Experienced professionals. Direct involvement.

Dennis V. Marshall

Founder & Managing Director

Dennis V. Marshall is the Founder and Managing Director of D.V. Marshall Company. For more than 25 years, he has worked at the intersection of strategy and finance, helping founders, family-owned businesses, boards, and management teams navigate decisions that affect ownership, growth, liquidity, and the long-term direction of privately held companies.

His perspective has been shaped by experience as an advisor, equity owner, investor, and operator. Dennis has risked his own capital, held meaningful ownership interests, assumed responsibility for day-to-day operations, and participated in multiple successful exits. That experience gives him a practical understanding of what a transaction means to an owner—not only financially, but personally and operationally.

Dennis’s experience includes traditional mergers and acquisitions advisory work as well as principal and operating assignments. He has advised owners through business sales and acquisitions, evaluated strategic alternatives, structured founder-led combinations, developed acquisition strategies, negotiated transaction terms, and coordinated complex diligence and execution across management teams, lenders, attorneys, accountants, and other advisors.

He has also worked directly with companies through periods of rapid growth, organizational change, financial complexity, and operational stress. His experience includes helping build and expand an international business platform, guiding acquisition-led growth, addressing difficult ownership and capital-allocation decisions, and managing situations in which preserving value required decisive operational action rather than simply pursuing a transaction.

Dennis founded D.V. Marshall Company to bring that combined strategic, financial, ownership, and operating perspective to lower-middle-market business owners. He personally leads a limited number of engagements and remains directly involved from the first discussion of alternatives through negotiation, diligence, and closing.

Dennis holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics and International Studies, summa cum laude, from DePaul University and a master’s degree from the University of Chicago, where his graduate studies focused on finance, public finance, and applied economics.

Joseph A. Williams, CPA

Managing Director

Joe Williams, CPA, is a Managing Director of D.V. Marshall Company. He brings extensive experience in financial diligence, transaction accounting, quality-of-earnings analysis, financial modeling, valuation support, and the financial and operational evaluation of acquisitions.

Before joining D.V. Marshall Company, Joe served as Chief Financial Officer of a rapidly growing company backed by institutional investors. During his tenure, the company completed fifteen acquisitions in approximately eighteen months. His responsibilities gave him direct experience evaluating acquisition opportunities, conducting financial diligence, assessing working-capital and earnings considerations, supporting transaction execution, integrating acquired companies, and managing the financial demands of sustained acquisition-driven growth.

At D.V. Marshall Company, Joe applies this experience to the financial analysis and execution of client engagements. He works with owners and management teams to evaluate historical and projected financial performance, identify issues that may affect valuation or transaction structure, prepare businesses for buyer and lender scrutiny, assess acquisition opportunities, and support negotiations and diligence through closing.

Joe’s combined experience as a Certified Public Accountant, former Chief Financial Officer, and transaction advisor allows him to evaluate opportunities from the perspectives of owners, buyers, management teams, and financial counterparties.

Joe holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University and is a Certified Public Accountant.