An independent advisory firm for the people who built the company.

Bruce Goldstein advises Windsor Drake’s financial services, fintech and payments work. He has spent more than thirty years in financial services, as a managing director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods and an initial member of Sandler O’Neill & Partners, later a partner at Milestone Advisors and a founding partner of Middlemarch Partners.

His depth is in the infrastructure of the industry: sponsor-bank relationships and BIN sponsorship, Banking-as-a-Service and embedded finance, loan origination and servicing, and asset-backed funding. He has also been an operator, as a founding partner in a Mastercard issuing business and founder of an online consumer lending company.

• Sector coverage Fintech, payments, consumer lending, specialty finance, bank sponsorship, Banking-as-a-Service, embedded finance
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Michael Culhane advises Windsor Drake’s consumer, retail, distribution, and business services work. He has spent more than twenty years as a chief financial officer in retail and distribution, across public, private-equity-backed, and family-owned companies in the United States and Canada, with particular depth in strategic mergers and divestitures.

His focus is closing readiness: preparing a company so the transaction completes and the transition holds, the work that matters most when an owner has rollover equity or an earnout at stake. His experience includes the $1.8 billion sale of 189 Zellers stores to Target Corporation, a transaction that required operational wind-downs, inventory liquidation, and lease settlements.

• Sector coverage Consumer, retail, distribution, business services, and other founder-led situations
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Thom Gunderson advises Windsor Drake’s medical technology work. He spent twenty-four years as a Managing Director and senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, covering medical technology companies in the public markets from 1992 to 2016, after thirteen years inside the industry at American Medical Systems, including as Project Director.

He is an independent director of Merit Medical Systems, where he chairs the Finance and Operating Committee, and of TransMedics Group, where he chairs the Compensation Committee and serves on the Audit Committee as a board-designated audit committee financial expert. He chairs the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation and is an Executive in Residence at the University of Minnesota’s Medical Industry Leadership Institute.

• Sector coverage Medical devices, cardiovascular technology, surgical products, diagnostics, healthcare innovation
• Public boards Merit Medical Systems · TransMedics Group
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Mel Gabriel, Ph.D., P.Eng., advises Windsor Drake’s industrials, advanced manufacturing and succession-driven founder work. He came to M&A from the operator’s seat rather than from a bank, after twenty-five years building and running technology-enabled industrial businesses.

He was Chief Operating Officer and General Manager of Einbau Ltd., scaling a founder-led architectural millwork installation company toward a $25 million revenue trajectory before its sale to ISPA Woodworking of Bolton, Ontario. At Synagro Technologies he was Managing Director, Capital Projects, inside the business through EQT Infrastructure’s sale of Synagro to Goldman Sachs’ West Street Infrastructure Partners III. He co-founded Ergomorphology Medical Devices, acquired by Imperial College London spin-out RHEON LABS.

He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Waterloo, where he is an Adjunct Assistant Professor and a Research Fellow of the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy, and is a licensed Professional Engineer.

• Sector coverage Industrials, advanced manufacturing, automation, aerospace and defence, infrastructure, construction services, cleantech, energy, environmental services, mining and metals
• Academic Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Waterloo
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Noah Adler runs the analytical engine behind Windsor Drake’s mandates: the models, the confidential information memorandums, and the buyer research that decides who ends up at the table. His edge is buyer coverage. He builds lists that reach past the obvious strategics and the same private equity funds every process recycles, so the competition in a sale is real rather than assumed. He works across fintech, payments, enterprise SaaS and technology-enabled services, and holds every deliverable to a standard that survives institutional diligence.

• Focus Buyer universe construction, financial modeling, CIM development, valuation analysis
• Contact Request a confidential consultation · LinkedIn

Ayrton Stein supports the execution of sell-side mandates across the firm’s technology, fintech, and business services verticals. His responsibilities include financial modeling and valuation analysis, preparation of confidential information memorandums, buyer identification and outreach, and due diligence coordination. Ayrton has contributed to multiple active engagements since joining the firm, including transactions in government technology, cross-border payments infrastructure, and financial SaaS. He brings analytical precision and a systematic approach to buyer coverage that consistently expands the qualified buyer universe beyond traditional relationship-driven lists.

• Focus Financial modeling, valuation, CIM preparation, buyer coverage
• Contact Request a confidential consultation · LinkedIn