I am a co-founder, owner and Managing Partner of Karisimbi Business Partners and in that capacity have directly supervised Jon Porter for four years. Jon is in the top 1% of his peers as a business leader. He is the quintessential utility player. Speaking as one with an MBA from Wharton, Jon has acquired corporate finance and financial analysis skills exceeding those of a top 5 MBA graduate. He has led half-million dollar consulting engagements and developed fully integrated financial models for business case and strategic analyses and for multi-million dollar buy and sell-side transactions. Jon does the preparation, understands the pain points, overcomes objections, closes deals and pushes to achieve more. He led the sale of a large regional manufacturing company to an India-based multinational. He led the due diligence for a Kenya-based public company purchasing a manufacturer. He developed a network of international clients in the cosmetics industry and has grown sales of subject products over 100% in two years. He has independently represented clients to buyers at trade shows in Paris and Germany. As a consultant, Jon has taken the lead on all aspects of deliverables from sales and marketing analysis to financial modeling to operational and human resources analysis. He has walked through a variety of factories and interviewed everyone from the Congolese fishmonger to the Director of the French and Indian multinational. His attention to detail is impeccable. His analytical and both written and spoken presentation skills are top notch. Jon is a natural leader. He has successfully led down, up and laterally with teammates and partners across the entire spectrum of cultures, contexts and characters. He has managed to lead effectively in a culture where youth has very little credibility and gets very little respect. Jon has made the case for investment to Presidential Cabinet-level government officials. He has recruited, hired and fired employees as diverse as an African COO ten years his senior to recently graduated American interns. Jon is the definition of entrepreneur. He has built from scratch a company that employs 30 people, purchases from over a 1,000 suppliers in three African countries and sells to a global network of buyers. He has developed and expanded the vision, is continually developing new products, created a thriving company culture and has brought it to profitability within 18 months on very limited investment. He knows what it means to take big risks and he knows that cash is king and what it means to count every dollar. Jon’s integrity is beyond reproach. I have and would continue to entrust him with my family's personal financial resources. He has babysat my children. He will choose what is right above what is efficient but at the same time is able to navigate contexts where people have very different views of what looks black, white and gray. Jon's friends are fortunate to call him friend.

I am a co-founder, owner and Managing Partner of Karisimbi Business Partners and in that capacity have directly supervised Jon Porter for four years. Jon is in the top 1% of his peers as a business leader. He is the quintessential utility player. Speaking as one with an MBA from Wharton, Jon has acquired corporate finance and financial analysis skills exceeding those of a top 5 MBA graduate. He has led half-million dollar consulting engagements and developed fully integrated financial models for business case and strategic analyses and for multi-million dollar buy and sell-side transactions. Jon does the preparation, understands the pain points, overcomes objections, closes deals and pushes to achieve more. He led the sale of a large regional manufacturing company to an India-based multinational. He led the due diligence for a Kenya-based public company purchasing a manufacturer. He developed a network of international clients in the cosmetics industry and has grown sales of subject products over 100% in two years. He has independently represented clients to buyers at trade shows in Paris and Germany. As a consultant, Jon has taken the lead on all aspects of deliverables from sales and marketing analysis to financial modeling to operational and human resources analysis. He has walked through a variety of factories and interviewed everyone from the Congolese fishmonger to the Director of the French and Indian multinational. His attention to detail is impeccable. His analytical and both written and spoken presentation skills are top notch. Jon is a natural leader. He has successfully led down, up and laterally with teammates and partners across the entire spectrum of cultures, contexts and characters. He has managed to lead effectively in a culture where youth has very little credibility and gets very little respect. Jon has made the case for investment to Presidential Cabinet-level government officials. He has recruited, hired and fired employees as diverse as an African COO ten years his senior to recently graduated American interns. Jon is the definition of entrepreneur. He has built from scratch a company that employs 30 people, purchases from over a 1,000 suppliers in three African countries and sells to a global network of buyers. He has developed and expanded the vision, is continually developing new products, created a thriving company culture and has brought it to profitability within 18 months on very limited investment. He knows what it means to take big risks and he knows that cash is king and what it means to count every dollar. Jon’s integrity is beyond reproach. I have and would continue to entrust him with my family's personal financial resources. He has babysat my children. He will choose what is right above what is efficient but at the same time is able to navigate contexts where people have very different views of what looks black, white and gray. Jon's friends are fortunate to call him friend.

I am a co-founder, owner and Managing Partner of Karisimbi Business Partners and in that capacity have directly supervised Jon Porter for four years. Jon is in the top 1% of his peers as a business leader. He is the quintessential utility player. Speaking as one with an MBA from Wharton, Jon has acquired corporate finance and financial analysis skills exceeding those of a top 5 MBA graduate. He has led half-million dollar consulting engagements and developed fully integrated financial models for business case and strategic analyses and for multi-million dollar buy and sell-side transactions. Jon does the preparation, understands the pain points, overcomes objections, closes deals and pushes to achieve more. He led the sale of a large regional manufacturing company to an India-based multinational. He led the due diligence for a Kenya-based public company purchasing a manufacturer. He developed a network of international clients in the cosmetics industry and has grown sales of subject products over 100% in two years. He has independently represented clients to buyers at trade shows in Paris and Germany. As a consultant, Jon has taken the lead on all aspects of deliverables from sales and marketing analysis to financial modeling to operational and human resources analysis. He has walked through a variety of factories and interviewed everyone from the Congolese fishmonger to the Director of the French and Indian multinational. His attention to detail is impeccable. His analytical and both written and spoken presentation skills are top notch. Jon is a natural leader. He has successfully led down, up and laterally with teammates and partners across the entire spectrum of cultures, contexts and characters. He has managed to lead effectively in a culture where youth has very little credibility and gets very little respect. Jon has made the case for investment to Presidential Cabinet-level government officials. He has recruited, hired and fired employees as diverse as an African COO ten years his senior to recently graduated American interns. Jon is the definition of entrepreneur. He has built from scratch a company that employs 30 people, purchases from over a 1,000 suppliers in three African countries and sells to a global network of buyers. He has developed and expanded the vision, is continually developing new products, created a thriving company culture and has brought it to profitability within 18 months on very limited investment. He knows what it means to take big risks and he knows that cash is king and what it means to count every dollar. Jon’s integrity is beyond reproach. I have and would continue to entrust him with my family's personal financial resources. He has babysat my children. He will choose what is right above what is efficient but at the same time is able to navigate contexts where people have very different views of what looks black, white and gray. Jon's friends are fortunate to call him friend.