Early in his career, Alan Hassabo worked on the other side of the table. As a turnaround specialist for investor groups in the USA and Asia, his job was singular: go into an acquired business, diagnose what was broken, and fix it. He was not the buyer. He was not the seller. He was the person brought in after the deal closed to create the value that the investors had paid for.
He was good at it. Engagement after engagement, he understood exactly what made a business worth more — and exactly what the owners of those businesses had left on the table by not doing this work themselves, before anyone came knocking.
"The investors hired me to fix what the owner never had the chance to fix. I kept asking myself — why couldn't the owner have done this on their own terms, and kept the upside?"
That question became AAG. For over twenty years, Alan has worked directly with SME owners — bringing the same discipline he applied for investors, but this time entirely in service of the owner.
The situations Alan works with are never identical. The business, the owner, the family dynamics, the market — every engagement is its own puzzle. What remains constant is the methodology, the discipline, and the commitment to finding the right path for this owner, not a generic one.
Three business partners came to Alan with a problem: they wanted to eventually sell the company and retire, but the current valuation wasn't enough to be split three ways and support all three of them comfortably. They needed to grow the value before any exit was possible.
Alan saw a different path. Rather than simply growing the business with three partners in place, he structured a plan to gradually buy out one partner over several years. With the ownership consolidated between the remaining two — a husband and wife — the business would be leaner, more focused, and ultimately worth significantly more when the time came to sell. The exit they ended up with was not the one they came in asking for. It was better.
A business owner wanted to pass his company — built over twenty years — to a trusted long-term employee. The problem was clear to Alan after evaluation: this person did not have the foundational leadership qualities the role required. Handing over the business would have been a risk to everything the owner had built.
Alan's recommendation was unexpected. The owner's daughter — overlooked, underestimated, never seriously considered — had every quality a leader needs. The owner agreed, on one condition: Alan would mentor her personally.
Five years later, she took over as president. The company has grown by 20% under her leadership and continues to perform beyond what anyone expected.
Before founding AAG, Alan spent years working for investor groups in the USA and Asia as a turnaround specialist. His role was specific: once a business was acquired, he went in to fix it. He was not involved in the buying or the selling — he was the person responsible for creating the value in between.
What he saw, engagement after engagement, was that the businesses he was brought in to fix were not fundamentally broken. They were simply unprepared — for scrutiny, for transition, for the honest question of what they were actually worth and why. The value was always there. The preparation never was.
That insight is the foundation of everything AAG does. The methodology exists to give SME owners the same advantage that investors pay specialists to create — but before the sale, while the owner still controls the outcome.
Alan's career spans executive leadership in global corporations, CEO roles in startups, and over twenty years of hands-on advisory work with small and medium enterprises. It is an unusual combination — and exactly the right one for the work AAG does.
Most SME advisors come from either the accounting world or the consulting world. Alan comes from operations, from sales, from leadership — from the inside of businesses, not just the analysis of them. He has sat in the CEO chair. He has managed international divisions. He has been the person responsible for performance, not just the person observing it.
That background shapes everything about how AAG works.
Over twenty years focused exclusively on small and medium enterprises — the segment that global firms overlook and generic consultants underserve.
Former CEO of an IT startup and consulting firm in Chicago. Divisional and International Vice President at a $1.4 billion global corporation.
Senior roles at Nortel, Alcatel, Platinum Technology, and General Electric Information Services — with responsibility spanning finance, sales, and management, and international exposure across Europe and Canada through his tenure at Platinum.
Early career as a turnaround specialist for investor groups in the USA and Asia — brought in after acquisitions to fix and grow companies. Not the buyer, not the seller — the person who created the value. The foundation of AAG's insight into how acquirers think.
Following his turnaround career, Alan founded AAG to work exclusively with SME owners — the firm he wished had existed for the owners on the other side of the deals he spent years fixing.
Alan's view of exit readiness is different from most advisors. He does not see it as a transaction to be planned. He sees it as the logical endpoint of building a genuinely excellent business — and believes the two are inseparable.
A business that is exit-ready is not a business that has been dressed up for sale. It is a business with real leadership that does not depend on the founder, real processes that run without tribal knowledge, real financials that tell a credible story, and real revenue that does not walk out the door when the owner does. That is not a description of a business prepared for exit. That is a description of a well-run business.
"The owners who get the best outcomes are not the ones who planned the best exit. They are the ones who built the best business — and had the discipline to start early enough."
This is why Alan built AAG around implementation, not advice. Strategy without execution is a slide deck. The Initiative Management System exists because Alan has seen too many owners leave good plans in drawers while the clock kept ticking. The methodology, the tools, and the hands-on partnership are all designed to close that gap — permanently.
Alan offers a complimentary exit strategy assessment — a focused conversation about your specific situation, your timeline, and what it would take to build a business that gives you the outcome you deserve.
Book Your Complimentary AssessmentNo obligation. No pressure. Just a conversation.