The Due Diligence Nobody Talks About: Assessing People, Not Just Numbers
By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures Every serious business transaction comes with a due diligence process. Financial statements, legal documentation, tax records, customer contracts, IP filings, compliance history — the...
When the Strategy Is Right but the Timing Is Wrong
By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures I have seen more well-crafted strategies fail not because the thinking was flawed, but because the timing was off. A brilliant market entry plan launched six months too early. A...
Your Network Is Not Your Net Worth — It’s Your Intelligence Network
By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures The phrase "your network is your net worth" gets repeated so often in business circles that it has started to feel like a motivational poster — technically true, broadly agreed upon,...
Why the Best International Teams Don’t Run on Talent Alone
By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures Early in my career, I watched a genuinely talented team fall apart on an international project that should have been straightforward. The people involved were smart, experienced, and...
The Art of the Deal — Why Structure Matters More Than Price in M&A
By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures Everyone focuses on the number. The headline valuation. The multiple of EBITDA. The per-share figure that gets announced in the press release. After 25 years advising businesses through...
The Advisory Board That Actually Helps (And How to Build One)
Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures Most advisory boards are theater. A collection of impressive names on a website, assembled to signal credibility rather than generate it. The founders who built them were well-intentioned...
What a Family Office Can Do That a Bank Never Will
Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures I've had the same conversation dozens of times. A successful entrepreneur — someone who has spent twenty or thirty years building a business that generates real wealth — sits across from...
Why Leaders Who Listen Outperform Leaders Who Talk
Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures Early in my career, I worked alongside a CEO who had an extraordinary gift: he could walk into a room full of frustrated stakeholders and, within thirty minutes, have everyone aligned and...
How to Build a Business That Thrives Through Geopolitical Uncertainty
By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures In 2019, one of my clients — a mid-market distribution company operating across three continents — had what looked like a textbook international strategy. Diversified markets, strong...
The Mentor Who Changed How I Think About Business — And What I Now Pass Forward
By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures Early in my career, I made a decision that, in retrospect, was almost certainly wrong. I was working on a market entry strategy for a client expanding into a new geography. I had the...