Tom McMakin is CEO of Profitable Ideas Exchange (PIE), a leading consultancy focused on helping expert services firms with business development by building peer communities of likely buyers. Over the last 20 years, McMakin’s company has conducted 10,000 best practices interviews with senior executives at 350 companies in the Fortune 500.
McMakin is the co-author of the bestselling, How Clients Buy: A Practical Guide to Business Development for Consulting and Professional Services. He is also the author of Bread and Butter, in which he describes his work at Great Harvest Bread Co. and how he and his team created a nationally-recognized corporate learning community and culture of best practices using collaborative networks. He has been featured on the pages of Inc. magazine, Fast Company, Money, Entrepreneur, Success, Economist, Newsweek, Washington Post, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal, and is often on the road speaking before consulting and professional services firms.
Before joining PIE, McMakin was a co-founder and managing director for Orchard Holdings Group, a private equity firm, as well as an operating affiliate at McCown DeLeeuw and TSG Consumer, two billion-dollar, consumer-focused buyout groups. Prior to this, he served as Chief Operating Officer of Great Harvest Bread Co., a multi-unit operator of bread stores. He is a graduate of Oberlin College and a former Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon. McMakin and his family live in Bozeman, Montana.