience is especially relevant for clients navigating organizational change, project management, stakeholder communication, business operations, career transitions, and situations where the path forward is not yet fully defined.
Specialist Operations
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
September 2019 - August 2021
Worked within Asset & Wealth Management at the intersection of strategy, operations, technology, and organizational change. I facilitated cross-functional workshops, helped teams identify inefficient processes, aligned more than 12 stakeholders with different priorities, and supported initiatives that delivered significant efficiency improvements. Much of the work required understanding problems beneath the surface, asking the right questions, building alignment among people with different perspectives, and helping teams adopt new ways of working. This experience is especially relevant for clients seeking support with consulting, structured problem-solving, executive communication, stakeholder management, career development, and navigating complex organizations.
Assistant Vice President
Bank of America
September 2017 - August 2019
Led enterprise change initiatives within a large financial institution, supporting the adoption of new processes and technologies across complex teams. My work included improving data integrity processes affecting more than 1,000 employees and contributing to initiatives that generated approximately $3 million in cost savings. The role taught me how large organizations make decisions, why people often resist change, and how communication, stakeholder alignment, and implementation discipline determine whether a good idea actually succeeds. This experience is especially relevant for clients navigating corporate careers, leadership development, organizational change, communication, professional growth, and transitions within large institutions.
Education
Jones Graduate School of Business (Rice)
Master of Business Administration - MBA, Private Equity, Banking, Strategy and Data Analysis
2025
Grade: 740 GMAT Activities and societies: First-Year Representative in the Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, Member in the Finance Association, Member in the Black Business Student Association (BBSA), Member in the Rice Business Strategy Association, Coaching and Mentor in the Rice Business Mentor Collective Financial Modeling, LBO Modeling and +5 skills
Texas Southern University
Masters, Information Systems
2015 - 2017
Texas Southern University
Bachelors, Finance / Mathematics
2009 - 2014