Advice firm foresees growth

John Woelfel was confident he would find a receptive audience of middle market executives and entrepreneurs when he helped opened a branch of the Newport Board Group in Tampa in early 2012.

But Woelfel even exceeded his own projections, to the point where Atlanta-based Newport now has a presence throughout the Gulf Coast, in addition to the Orlando and Miami/Palm Beach markets. Newport provides C-suite and board-level expertise for companies in the middle market, which are mostly firms with 20 to 100 employees and $10 million to $50 million in annual revenues. The Tampa-based Florida office Woelfel oversees started with four advisers last year and has since grown to seven on the Gulf Coast and three in Miami/Palm Beach.

“We bring an advisory service with a wealth of experience to clients, but we aren't high-priced consultants,” Woelfel tells Coffee Talk. “We are the people who help (CEOs) make the tough decisions. We like to say we have been there, done that.”

The Newport model, says Woelfel, is to charge a flat monthly fee and then additional fees per project. Newport also uses proprietary business analysis software to help clients. The firm was founded in 2012 by nationally known business consultant Doug Tatum, author of the book “No Man's Land: Where Growing Companies Fail.”

A former chief financial officer at Sarasota-based JCI Jones Chemicals, Woelfel says he expects to bring on several more advisers for the Gulf Coast and Miami/Palm Beach markets in 2014. An expansion to North Florida is also a possibility. “We are not going to help a client make a better widget,” says Woelfel. “But we can help set up structures and guidelines to help a company grow.”