The team

Partners who lead,
not delegate.

A limited number of engagements. Every buyer conversation, every negotiation, every diligence step handled by a senior banker.

Paul Inouye

Founder & CEO

Paul Inouye

Founder & CEO

Paul Inouye

Paul Inouye is the Founder and CEO of Western Hills Partners, a boutique M&A advisory firm focused exclusively on sell-side transactions for founder-led software, services, and internet companies.

With over 35 years of West Coast technology banking experience, Paul has advised founders and entrepreneurs through some of the most consequential decisions of their professional lives. His career includes senior roles at Robertson Stephens, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Perella Weinberg, and Moelis & Company, giving him a buyer network and deal instinct that few advisors at the lower middle market level can match.

Paul focuses exclusively on sell-side mandates and growth financings, working with a small number of clients at any given time to ensure every founder gets his direct, senior-level attention from first conversation to close.

Outside of work, Paul is an endurance athlete who has completed multiple Ironman and half Ironman triathlons. He holds a BA from UC Berkeley and an MBA from The Wharton School.

Paul is Series 7, 63 and 79 FINRA registered with Middlemarch Securities LLC.

Sasha Grutman

Partner

Sasha Grutman

Partner

Sasha Grutman

Mr. Grutman is a founder of Middlemarch Partners and co-leads the firm's merchant banking and investing efforts. He has spent his entire 35-year career investing in and advising high-growth financial services and enterprise solutions companies that leverage technology to create sustainable advantage.

At Middlemarch, Mr. Grutman advises clients on business and capital strategy issues, has sourced over $2.5B of capital for clients and has served as a board member for several Middlemarch clients and Middlemarch Capital Partners portfolio companies. Active with both private and public companies, he has participated in over $4.5B of transactions over the course of his career as a merchant banker and private equity investor.

Prior to founding Middlemarch Partners, Mr. Grutman served as a Partner at TH Lee Putnam Ventures, a $1B growth equity fund, where he co-led the firm's financial services investments in specialty finance, insurance services, and electronic capital markets investments. Previously, he was a Managing Director at Citigroup where he oversaw the firm's on-balance sheet financial services private equity holdings as well as managed the bank's $6B private equity fund-of-funds business. He has also held private equity investment roles at Goldman Sachs and Frontline Capital. He began his career at The Boston Consulting Group in its Financial Services and e-Commerce Practices.

Mr. Grutman received an MBA from the Wharton School where he majored in Finance. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Italy where he pursued independent research on Dante. He graduated from Yale University magna cum laude with a BA in Humanities.

Sasha is Series 7, 24, 63, 79, 99, and 65 registered with Middlemarch Securities LLC.

Demetris Papademetriou

Partner

Demetris Papademetriou

Partner

Demetris Papademetriou

Mr. Papademetriou is a founder of Middlemarch Partners and co-leads the firm's merchant banking and investing efforts. He has spent over 30 years investing, advising, and operating high-growth financial business services companies across the payments, specialty lending, capital markets, and insurance sectors.

Mr. Papademetriou is an active investor and advisor to financial services companies with a particular focus on financial technology opportunities, having raised over $2.5B for clients. Because of his operating and financial experience, he also serves as a board member for multiple Middlemarch Capital Partners' portfolio companies. Prior to founding Middlemarch, he was a Director at Knight Capital Group, a global trading firm, where he was responsible for originating, evaluating, and executing strategic investment opportunities and M&A with the mortgage-backed securities, equities, foreign exchange, and derivatives desks both in the US and in Europe.

He also served as the Head of Strategy and Corporate Development for CashEdge, Inc., a financial services transaction and risk management software company, where he focused on capital raising, M&A, and new product development. CashEdge was sold to Fiserv (FISV) for $465M in 2011. Earlier in his career, Mr. Papademetriou worked for Swiss Re Capital Partners, the $5B AUM Merchant Banking and Private Equity division of Swiss Re.

Mr. Papademetriou graduated from the Honors Program in Engineering and Management, receiving both a BS in Engineering from Northwestern University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.

Demetris is Series 7, 24, 63, 79, 99, and 65 registered with Middlemarch Securities LLC.

Gambhir Kaushek

Senior Advisor

Gambhir Kaushek

Senior Advisor

Gambhir Kaushek

Mr. Kaushek is a Senior Advisor at Western Hills Partners. He has spent over 35 years both advising and investing in commercial real estate assets primarily across the Western US with an emphasis in Office/R&D, retail and hospitality assets. He has led or participated in over $3.5 billion of direct investments in partnership with several major financial institutions, foreign investors and family offices.

Mr. Kaushek provides sector expertise in the real estate and property tech verticals at Western Hills Partners.

Mr. Kaushek has had senior roles in several major firms including ProspectHill Group, WS Development, DivcoWest Group and Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds.

Our vision

The leading tech advisory firm for founder-bootstrapped businesses.

We aim to be the firm founders call when the outcome actually matters , providing exceptional veteran service that leads to highly successful client outcomes.

Our team

Highly skilled advisors across the tech landscape.

We are committed to delivering the highest quality of service to our clients and helping them achieve the business outcome they've worked their careers to build.