Getting to know: Patrick Galleher

By: Times-Dispatch Staff | Times-Dispatch
Published: June 25, 2011

Title: managing director at Boxwood Partners, a Richmond-based mid-market mergers and acquisition advisory and private equity firm

Born: April 6, 1973

Education: bachelor's in business administration from the University of Richmond, degree from the London Business School; attended the Center for Creative Leadership in Belgium

Career: sales, product manager, executive management, merchant banker (investment banking and private equity)

Where do you live: Midlothian

Best business decision: "Finding high-quality mentors and working my way up the ladder through sales."

Worst business decision: "Selling WILink plc (a Richmond-based investor relations and webcasting company that was acquired by a New York-based private-equity firm in 2006) when I was only 34. If I had to do it again, I would have stayed on track and continued to grow the firm organically."

Mistake you learned the most from: "We acquired a company in Sacramento, Calif., that made perfect strategic logic. However, we didn't take corporate culture into account."

What is the biggest challenge/opportunity in the next two to five years: "Navigating the tremendous growth within Boxwood Capital and our portfolio companies. We also own the Midlothian Athletic Club, and navigating that hyper-competitive health and fitness club market is fun and challenging, too."

First job after college: inside salesperson at Investor Communications Business, now PrecisionIR Group.

If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently: "That's a very difficult question since I have been fortunate to work for and with great people since the day I graduated from the University of Richmond. However, if I could do one thing differently, it would have been to spend a year or two in New York City after graduation, since you can never go back and regain that experience."

Favorite business book: "Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System - and Themselves," by Andrew Ross Sorkin

Favorite vacation destination: South Beach or Pebble Beach

Favorite/least favorite subject in school: "I enjoyed Business Policy due to the great job Roger Schnorbus (a professor at UR) did, while I wasn't a big fan of freshman English."