MEET OUR
LEADERSHIP TEAM

The team that make extraordinary exits possible

Rob Follows

Founder and Chairman

When Rob Follows talks to business owners about the emotional roller coaster of selling a business, he’s not just talking theory –– he’s been there. A successful entrepreneur in his twenties, Rob sold his marketing and strategy business in 1992 for 27x EBITDA. He was thrilled with that –– until he found out the buyer would have paid 300% more for it.

It wasn’t the fact that Rob had generated less value that disappointed him. He was frustrated by the entire process and knew what he could have done, which would be to use the additional upside as a donation toward charitable organizations that help make our world a better place. He vowed to give other entrepreneurial business owners the advice and expertise that he needed. And that started his journey to create STS Capital Partners, a unique M&A firm focused on making Extraordinary Exits possible.

Rob’s purpose and passion is to help entrepreneurial business owners achieve maximum value when the right time comes to sell. Today, Rob has been involved with or led over a thousand M&A transactions, with a total transaction value of over $100B.

Rob led STS as its Founder and Chief Executive Officer for over two decades until he scaled to the role of Chairman in 2023. As Chairman, Rob works to further external business development efforts that include engagements with clients, participating and recruiting in the speaker circuit, and writing his book “Everyone has Their Own Everest, What is Yours?” among other initiatives.

In addition to being Chairman and Founder of STS Capital Partners, Rob is also the founding Chairman of Altruvest Charitable Services, a Canadian charity that provides training and tools to improve the performance of local charities so they can give more to their causes. In 1998, Rob received the Top 40 Under 40 leadership award for the work he had done in creating 1,000 new jobs in Canada, as well as founding and growing Altruvest Charitable Services which has now contributed over $10 million since its establishment.

Rob is a true believer in contributing leadership. He has held various roles with YPO-WPO (Young Presidents’ Organization-World President’s Organization), including founding chapter chair; former Chair of the Global Deal Network; Founding Chair of the Executive Committee of the Social Enterprise Networks; serving on the networks committee of the international board of YPO for over five years and contributing to over 100 events as a YPO best of the best premier speaker.

Rob’s academic accomplishments include: BA with distinction from the University of Toronto; LL.B from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University; certificate in Not-For-Profit Management from the University of Toronto and Sheridan College; Arbor Award from the University of Toronto as an international leader in corporate philanthropy; and MSc (Oxon.) from Oxford University’s Saïd Business School in Advanced Strategy. He was also honored by being identified as one of the “Group of 175”: the 175 most visionary and philanthropic living graduates in the history of the University of Toronto.

In addition to his work and charitable accomplishments, Rob is also an extreme adventurer. When Rob summited Everest on May 24, 2006, he became part of an elite group of people who have climbed all Seven Summits.

Committed to STS’ transformative purpose of creating billions of dollars of new philanthropic capital, Rob is passionate about working with clients and advisors to help transform their business success to personal significance, whatever that means for each individual. Rob also speaks on the topics of life planning, strategic philanthropy, and strategic mergers and acquisitions.

Rob’s entrepreneurial drive, passion, and determination runs through the culture of STS, which ensures everyone focuses on making Extraordinary Exits possible for clients.

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