Bio

Joseph Coote is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal Private Equity Performance Improvement in Boston. He is a global business executive with more than 20 years of experience in international consulting and business management focused on the chemical, energy and industrial sectors. Mr. Coote is a hands-on leader with a proven track record of delivering financial results and has diverse experience in service delivery – with a focus on target identification, due diligence, corporate restructuring, M&A, corporate valuation, cross-functional performance improvement, interim management and post-merger integration. He has led more than 100 assignments within the chemicals value chain and participated in 35 transactions including landmark cross-border international deals. He brings commercial and technical subject matter expertise to his financial and chemical sector clients. Notable engagements include: due diligence lead for a major private equity client, assisting with a public chemical company sector target. He helped to evaluate key aspects of risk relating to feedstock volatility, as well as several areas with near-term cash flow improvement and longer-term growth option value. The effort led to successful transactions to bolster its competitive position, mitigate risk and add value. He served as performance improvement lead for a North American surfactant producer serving diverse industries including oil and gas, mining and health and personal care. He achieved a comprehensive operational and commercial portfolio turnaround resulting in a $22 million p.a. EBITDA improvement and a change in portfolio status to a growth centric business within the corporate portfolio. He also led an international intermediates portfolio company in the polyurethane value chain, and operational improvements and process reconfigurations resulting in Euro 55 million p.a. EBITDA improvements. In addition, he served as lead on a board-level corporate restructuring assignment for a global specialty chemical company, which included portfolio strategy, performance improvement and organizational redesign. The client and stakeholders then realized a 140 percent rise in shareholder value. Before A&M, Mr. Coote was SVP and Global Sector Leader for Hitachi Consulting, and managing director and global leader of Arthur D. Little’s energy and chemical practice responsible for 40 percent of the firm’s revenue. Earlier, he was an equity analyst covering the large-cap international chemical sector for Sanford Bernstein. Mr. Coote earned an MBA in finance and international marketing from Fordham University and a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from NYU School of Engineering. He is the current president and COB for Societe de Chemie, the industry organization awarding the Palladium medal to a distinguished chemical industry CEOs.