MorganFranklin Cyber goes independent with PE-backed management buyout

22 January 2025 Consulting.us

MorganFranklin Consulting’s cybersecurity practice on January 13 announced it completed a private equity-backed management buyout from MorganFranklin Consulting (a Vaco company).

MC Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm, will take on majority ownership of the cyber practice. MorganFranklin Cyber will continue to be led and operated by its founding leadership team and partners – Pete Schile, Keith Hollender, and Jonah Dimeo.

Former parent company Vaco – a Nashville-headquartered HR and search consulting firm – bought DC area-based MorganFranklin Consulting in August 2019. Vaco then launched MorganFranklin’s cyber practice in January 2020 via a rebrand of Vaco’s existing cyber practice.

The independent MorganFranklin Cyber will be headquartered in Charlotte, NC with a second core location in New Jersey and additional offices internationally.

The firm has practices in incident response, identity and access management, cyber strategy, engineering and infrastructure, operational resilience, and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC), among other areas.

“MC Partners’ investment underscores its confidence in our mission, market opportunity and services expertise,” said Keith Hollender, CEO and founding partner of MorganFranklin Cyber. “As a large, independent entity, we are uniquely positioned to expand our offerings, premier talent roster, and solution innovation to provide even greater value for our clients.”

Vaco in July 2020 sold MorganFranklin’s public sector practice to BDO USA.

“MorganFranklin Cyber represents the type of forward-thinking, mission-critical organization we seek out and are proud to support,” said Travis Keller, managing partner, MC Partners. “With its dedicated leadership team and proven security and risk management expertise, MorganFranklin Cyber is ready to meet the increasing demand for sophisticated cybersecurity and adjacent services.”

MC Partners focuses on mid-sized companies in digital infrastructure and technology services. The firm has invested more than $2.5 billion in over 150 companies in the last three decades.