Leadership Team

BILL ACHTMEYER
Founder, Chairman & Managing Partner

Bill Achtmeyer started his career in the strategy consulting industry in 1977 at Bain and Company where he rose to being one of ten senior partners leading the firm. He started the mergers and acquisitions practice and led Bain’s North American business development activities.

In 1991, Bill Co-founded Parthenon and became Chairman, CEO, and Managing Partner in 1994. By 2014, Parthenon had grown to be a $100mm business with 28 partners and 350 professionals. It operated out of six offices: Boston (headquarters), San Francisco, London, Mumbai, Shanghai, and Singapore. At that time, the firm was a major global advisor to the Education and Private Equity industries, with emerging positions in the Consumer/Retail, Industrial, Healthcare, and Technology sectors.

Parthenon merged with EY in the fall of 2014 at an all-time high acquisition multiple for a strategy consulting firm. Bill continued to lead the organization until the end of 2019. Upon handing over the reins, he built EY-Parthenon into a $2 billion, 500 partner, and 5,000 consultant juggernaut. It was the fastest growing, highest margin entity within EY. Besides being its best acquisition to date, EY decided to make Parthenon its only sub-brand.

Bill developed a proprietary strategy construct called The Full Potential Paradigm™ (FPP) that he utilized and perfected throughout his career. FPP helps CEO’s set growth and margin expectations for investors and employees that are fact based and reliable. A book on FPP and Bill’s experiences as a CEO advisor will be published in 2021.

During the course of working in the consulting business for over forty years, Bill has advised a number of Chief Executive Officers on the strategic direction of their corporations. Those corporations include: Agilent, Briggs & Stratton, Corning, DeVry, eBay, Educate, Ford Motor Company, Hachette, Herman Miller, J.M. Huber Corporation, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, Laureate Education, Mead/Westvaco, QuadGraphics, Saatchi and Saatchi, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Thomson Reuters, and Young & Rubicam. Bill is recognized as an expert in corporate strategy, as well as mergers and acquisitions strategy and integration.

Philanthropically, Bill has served as Chairman of numerous organizations, including: the Boston Symphony Orchestra; the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children; the Massachusetts High Technology Council; Tenacity; Lawrence Academy; and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. In June of 2012, Bill stepped down as Chairman of the Board of Overseers at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth after 11 years of service. At that time, he was awarded the Overseers’ Medal in recognition of his dedicated service to Tuck, where he has hooded over 2,600 students at Investiture ceremonies. Finally, he has served as Vice Chair at his alma mater, Belmont Hill, for over two decades.

MICHAEL PORTER, COFOUNDING PARTNER

Michael E. Porter is the most renowned business strategy, economic development, and competitiveness thinker of his time. Named a University Professor at Harvard in 2000, the highest distinction awarded to Harvard faculty, Mike is the author of many articles and books on the virtues of competitive advantage and business-led actions to combat social ills. His seminal 1980 work on strategy, Competitive Advantage, was the foundation for his invaluable Five Forces Framework to understand industry competition which has been used by countless business leaders in formulating their corporate and business unit strategies.

Mike’s subsequent work on the key leverage points in the value chain of any business and shared value furthered our understanding of how companies can improve economics for the firm while doing good for stakeholders. Mike’s fundamental tenets are at the core of our 21st Century Capitalism Framework, which illuminates shared value creation for both the business and social impact for each stakeholder group, including customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and the natural environment.

  • Preeminent strategy professor of his time in the world. Named University Professor at Harvard in 2000 which is the highest distinction for a member of the faculty

  • Author of 20 books and 130 articles, most recently, The Politics Industry

  • Founded the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard and Harvard Business School in 2000

  • Porter’s “Five Forces” and “Value Chain” constructs are universally studied and followed by business and public policy strategists

  • The “Porter Hypothesis” put forward that strict environmental standards are not in conflict, but enhance company profitability and national competitiveness

  • Introduced in 2011, Porter wrote about the concept of creating shared value that shows how capitalism itself can be the best route to mitigating / solving social ills

  • Founded Initiative for a Competitive Inner City; FSG, a not-for-profit firm specializing in improving social value creation; Monitor and Company, a strategy firm owned by Deloitte as of 2014

  • In 2014/2015, wrote extensively on the power of digitization, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence and how they can be harvested to create competitive advantage

  • Recipient of 23 honorary doctorates and Lifetime Achievement Award from the US Department of Commerce for his contributions to economic development

BOB GOAD, MANAGING PARTNER

Bob has worn many hats during his 35-year career, half of which was with Goldman Sachs.  He has served as CEO of Sports Network, YES, and board director of multiple public and private entities, in addition to being an entrepreneur.  He has led startups, developed large-scale multi-billion-dollar projects, engineered dozens of acquisitions, and successfully steered turnaround situations.

