Built by Operators Who've Run Finance at Institutional Scale.
Dearborn South isn't a consulting firm that advises on finance infrastructure. We're an implementation team that builds it — drawing on direct experience managing institutional capital, running operating companies, and designing the systems that make both possible.
We Implement. We Don't Just Advise.
The distinction matters more than it sounds.
Traditional Finance Consultant
- Delivers a recommendations deck
- Leaves implementation to you
- Engagement ends at the report
- Not accountable for outcomes
Dearborn South
- →Designs and builds the system
- →Implements, tests, and goes live with you
- →Operates the infrastructure on an ongoing basis
- →Accountable for the close timeline and reporting quality
The Team
Institutional experience applied directly to lower middle market operators.
Dr. Gulbranson brings institutional financial leadership from the family office world — overseeing $100B in investment portfolios and managing $37B in operating budgets. She brings the reporting standards, financial discipline, and operational rigor of institutional capital to the lower middle market. Her background spans complex multi-entity structures, board advisory, and the full lifecycle of institutional investment operations.
Eon Washington brings 20+ years of corporate finance, SaaS revenue operations, and venture building expertise. He leads DBS's finance systems implementation and operational intelligence practice — designing the reporting infrastructure and automation architecture that operators use to run at scale. His career spans institutional finance, high-growth technology companies, and lower middle market operations.
Why We Focus on the Lower Middle Market
Institutional-grade finance infrastructure has historically been available only to large enterprises — companies with the resources to hire $300K CFOs and the IT budgets to support enterprise ERP implementations.
Lower middle market operators — $10M to $150M in revenue, often PE-backed or family-owned, running complex multi-entity or multi-site businesses — need the same infrastructure. They just haven't had access to the people who know how to build it.
That's the gap Dearborn South fills. Institutional rigor. Accessible scale. Built for operators who are serious about running a real business.
Schedule Your Finance Infrastructure Assessment
45 minutes. A structured conversation about where your finance infrastructure stands and what it would take to get to institutional standards. No sales pitch. Operational clarity.