Our value lies in our broad professional expertise and our ability to leverage our knowledge and experience in Shaping Business for Growth.

Linda Hovey,  Managing Director

By combining rigorous best practices with real world experience, Linda Hovey's progressive strategies engage workforces and drive growth. Linda contributes to client success using her strengths in organization assessment and operations management, strategic planning, merger & acquisition/reorganization activity, board relations, and executive/management development.

A graduate of the Executive Management Program at Harvard Business School, Linda was most recently President of AmesCustom, a $40+M Boston-based filing, packaging, printing, and publishing company where everything they made could be customized to order. During her more than five years with Ames, Linda filled varying operation roles as Vice President of Manufacturing, Administrative Services, Human Resources, IT, and Inside Sales/Customer Service. As President, she had all the administration and operation functions reporting directly to her.

Prior to Ames, Linda was Senior Vice President of Cabletron Systems, Inc. During the ten years she was with it, Cabletron grew from $24 million and 600 employees to nearly $2 billion and 7000 employees worldwide. Linda has also had her own firm AlphaDirections, Inc. where she advised senior executives in growth companies as well as bringing her unique perspective to turnaround companies.

Linda is a former board member of the HBS Women's Alumni Association and also serves as an advisor to several businesses.

Kirk Ramsauer,  Managing Director

By focusing on bottom line results, Kirk Ramsauer uses his over 30 years of experience to find creative and strategic solutions to guide companies through times of instability to renewed growth. He brings his real world knowledge and hand on experience to his problem solving skills.

While at Ames as its CEO and working closely with Linda Hovey, Kirk led a successful turnaround from a loss of $3.5 million in 2007 to a profit of $800,000 in 2008 on declining sales. Kirk and Linda accomplished this result through aggressive downsizing of the workforce, outsourcing of certain manufacturing and administrative functions, and by increased overall efficiencies. They both know how to cut and control costs.

Prior to joining Ames, Kirk was Deputy General Counsel of National Grid USA, a multi-billion dollar company with over 10,000 employees in the US. He has negotiated and closed all types of transactions from complex, multinational and multi-party mergers and acquisitions as well as all types of IT and supply chain transactions. Kirk has also negotiated and closed major financing transactions, raising over $2 billion.

Kirk is a graduate of Harvard Law School and admitted to practice law in Massachusetts and before the US Supreme Court. Kirk is an honors graduate of Lafayette College where he majored in Economics and Business and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He is currently on the Board of Trustees of The Boston Conservatory where he also serves as its Treasurer. He is a Director of Associated Industries of Massachusetts.

Gayle Spence,  Director of Technology and Business Development

As a senior sales and business development executive, Gayle Spence uses her strong communication skills and progressive thinking to motivate a large sales team. Gayle has over 20 years of sales related experience, including 15 years in sales management and 5 years in business development in the high-technology market. She has a proven talent for proactively identifying and resolving issues, reversing negative sales trends, revitalizing markets, and managing relationships with key accounts and vendors.

While Vice President of Inside Sales at Cabletron, Gayle was responsible for a $250m quota per quarter and up to 635 individuals who supported the customer base. She led the implementation for sales world wide and successfully met and exceeded quarterly sales target for 32 quarters. Gayle continued at Enterasys Networks after a reverse merger with Cabletron, serving as Vice President for Inside Sales, State & Local Business Development and the Enterasys Foundation.

Her sales and business development background also includes senior management positions with Nitro Security and SMARTS, as well as consulting engagements with Tropos Networks and Pannaway Technologies.

Gayle attended the University of New Hampshire where she majored in social work and counseling. She studied management theory at the Center for Creative Management in San Diego and has a real estate certificate in New Hampshire.

Linda, Kirk, and Gayle bring their unique combination of strategic thinking and real world experience to help companies successfully address challenges in this most difficult market.