Bob’s seasoned operational expertise combined with a sharp focus on organizational composition and empowerment have been the key elements to his many successes.  Bob has worked on numerous projects for his home state of Indiana. These assignments have ranged from privatizations of certain state assets to coaching officials in best management practices. He is currently advising the Indiana State Police in the construction and implementation of an enduring strategy to modernize the agency by aligning policies and procedures to a demonstrably evolving population, whose demographics and lifestyle are unlike previous generations.

Bob began his career with a venture capital firm (Whitney and Associates), followed by a management position with Time Incorporated (Time Warner).  He went on to found a cable television company that acquired, developed, and consolidated operations of some 60 cable television systems, financed through a series of limited partnerships.

Bob spent a decade in Europe where he led the development of a multi-billion-dollar broadband fiber optic telecommunications network.

Upon returning to the US, he was tasked with a billion-dollar distressed telecommunications company with microwave facilities in 18 central and South American countries. The successful turnaround resulted in perhaps the largest managed services data center operations in South America.

Just prior to co-founding Acropolis, Bob was helping young entrepreneurs, working on various government projects, and managing his family office. 

PETER GATES, PARTNER

Peter Gates, a Partner at Acropolis Advisors, brings an extensive background in consulting, investing, and operating management.

Previously, he served as Executive Advisor at EY-Parthenon, a strategy consultancy, guiding due diligence work for private equity clients and co-leading the firm’s Full Potential Paradigm™ corporate strategy practice.

Prior to EY-Parthenon, Peter spent nearly 25 years in various senior positions across the healthcare industry, as head of strategic planning and leader of the x-ray product group at GE Healthcare; as an executive at Concentra, Inc., a provider of claims management to workers’ compensation insurers; and as managing director of MedEquity Capital, a healthcare-focused private equity firm he co-founded in 1999.

Peter began his professional career in international banking and as a Partner at Bain & Company in Boston and London, where he spent a decade advising global clients in manufacturing, business services, healthcare technology, and consumer products.

Peter serves as a board member and Treasurer of the Vincent Memorial Hospital Foundation (affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital) and a board member and head of the finance committee of the Petey Greene Program, which serves incarcerated youth.

ROGER BRINNER, Ph.D., CHIEF ECONOMIST

Dr. Roger Brinner is a distinguished economist and articulate analyst of the U.S. and global economies. He has counseled CEOs of public and private corporations, senior partners of private equity firms, and top state and federal government officials. In addition to macro-and micro-economics, Roger is an expert in equity market valuations, business pricing strategies, and market growth drivers/forecasting.

Roger received his Ph.D. in Economics at Harvard University. Early in his professional career, Dr. Brinner was the Senior Staff Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisors. He then went on to lead Data Resources, Inc (DRI) which was considered the premier econometric modeling and data provision firm. The firm was sold to McGraw-Hill, and became part of the Standard and Poors business division, with Roger serving for over a decade as Executive Director and Chief Economist of S&P/DRI. Then, in 1998, Roger joined The Parthenon Group as a partner and Chief Economist.

At other early and later times in his career, he served as an economics professor at Harvard and Visiting Professor at M.I.T. and was appointed a Visiting Fellow at the Boston Federal Reserve. He co-founded a hedge fund that successfully used his share price models to produce strong excess equity returns. Various congressional committees have sought his testimony on budget, inflation, taxation, and growth policies.

JILL KRAVETZ, PARTNER

Jill is a multifaceted executive with experience starting and operating businesses across sectors and functions. Jill is frequently called on to bring business owners and senior executives data-driven, practical, strategic and operational help for their most pressing priorities.

Most recently, Jill served as the Chief Operating Officer of BB Endeavors, LLC, Bethenny Frankel’s operating company. Prior to BBE, Jill served as CEO of iRelaunch, the leading provider of career re-entry services to individuals and employers. Previously, Jill was the Co-Founder and President of Gloss48 Inc., a startup e-commerce venture in the beauty products space.  Prior to Gloss48, Jill was President of MiniLuxe, a growing chain of nail and beauty lounges, which she founded as a Partner at the Cue Ball Group, a venture investment firm focused on the consumer and information spaces. Prior to Cue Ball, Jill was the first female partner at The Parthenon Group (now E&Y), a strategy consulting firm, advising CEOs and senior management in a variety of industries and functions. Prior to Parthenon, Jill was a consultant at Monitor Company (now Deloitte). Raised in Canada, Jill holds a Bachelor of Science (Honors) in Biology from Queen’s University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School.

Jill’s personal passions include art and art education. She is a former Foundation Board Director of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design where she led multiple committees including the Corporate Advisory Board, the Annual Art Auction, and the Capital Campaign Committee. As a serial entrepreneur, Jill enjoys mentoring startup teams and founders and is a mentor at the Harvard Innovation Lab. Jill also served as the COO of Capital W, the Boston Women’s Venture Summit – which aimed to close the funding gap for female entrepreneurs. Jill is also a past Vice President on the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees of The Chestnut Hill School.