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Brandon Ashton Stein Brandon Ashton Stein Principal · Houston, TX
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Strategy Insights M&A Operate
SECTION // 03 · WORK // 13 ENGAGEMENTS · SCOPE // 2006–2026
Selected engagements

Twenty years of work, taken seriously.

A sample from two decades across consulting, software, and operating roles. Many engagements stay confidential; what's below is public, anonymized, or shared with permission.

01 / HighlightsCareer-defining moments

Four credentials that anchor twenty years of the work.

ENERGY OPERATE

Multi-year digital transformation across three energy majors.

Salesforce platform ROI realization across customer, commercial, and trading workstreams.

SOFTWARE STRATEGY

$23M ACV portfolio as success lead across mid-market and enterprise SaaS clients.

C-level advisor across Texas mid-market segment: sales, renewals, CSAT, and ACV growth.

SOFTWARE M&A

Pre- and post-M&A readiness inside 90 days of close.

Day-1 to first-90 GTM playbook for an inherited cyber-security customer base.

SERVICES M&A

90-day sales onboarding ahead of a private-equity acquisition.

Pre-M&A enablement program for a national infrastructure operator's seller cohort.

02 / Selected clients

Trusted by F500 operators, PE sponsors, and category leaders.

Each cell carries an industry tag and a practice tag. Many engagements remain confidential by design.

CL // 01

Integrated oil & gas major

Salesforce platform ROI & transformation

  • Multi-cloud platform ROI realization across Sales, Service & Marketing
ENERGYOPERATE
CL // 02

Gulf-Coast LNG exporter

Customer & commercial CRM advisory

  • Established commercial CRM foundation for emerging LNG operator
ENERGYSTRATEGY
CL // 03

National fiber-network operator

Pre-M&A diligence & sales-enablement readiness

  • 90-day onboarding placemat ramped new sellers to revenue production
SERVICESM&A
CL // 04

PE-backed cyber-security firm

M&A go-to-market · post-asset transition

  • ~$5.8M global partnership pipeline unlocked via 3 SI/MSSP deals
SOFTWAREM&A
CL // 05

Global investment bank

Private wealth & investment management

  • Senior portfolio analysis for $10MM+ private wealth clients
SERVICESSTRATEGY
CL // 06

Global card & payments issuer

Sales & marketing transformation

  • F100 sales & marketing transformation tied to new CRM analytics
SERVICESSTRATEGY
CL // 07

Fortune 50 enterprise tech firm

Sales incentive plan & enterprise GTM design

  • Global sales-comp transition from regional → enterprise model
SOFTWAREINSIGHTS
CL // 08

Global enterprise hardware leader

Sales force effectiveness & CRM strategy

  • F500 sales-force effectiveness redesign for account-based motion
SOFTWAREOPERATE
CL // 09

National environmental services operator

Customer operations & service delivery

  • Customer-operations operating model at industrial-services leader
SERVICESOPERATE
CL // 10

Home-based healthcare provider

CRM adoption & customer-care operations

  • $2.8M Salesforce CRM adoption at largest U.S. home-based provider
SERVICESOPERATE

Confidentiality note: a meaningful share remains under permanent NDA. Client references on request.

03 / Engagement indexDetail by year

A selection from the last decade.

// Sectors covered: Energy Software Finance Services Healthcare
2025
Energy · Strategy

Enterprise AI strategy & readiness for an energy services firm

AI agenda and readiness assessment for a Houston services platform. Capability map, use-case backlog, governance, 24-month commercial roadmap.

24 mo
Roadmap horizon
2025
Software · Insights

Independent software vendor diligence for a sponsor

Multi-vendor scorecard and ROI build on candidate AI and data platforms across a software-heavy portfolio. Stood up an evergreen comparison framework the deal team still uses.

8
Vendors evaluated
2024
Energy · Operate

Salesforce CRM transformation for an integrated operator

Embedded program leadership across customer cloud, sales cloud, and service cloud rollouts spanning the operator's downstream and commercial businesses.

5 BUs
Cross-cloud rollout
2024
Finance · M&A

Post-merger people, GTM, and operating-model design

Led org, change, and GTM readiness across a mid-market financial services integration. Built the TSA framework and 180-day knowledge-transfer plan.

180 days
Integration runway
2024
Services · Strategy

Strategic sales & marketing relaunch for a tech-enabled services firm

Repositioning, GTM redesign, and a sales enablement rebuild aligning marketing, sales, and customer success to a single revenue motion.

+pipeline
Material lift in 1H
2023
Software · Operate

Customer success operating-model redesign

Re-architected the segmentation, coverage, and renewal motion for a mid-market software customer base. Outcome: a healthier portfolio with clearer ownership and faster expansion paths.

$23M
ACV under new model
2023
Private Equity · Insights

Consulting partner / SI scorecard for a sponsor portfolio

Built a sponsor-grade scorecard for systems integrators and consulting partners: used to standardize partner choice across portfolio companies.

12 SIs
Benchmarked & ranked
2022
Finance · Operate

Customer service operations stand-up at a PE-backed insurance platform

Built customer service ops and shared services through a heavy acquisition phase. Dozens of agencies onto one operating model.

Multi-agency
Integration scope
2021
Energy · M&A

Trading platform integration following an upstream acquisition

Operating model, change plan, and TSA exit roadmap for an acquired trading desk and ETRM/CTRM stack.

TSA exit
On plan
2020
Software · Strategy

F500 sales force effectiveness redesign

Coverage model, comp design, territory build, and enablement program for a Fortune 500 sales organization moving to an account-based model.

F500
Enterprise scope
2019
Energy · Software

ETRM/CTRM customer success motion built from scratch

Stood up CS from scratch at a venture-backed energy & commodity trading platform: onboarding, support, and renewal playbooks across customer types.

0 → 1
CS function build
2018
Services · Strategy

Salesforce-anchored regional practice build

Built and ran a Houston-market consulting practice delivering CRM, customer experience, and digital programs across energy, healthcare, and industrial clients.

Regional
Practice stand-up
2014–2017
Multi-industry · Big-4

Eight years of F500 strategy & operations engagements

Sales force effectiveness, GTM design, customer operations, and large-program leadership across energy, financial services, and the public sector: Deloitte Consulting's S&O practice.

8 yrs
Big-4 foundation

A meaningful share of the work is conducted under permanent confidentiality and is not represented above. Engagements with current sponsors and operators are discussed under NDA. Client references are available on request.

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