Benjamin Gaw, Jr.

Ben is a Partner at Cross Rapids and serves as Head of Portfolio Operations.  He has over 20 years of turnaround and performance improvement experience, spanning private equity portfolio operations, management consulting, and company operations.  Over the past 10 years, Ben has overseen 11 portfolio companies in the industrial and services sectors, with combined revenue in excess of $7 billion and combined invested equity capital of approximately $1.7 billion.  Ben currently serves on the Board of Wholesale Produce Supply.

Prior to co-founding Cross Rapids, Ben was a Senior Director, Portfolio Operations at Advent International Corporation since 2019, where he was the Head of Portfolio Operations for North America Industrials.  Prior to joining Advent, Ben was a Senior Vice President and Head of Asia Portfolio Operations at Platinum Equity, where he also served as Chief Operating Officer for one of the portfolio companies, Ball Metalpack LLC, in 2019.  Prior to joining Platinum Equity, Ben was a Managing Director, Portfolio Enhancement Group at Brazos Private Equity Partners from 2009 to 2011.  From 2004 to 2009, Ben was a Director, Enterprise Improvement at AlixPartners, and from 2000 to 2004 he was a Manager at A.T. Kearney.  Ben began his career as a Sales Engineer / Product Manager at Crest Steel Corporation

Ben graduated from California State Polytechnic University, where he earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, was a member of Phi Beta Delta and Omega Chi Epsilon, which are honor societies, and was a President Council Scholar, which is the highest merit scholarship awarded by the university.  He also received an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management.