Erika Baez-Grimes, CM&AP

Erika Baez-Grimes, CM&AP, is an award-winning M&A advisor, founder, and dealmaker with more than 15 years of experience leading complex transactions across a range of industries. Her portfolio of companies deliver certified business valuations, transaction strategy, and ownership transition services, guiding founders through critical inflection points in their businesses. Those who know her best call her the Linchpin!

Her firms have earned a national reputation for achieving premium outcomes for founder-led and family-owned businesses, operating at the intersection of capital, optimization, scale, and exit. Collectively, the companies she’s founded, led, advises or holds ownership interests in have generated more than $350 million in business scale and exit activity. Beyond advisory, Erika holds active LP ownership stakes across multiple industries, giving her a firsthand understanding of what founders stand to gain and lose in any transaction.

That dual perspective has made her one of the most trusted voices at the intersection of dealmaking and economic inclusion. She is recognized for advancing topics like entrepreneurship through acquisition and expanding the ownership conversation in underserved and underrepresented communities. Erika contributes to national initiatives focused on pathways to ownership, economic mobility, and youth entrepreneurship, because she believes business owners can expedite their scaling goals by acquiring complimentary companies and realizes that the next generation of owners is already out there, they just need someone to show them the door.