David L. Kessenich: In Memoriam
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our dear friend David Kessenich, a Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Excellere Partners. David passed as a result of complications from his multi-year battle with cancer.
Having grown up on a third generation farm in western Iowa, David was the first person in his family to obtain a college education, graduating with honors from Creighton University and receiving an MBA from the University of Chicago. His professional career began as an advisor to middle market companies raising debt and equity for growth initiatives, and later as a private equity professional. David ultimately conceived of and co-founded Excellere based on his belief in a better approach to supporting entrepreneurs and management teams through private equity-sponsored partnerships. Over the ensuing 13 years, the firm has generated extraordinary investment returns with its entrepreneurs and LP investment partners, ranking as one of the top performing private equity investment firms globally.
David’s creativity, determination, passion and commitment to partnership will forever remain a foundation of our firm, and his legacy will be remembered through our firm’s value statement – Do the Right Thing, the Right Way, with Excellence. More importantly, however, David was a loving and committed husband, father and family man, as well as a caring friend and role model. His mentorship has had a tremendous impact on our firm’s next generation of investment leadership team of, Matt Hicks, Patrick O’Keefe and Ryan Glaws, who have been with the firm since inception, and Brad Cornell for more than nine years.
We will honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to continuing the work he loved so much. On behalf of the entire team at Excellere Partners, we extend our deepest sympathies to his wife, Colleen, their children Jack, Caroline and Andrew, and his entire family. David was an inspiration to all who knew him and he will be dearly missed.