Our Team
Jeff Breazeale
Chairman
Jeff developed a range of strategic and operational skills over thirty years, which allowed him to grow multiple businesses with exceptional results. Today, he invests time and capital in growth-oriented teams, businesses and investments, working alongside entrepreneurs and their associates to develop life and business skills that help them achieve their ambitions.
Starting with a humbling turnaround of a manufacturing business, to financially backing and leading a 6-month-old consumer brand that ignited a category and grew 600x, to acquisition of his third-generation family business, to the startup of a logistics business and two consumer brands, Jeff has real-world experience in many phases and types of entrepreneurial operations. More important, his focus over the years gravitated to helping people understand their unique talents and weaknesses, in order to create teams and systems that can operate most effectively.
Jeff was formerly a principal with the Boston Consulting Group, where he was a member of the Industrial Goods, Consumer Goods and Corporate Development practices. He worked primarily for Fortune 100 companies on business strategy, growth and operations improvement.
Jeff earned an A.B. in Politics from Princeton University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He and Tracey have raised 4 children in Minnetonka Beach MN. He is active in the Young President’s Organization (YPO) and in his local government. His interests outside work and family include rowing and playing guitar.
Scott Zimmerman
CEO
Scott helps develop leaders’ abilities to see through complexity, to reach beyond the boundaries of what they believe is possible, to have the courage to get outside their comfort zones, and to develop the discipline to deliver on promises. His approach actively fuses development within daily work, supporting leaders in deploying more powerful choices to accelerate business outcomes.
Scott’s leadership capabilities and business acumen were developed at General Electric, one of Fortune's Most Admired Companies. He rose from being an individual contributor to join the ranks of the top 1%, including winning the GE Chairman’s Imagination Breakthrough award. Following GE, his subsequent technology president & CEO roles saw him accelerate organizational scaling by tapping the latent potential in culture, leadership, and team operations to the tune of nearly $1B in value creation. In each setting, he reshaped the organization and reimagined their solutions, creating companies more capable of delivering exceptional experiences for customers.
He earned his degree from the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis and has held board and strategic advisory roles for many national, regional, and local organizations, including the Young Presidents’ Organization. In 2016, Scott was recognized with Young President Organization “Best of the best” honor for his work transforming CEO forum practices, and in 2019, YPO asked Scott to create frameworks and practices to help CEOs scale trust and execution in their organizations.
Michael Stern
Partner
Michael specializes in implementing deep analysis, innovative and creative thinking, processes, and collaborative planning to turn visions into reality. Michael co-founded Gather Venture Group, a growth equity fund focused on minority and majority investments within the food and beverage landscape.
Michael gained extensive experience in management consulting and private equity, where his emphasis on driving revenue growth, operational effectiveness, and developing clean, actionable data has increased value across a variety of consumer verticals and business life stages. Throughout his involvement in the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, Michael has built a trusted network of successful operators, investors, and community leaders that can be leveraged to support Breazeale Group, its partners, and its companies.
Michael currently leads our acquisitions and investment activities across Breazeale Group.
Michael graduated with a B.S. from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and earned his MBA from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. He lives in Minnetonka, Minnesota with his wife and three kids and loves to eat, travel, practice yoga, and volunteer throughout the community.