John Rutherford

John is a Principal Consultant at Kestrel Partners and has more than 20 years of diverse, international business experience in project management, finance, accounting and management consulting, with start-ups as well as large corporations, in industries including software and media. During his career, John has been involved in several projects relating to M&A, the most recent as a consultant in the M&A Finance PMO group at Oracle.

In the most recent M&A assignment at Oracle, John filled a staffing gap at a Project Director level, and managed all aspects of M&A finance integration on 5 deals in one year, including due diligence, integration of systems and staff, and coordination with all other M&A leads.

John’s prior experience includes financial management positions at OpenTV and Softbank, and several startups and small companies. In addition, John has led multiple projects as a Senior Consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers, the most significant being project management oversight on the EuroDisney project in Paris. Over two years he managed an onsite multinational team which identified and resolved project organizational and system issues and major cost exposures, which resulted in the $3 billion theme park project opening on schedule and budget. Disney then hired John in a senior Project Management position to oversee the design phase of a 2nd park, MGM Studios, in Paris.

His professional career started in auditing with Deloitte in Newport Beach, CA, then South Africa. After achieving Audit Manager level, John moved over into the nascent management consulting group and worked on many different projects throughout southern Africa.

John holds a BA in Economics/Business from UCLA and an MBA in Finance from the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University, one of the top 5 European MBA programs.