Kirby Cochran

Kirby Cochran is an educator, speaker and thought leader in the field of management and finance. He has been teaching new venture financing and entrepreneurship to graduate students for over a decade. Kirby currently serves as an adjunct professor in the Finance department of the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. He is a prolific writer and has published many articles demystifying the principles behind raising capital successfully for both new ventures and growth firms with established operations. Kirby is the manager of Castle Arch Opportunity Partners, a series of real estate investment funds specializing in REO acquisition and disposition. Responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of real estate transactions, he has served as the CEO of Castle Arch Real Estate Investment Company for over 5 years. Heavily involved in growth company financing and management trends over the past twenty-five years, Kirby is a leading expert on capital structure and shareholder value. A veteran of the venture capital industry and a pioneer of emerging approaches to raising capital, Mr. Cochran has led half a dozen investment funds and raised over $1 billion in equity and debt financing across various industry sectors. He has developed a proprietary model for advising companies on growth strategies and accretive financing. Kirby closely consulted and/or participated in the funding of over 100 companies over the length of his career and has extensive experience investing in and developing emerging growth companies. In his latest series of articles entitled Leadership Insight, Mr. Cochran reveals secrets used by entrepreneurs and CEOs to drive growth in their companies. This information has always been difficult and painful for Senior Managers to acquire, found only in the ruthless university of experience and obtained through costly tuition at the school of hard knocks. Mr. Cochran is a founder of Longview Financial, a boutique investment bank with offices in New York, Chicago, and Newport Beach. Longview specializes in the financing of new ventures. North Point Advisors, the consulting firm founded by Mr. Cochran, advises growth companies on the implementation of the best practices discussed in Leadership Insight for increasing shareholder value.