Patrick Harkleroad has been a financial executive, from CFO to VP of Strategic Development, for more than 20 years in the restaurant and hospitality industries. 

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Mr. Harkleroad has extensive experience in building companies from the ground up, developing strategy plans, raising capital through numerous avenues, and restructuring companies successfully through Chapter 11 processes.  Mr. Harkleroad has extensive experience working with and being CFO of portfolio companies across multiple Private Equity Firms, including, but not limited to, Alvarez & Marsal Capital (“AMC”) is a multi-strategy private equity investment firm with over $5.9 billion in assets under management, Hargett Hunter Capital Partners, a firm focused on restaurant and hospitality investments, and Axum Capital, a $300 million fund focused on the food and beverage industry.

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For the past 8 years, Mr. Harkleroad has primarily focused on providing interim and contract CFO services to private equity backed restaurants, hospitality and services businesses.

Mr. Harkleroad was most recently interim CFO for Iron Hill Restaurant and Brewery, a portfolio company of AMC, which was seeking to restructure the business due to challenges both within the casual dining sector and from strategic decisions by prior management teams.

Prior to that role, Axum Capital hired Mr. Harkleroad to be the Chief Financial & Restructuring Officer for two of its portfolio companies, to lead through a reorganization under Chapter 11, both of which were successful in emerging from bankruptcy processes.

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Previously, Mr. Harkleroad was hired as President of Financial Consulting for TRIS, LLC (fka INVGR Group) to help build the financial consulting business.  TRIS is a private equity backed financial services firm that provides accounting, finance, and operations consulting to restaurant and hospitality businesses. Mr. Harkleroad provided leadership and developed relationships with network of CFOs to provide fractional/contract CFO and strategic consulting services. In addition to consulting services, Mr. Harkleroad led teams that provided Quality of Earnings and Due Diligence support for private-equity backed, publicly traded, and family-offices that were evaluating acquisition targets.

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Prior to that role, I was hired as CFO of Amergent Hospitality Group, Inc.  Mr. Harkleroad was brought into the predecessor organization, Chanticleer Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: BURG) in January of 2019 to lead the transformation of the accounting and financial platform.  Besides transforming the accounting and finance department, Mr. Harkleroad was charged with improving investor relations and communication, leading the acquisition of concepts, and assist in raising capital from institutional investors.

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While at Chanticleer, Mr. Harkleroad right-sized the operating expenses of the business through development of weekly KPI report for operations, reduced G&A expenses by 30%, closed numerous underperforming assets to reduce cash outflows of the business, sold a non-core, five unit concept to investors, sold our international businesses in South Africa through a management buyout, completed a rights offering raise of approximately $6.1 million, refinanced and restructured $6.0 million of debt, closed on a bridge investment of $1.5 million, and ultimately led the efforts from an accounting and finance perspective to complete a reverse merger and spin-off of the operations into Amergent Hospitality Group, Inc. (OTC: AMHG), the deal which closed on April 1, 2020 even during the beginning of COVID pandemic, which impacted restaurants significantly.  Due to these experiences, Mr. Harkleroad is well versed in handling and understanding extremely complex accounting and financial transactions.

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Prior to joining Chanticleer, Mr. Harkleroad led and managed the Financial Consulting Division of an accounting and finance recruiting firm, Sherpa, LLC.  In this role, Mr. Harkleroad was tasked with developing a “bench” of CFO and Controller candidates that could be marketed to companies throughout the Carolinas on a project and interim basis.  Mr. Harkleroad was focused on business development and building a pipeline of opportunities for a team that he fostered and developed.  

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Before his role at Sherpa, Mr. Harkleroad was hired by the Carolina Financial Group to be interim CFO for Trinity Frozen Foods, a portfolio company of CFG.  While interim CFO at Trinity, Mr. Harkleroad provided financial and operational leadership the Company had previously lacked.  When Mr. Harkleroad joined, Trinity was losing close to $180,000 per month.  While at Trinity, Mr. Harkleroad revamped and created the accounting policies and procedures, created the financial systems and reporting needed for the investors and Board, developed the KPIs, and enhanced the overall workflow and accountability.  After six months as CFO, Trinity was near break-even cash flow.  Due to this turnaround, Trinity was acquired by an investment group involved in the agricultural and food processing business.  Through Mr. Harkleroad’s leadership, he was able to help turn the financial and operations around to allow the company to be sold to generate a return for its investors.

Prior to the interim CFO role at Trinity, Mr. Harkleroad served CFO of Landmark Leisure Group (LLG), a $60 million in revenue development company with a national footprint that created, owned, and operated original restaurant and pub concepts, including Blackfinn Ameripub, Vida Mexican Kitchen, Whiskey River, and Strike City Lanes. LLG also partnered with real estate developers to create dining and entertainment destinations in the pub, restaurant and entertainment industries. 

 

While at LLG, Mr. Harkleroad led the efforts in raising, securing, and restructuring approximately $40 million of capital from lenders, institutional mezzanine funds, and high net worth accredited investors to fund the company’s growth.  Mr. Harkleroad was also responsible for managing the strategic planning process, leading weekly and monthly financial reviews, and partnering with the COO to provide financial data, KPIs, and relevant metrics needed to manage the business, while also being a member of the real estate committee that developed the company’s real estate and site selection strategy.  

 

Additionally, Mr. Harkleroad led the design and implementation of an ESOP in 2005 and was the Fiduciary that had to maintain and oversee all the regulatory policies with a third-party Trustee, annual valuation firm, and administrative agent.

 

Mr. Harkleroad received his B.S. in Finance from the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce and earned an MBA from Vanderbilt University’s Owen School of Management.