Our Team

David J. Distel

With over 30 years of experience, David J. Distel is a Partner and Senior Managing Director for Gantry Business Solutions, a strategic, financial, and operational advisory firm. Mr. Distel’s practice includes Growth Strategies, Performance Improvement, Transaction Support, Turnaround & Restructuring, and Interim Management. Over his career, he has served in the roles of CEO, CFO, COO, CRO, and Financial Advisor in private industry and consulting. Most recently, from 2014 to 2019 as Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Distel successfully led two money losing companies and grew the top and bottom lines. He is skilled at quickly assessing situations and finding the most impactful levers to positively change the profitability, cash flows, and cultures of companies.

Prior to Mr. Distel’s recent CEO run, he was a Partner and Senior Managing Director with another strategic advisory firm for 10 years, where he led strategic projects and turnarounds serving as Interim Chief Executive Officer, Chief Restructuring Officer, Chief Liquidation Officer, and financial advisor for his clientele both inside and outside of bankruptcy. Prior to that, Mr. Distel served spent over 15 years with Deloitte’s audit and mergers & acquisitions consulting practices serving Deloitte’s largest clients, and as CFO and COO of both privately and publicly traded operating companies.

Mr. Distel has won six professional industry awards on his client assignments. He is well respected and recognized within the consultancy industry and holds a license as a Certified Public Accountant, Accreditation in Business Valuation, Certification in Financial Forensics, and Certified Turnaround Professional. He is the original founding President of the Turnaround Management Association in West Michigan and is involved in various professional, community and philanthropic organizations.

Timothy J. Emmitt

Timothy J. Emmitt is a Partner and Senior Managing Director for Gantry Business Solutions. He specializes in Growth Strategies, Performance Improvement, Transaction Support and Turnaround & Restructuring. He has over 30 years of advisory and corporate experience at executive levels including CEO, COO, and VP in operations, finance, strategy, pricing, product development, mergers & acquisitions, and business development. His experience includes private equity, public, non-profit organizations, and family-owned businesses.

Prior to Gantry, Mr. Emmitt has led three (3) separate middle market companies to organically quadruple bottom-line in under four years while putting each on a double-digit growth path. He is able to quickly identify and then lead teams to rapidly execute strategies to harvest the best improvement opportunities in companies.

In addition to increasing top and bottom-line, Mr. Emmitt’s teams have won national industry awards in company culture, strategy product development, process development, balanced scorecard, and operational [supplier] excellence. He maintains an active certification as a Project Management Professional (PMP) and holds a BS with Honors in engineering from Michigan State University and MBA in finance from The University of Chicago.

He is currently a member of the Project Management Institute, audit committee member of BSA of Michigan (Crossroads Council), and moderator for Family Business Alliance. Past involvement includes the Van Andel Institute Board of Governors, Grand Rapids Chamber, Vistage, and Leadership Detroit Board of Trustees. He has also served as a board-advisor for several middle-market manufacturing and technology companies.