Investment Banker Series

Garth Martin didn’t grow up around investment bankers. He grew up around a flooring installer, in his parents’ small business outside Philadelphia, and he still describes his job as being a real estate agent for companies. In this episode, Garth Martin of Envoy Capital Advisors joins Ryan Heckman to talk about building a career from a non-target school and a CPA background, the “aggressive humility” that defines great advisors, and the accelerating race between AI labs and the services firms that implement their tools. Garth also shares how a single transformational deal, and one unforgettable team offsite, reshaped how he thinks about the human side of M&A. Listeners will come away with a sharper read on where tech services and AI are headed next, and why the best advisors are the ones with nothing to prove.

Kevin Palamara has spent his entire 24-year career at one firm, a rarity in investment banking, and it shows. As a Managing Director at Provident Healthcare Partners, Kevin has been on the front lines of the private equitization of American healthcare, from fax-machine deal rooms in 2002 to today’s fiercely competitive physician practice markets. In this conversation, Ryan and Kevin unpack the sectors moving fastest right now (oncology, urology, retina), the difference between referral-driven and consumer-facing healthcare businesses and why selecting the wrong private equity partner in a physician deal can be catastrophic for patients and providers alike. Listeners will walk away with a clearer picture of what a specialty investment bank actually does, and why the compounding wisdom of a 25-year healthcare banker is something no AI search can replicate.