About Fred Petito
President and Lead Advisor
He knows what it’s like to be on your side of the table.
Most M&A advisors have spent their careers reading financials and structuring deals. That background is useful. What’s different here is that before Fred Petito became an M&A advisor, he spent more than 20 years as a senior executive — which means he’s sat where you’re sitting.
Fred began his career as an attorney — commercial law, estate planning, tax — which gave him a foundation in how businesses are structured, transferred, and valued that most advisors don’t have.
What followed was more than 20 years as a C-level executive and senior leader across multinational companies, founder-led businesses, roll-up acquisitions, and startup environments. He has built teams, managed through downturns, navigated acquisitions from the operating side, and made the decisions business owners make — the ones that look obvious in hindsight and difficult in the room.
That operating history is what makes the advisory practice different. When a seller describes what it took to build the business — the customer relationships held together by personal trust, the employees who stayed through the hard years, the institutional knowledge that lives in a few key people — Fred isn’t translating that into deal language. He already understands it.
He knows what it feels like to build something, to wonder what it’s actually worth, and to worry about what happens to the employees, customers, and relationships that made it what it is. That experience changes the advice.
Today, he leads transactions across all industries, with particular depth in manufacturing, distribution, professional services, technology, and the skilled trades. He is a Certified Merger & Acquisition Advisor and a Certified Exit Planning Advisor.
Fred is active in the New Jersey M&A community as a founding and executive committee member of the Northern New Jersey chapter of the Alliance of Merger & Acquisition Advisors.
