Fort Dearborn Partners

Fort Dearborn Partners

Fort Dearborn Partners is a Chicago-based management consulting and advisory firm focused on operational and financial turnarounds for middle-market companies. The firm works with manufacturers, distributors, and service providers generating between $20 million and $1 billion in annual revenue. Its practice spans financial advisory, value-creation planning, investment banking support, and independent valuation services. The firm embeds operating partners and interim executives directly into portfolio companies facing distress or performance gaps. It targets industries including aerospace, automotive, construction, and healthcare. Unlike a traditional consulting engagement that delivers a slide deck and departs, Fort Dearborn's model relies on practitioners who take line roles — interim CFO, interim CEO, or chief restructuring officer — and carry accountability for cash flow, vendor negotiations, and operational metrics during the engagement. Co-investors and lenders occasionally introduce the firm into credits or portfolio companies where management bandwidth is stretched and the capital stack requires active oversight alongside an operational fix. Fort Dearborn serves a client base that includes private equity sponsors, independent sponsors, family-held businesses, and middle-market lenders. While it does not disclose an AUM or deployment figure, its engagements are typically fee-based advisory mandates rather than principal investments. The firm's professionals often have backgrounds in public accounting, investment banking, and line management at industrial companies — a mix that lets them assess both financial controls and shop-floor realities. No adjacent investment vehicles or philanthropic foundations are publicly associated with the firm. Structurally, Fort Dearborn differs from a conventional consulting partnership in that it competes for the same distressed-enterprise assignments as Alvarez & Marsal and AlixPartners but focuses specifically on the lower middle market. Its geographic concentration in the Midwest gives it proximity to the privately held manufacturers and distributors that dominate that region's industrial base — a sourcing advantage when regional banks, mezzanine lenders, or family shareholders seek a restructuring advisor who can be on-site within hours rather than flying in from New York or Los Angeles.