Don King

DON KING

Managing Partner

Don King is a Big-4 CPA that began his career in public accounting, where he worked primarily on Real Estate, Energy, and Higher Education clients.  His King Consulting Group, LLC (KCG) and Hand-Up Financial Group, Inc. (HU) both leverage teams that have over 60 years of Corporate Finance and Higher Ed experience in a variety of Institutional Finance, Accounting and Student Finance roles.

Don previously served in a variety of roles in the post-secondary education industry, including: executive level finance positions focused on operational and financial oversight of multi-state and multi-national educational institutions, external auditor, and executive recruiter.

Don has over a decade of experience in the Private Student Lending Industry with particular expertise in building and managing loan programs through partnerships with schools, third-party servicers and sources of capital.  His team also has experience analyzing millions of federal and private student loan records for hundreds of thousands of students.

Don serves on the Regional Board of HOPE International, a global faith based nonprofit focused on addressing both physical and spiritual poverty through microenterprise loans and development.

Don is also the Founder of Hand-Up Financial Group, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization with a mission to help underserved individuals in the U.S. obtain access to higher education and the skills they need to better their lives.  This mission is accomplished via a “hand-up” in the form of creative financial products versus additional “hand-outs.”

Don holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, with a concentration in Accounting, Summa Cum Laude, from the College of William & Mary.

Additional Experience

Corporate Finance Experience
  • Executive level leadership experience in Finance, Treasury, Legislative & Regulatory Affairs, Investor Relations, Legal, Strategic Planning, Accounting, Financial Reporting, Financial Planning & Analysis, and Cash Flow Forecasting (for combined entities with over $4 billion in cash transactions per year).
  • Extensive experience in contractual negotiations with billions of dollars of closed transactions in areas including, but not limited to, syndicated bank credit facilities, lease facilities, sale lease-back transactions, surety bond facilities, private student loan programs, and banking and insurance services. Some highlights include:
    • $2 billion of student loan contracts and sale transactions
    • $950 million of Sr. Syndicated Credit Facilities transactions
    • $75 million of real estate sale and financing transactions
    • $50 million of equipment leasing transactions
    • Hundreds of millions of insurance programs placed annually, including directors and officers, employment practices, errors and omissions, property, casualty, auto, crime, fiduciary, medical malpractice, student accident, environmental and workers compensation.
Educational Industry Experience
  • 20 years working in a variety of roles in the post-secondary education industry, including executive level positions focused on operational and financial oversight of multi-state and multi-national educational institutions.
  • Specific areas of expertise include:
    • Supporting all aspects of the Enrollment Management lifecycle.
    • Forecasting and compliance with various Department of Education Regulations.
    • Business processing reengineerings in areas of admissions, financial aid, student services and school operations.
National Higher ED Conferences Presentation Experience
  • TRACS (2016)
  • ABACC (2018)
  • CECU (2018)
Educational M & A Experience
  • Development of senior level corporate banking, investment banking, accounting, advisory, and legal relationships with dozens of trusted partners throughout North America.
  • Participated in over 15 buy and sell-side M&A transactions that included over 300 schools.
  • Played a leadership role in 8 closed transactions totaling over 150 schools.
Educational GAP Funding Experience
  • Over 15 years of experience in GAP funding program design.
  • Particular expertise in the area of student loans for non-traditional students with primary oversight of over $1.5 billion in private student loans to over 400,000 borrowers.

Mike Brase

MIKE BRASE

Senior Managing Director

Mike Brase began his career as a Big-4 CPA in public accounting, where he worked primarily on Financial Services, Manufacturing and Governmental/Non-Profit clients. He has spent the last 20+ years leading and advising management within the health care and the post-secondary education service sectors.

Mike previously served in a variety of roles in the post-secondary education industry, including Vice President of Finance with responsibilities over accounting, budget/forecast planning, key regulatory measure oversite, cash forecasting, business analytics, student accounts, receivable management, and collections. His teams have provided support to operations on such things as forecasting, pricing decisions, maximizing sources of funding, analysis on the impact of anticipated discount programs, acquisition integrations and key insight to senior leadership on financial results.

Mike has led many large-scale change efforts in his Corporate Finance roles including working with cross functional teams to implement new business models, company-wide and functional performance metrics, system conversions, business reengineering and process improvements – all with significant return on investment.

Mike serves on the strategic advisory team for The Leadership Institute (TLI), an international ministry that focuses on training generations of leaders through the integration of spiritual formation and leadership development.

Mike is also a Board Member of Hand-Up Financial Group, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization with a mission to help underserved individuals in the U.S. obtain access to higher education and the skills they need to better their lives. This mission is accomplished via a “hand-up” in the form of creative financial products versus additional “hand-outs.”

Mike holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Additional Experience

Corporate Finance Experience
  • Implemented companywide cost reduction plan and moved procure-to-pay processes to best practices.This included updated T&E policies, vendor approval process for various cost categories and improved enforcement by process redesign and automation.
  • Directed company-wide effort to develop key performance metrics with standard definitions. This enabled a common language and the ability to benchmark internally and externally and review non-financial metrics as leading indicators for financial performance and strategic objectives.
  • Provided business leadership for the selection of a new ERP system.Scope of implementation included Oracle’s GL, AR, AP, Procurement, Fixed Assets modules and a supplier sub-ledger.  These were implemented on time and within a $23 million budget, including integration with key operational health care systems.
  • Built a new revenue model to help a company that had difficulty understanding the root causes of monthly variances between actual and budgeted revenue. This company historically had difficulty taking action on what was impacting their revenue numbers.  This work included identifying and tracking all revenue drivers and building a model based on forecasts for these drivers. This allowed the company to quickly take action on when revenue didn’t hit expectations.
Educational Industry Experience
  • Provided business leadership for Financial Aid and Student Accounts in a $50 million student system conversion that replaced seven legacy student management systems with one new student management system across 100+ schools.
  • Provided oversite to key Department of Education calculations including working with divisional leadership to ensure compliance with targeted ratios.
  • Provided oversite of third-party financial aid vendor to prioritize and manage all issues with packaging and actions to come back into compliance.
  • Partnered with Financial Aid for conversion to in-house financial aid processing using new student management system. The project saved over $7million a year in bad debt by improving packaging processes.
  • Implemented key metrics along newly centralized financial aid packaging process to help manage AR in a rapidly growing online environment.
  • Re-engineered a new post-separation accounts receivable collection process for better connection and follow up with students once they leave school. Long-term plan included an integrated look at the students AR, completion status, federal repayment status, gap loan repayment status and employment placement status so that prioritization on follow up could occur, and each rep could effectively understand the needs of the student.

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