Prior to joining Begich Capital Partners, Inc. Bob spent the preceding sixteen years functioning as an investor, mentor, advisor, and/or interim-executive for a variety of companies and investment groups located both in Alaska and throughout the United States. His efforts have been focused primarily on early-stage, transitional, and distressed environments where transactions such as acquisitions, fundraising, recapitalization, and/or divestiture are critical to organizational success. Activities included:

• Capital raises, ranging from seed to Series A and later
• M&A transactions
• Divestiture/Exits
• Recapitalization projects (debt & equity)
• Due diligence, strategy, and performance consulting (venture incubators, owner/operators, and corporate executives)
• Business plan strategy and development (including validation)
• Entrepreneurial/executive mentorship
• Bootstrapping strategies (including taking one of his own start-ups from $5,000 to 20M debt/equity free)
• Strategic relationships & partnerships

Recent, local efforts include serving two years as President & COO for Alaska’s second largest Regional Air Carrier and the prior two as SVP & General Manager for an Alaska-based light manufacturing and distribution company.

Bob’s last corporate effort was as Founder & CEO of a professional services firm providing outsourced professional recruitment services to the Fortune 100. During his tenure, Bob successfully guided the firm from an entrepreneurial start-up to a nationally recognized organization with large-scale engagements operating throughout the United States and Europe. He co-founded what is now a $3.5 billion dollar industry (Recruitment Process Outsourcing or “RPO”), was recognized for his early role in leveraging the Internet to improve recruitment workflow, and achieved a top 5 ranking in the Dallas Business Journal’s prestigious FastTech 50 (greatest 4 year growth for privately held high-tech companies within the D/FW Metroplex).

During Bob’s early career he served as Executive Vice President for a business-strategy consulting group specializing in transactions within transitional industries. In that role, Bob received extensive business strategy experience working in conjunction with firm Principal, Dr. E. Allen Jacobs. Dr. Jacobs is a noted former MIT economist who provided transaction analysis for prominent business magnates of the time such as T. Boone Pickens and Harold Simmons. Through Dr. Jacobs intensive mentoring Bob gained invaluable insight into critical factors for organizational success within both rapid-growth and distressed environments.

Bob completed his undergraduate degree at Texas A&M University, where he was a Company Commander in the Corps of Cadets and received a commission as an officer in the U.S. Army. In addition to Bob’s participation at Begich Capital Partners, he sits on the Board of Directors for several privately held companies and regularly volunteers time to local charitable organizations.

Begich is also co-founder of Dashfire (www.dashfire.com), a start-up enabler assisting companies with business architecture and technology development. Through Dashfire, FarShore has developed technologies that have resulted in several exits, the creation of hundreds of U.S. jobs, and over $200MM in capital raised. Notable Dashfire partnerships include, Artifact Uprising (exit to VSCO), Bucketfeet (exit to Threadless), Careport Health (exit to Allscripts, Techstars grad), CloudUp (exit to Automattic), EverTrue (Techstars grad, Bain Capital investor), Raken, Acacia, Luxury Garage Sale (Brian Spaly investor), Bloomboard, Packback Books (Mark Cuban investor), and Factor75.

Nicholas was previously a Global Technology Manager with Ford Motor Company where he was the youngest technology leader at his level globally while being rated a “Top Achiever” (top 10%) each year he was at Ford. While with Ford, Begich held a number of key roles including:

• a) Program Manager, Project Jedi, led a network convergence program resulting in over $70MM in annual cost savings involving the transition to a private fiber optic backbone, intelligent global call routing, IP Telephony and IP Video services.
• b) Product Marketing Manager, Ford Brand Car Group, worked with manufacturing, safety, consumer marketing, automotive strategy, engineering, design, and product development teams to deliver cost save in excess of $200MM; supported product definition for what would become the Ford Flex (a vehicle that will have been produced for 13 years upon its retirement and that represented Ford’s exit from a traditional people mover package and design).
• c) Oracle Applications Upgrade Manager, managed a global team of over 60 resources supporting the upgrade of global instance of core Ford Oracle applications included, General Ledger, AP, AR, Core Purchasing, Inventory and iProcurement.

Prior to joining Ford Motor Company, Nicholas served as an investor relations specialist with Sensormatic Electronics (NYSE:SRM), and worked regularly with executive management to communicate the company’s financial message to investors and analysts. While at Sensormatic, Begich was also responsible for initiatives supporting corporate growth and messaging that later contributed to the company’s acquisition by Tyco for $2.3BB, a 67% premium to market.

Nicholas has been honored to receive recognition as “Top 40 under 40” among Croatian Americans. He holds a Master of Business Administration from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business with Concentrations in Information Technology and Decision Modeling and a Bachelor of Business Administration with a focus in Entrepreneurship from Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business where he was named the Outstanding Student in Entrepreneurship.

Begich serves as a Board Director at MTA, the President of the MTA Foundation, and a Board Advisor to Baylor University’s LAUNCH business accelerator. Nicholas lives in Chugiak with his wife Dharna and their son Nicholas.