Building a lean, mean, FP&A team from scratch – Preston Naegle

Preston Naegle started his career in private equity at Leavitt Equity Partners (founded by Michael Leavitt, the former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. Negale then moved into the operating world and for more than 2 years has led strategic finance and FP&A at a PE-backed Midway Mechanical Services in the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) industry at the company which has completed 15 acquisitions (3 in 2025 alone) within the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing sector across the Western US region.

In this episode

• An origin story in Private Equity
• Learning from a “firehose” of business models
• Bringing PE thinking to a head of finance role at Midway Mechanical
• Bringing people with you as you create FP&A, budget and forecasting processes
• Choosing an FP&A solution
• Enhancing time to insights that bring long-term business partnering and profit growth