The Age
of the
Speedboat

About the Author

Few people have seen the middle market from as many angles as John Rudd. As a lender, he sat across the table from companies fighting for their financial survival. As an investment banker, he negotiated deals from both sides. As a court-appointed Bankruptcy Trustee and Receiver, he was handed the keys to organizations in their most distressed states and charged with making the best of what remained. As a CEO, CFO, and Chief Restructuring Officer, he has led companies through transformation from the inside, making the hard calls, living with the results, and learning from both.

For decades, John has worked alongside, inside, and around thousands of middle market organizations in every condition imaginable: thriving and struggling, scaling and contracting, adapting brilliantly and failing to adapt at all. That breadth of vantage point is rare. It is also exactly what this book required. The patterns described in these pages, the inflection points missed, the opportunities seized, the organizational traps that derail even well-intentioned leaders, are not drawn from research alone. They are drawn from a career spent in the rooms when and where it mattered.

John is the co-founder of Lightsight, an advisory firm working with private equity-backed and independent middle market companies navigating AI strategy, operational transformation, and organizational adaptation.