---
title: 'Associate, Turnaround & Value Creation at MERU'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/associate-turnaround-value-creation-meru-san-francisco-ctqzmc7wcp8a'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-10'
---

# Associate, Turnaround & Value Creation at MERU

- **Company:** MERU
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2023-08-24
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/wearemeru/aebb303f-d49b-4331-acbb-d710ed80fb83

## Job description

Meet the Company: We are MERU. A values-driven, impact-oriented team dedicated to fixing companies. We provide advisory services and data analytics support to middle-market companies ($50M - $2B in annual sales), and our clients include private equity firms, credit funds, investment banks, and law firms. We bring deep turnaround experience, a group of veteran operators, and an incentive-aligned approach to any situation. MERU was founded by professionals from Alvarez & Marsal and McKinsey and has seen rapid growth in the eight-plus years since its founding.

The MERU Way & Valuing Our Team: We're Partners, not consultants. When you join MERU, you will help our clients solve their most pressing problems, supported by a team of people who will challenge you, support you, and inspire you.

In order to be Partners, we don't silo people into just one functional area of the business, instead advancing our team's capabilities by providing training for every service that MERU offers. Additionally, we don't just focus on technical skills but also leadership style and soft skills, so MERU team members not only know what it means to manage a client engagement but to lead a team to success. In training team members to be well-rounded individuals, we can deliver an overall higher impact to clients, allowing the ability to gain experience in diligence, turnarounds, interim management, data science, and more.

To aid this career advancement and development, MERU provides an internal Coach to each team member in order to guide and maintain their professional development plan goals. Unlike most Firms, we actually focus on the achievement of those goals for each individual team member, providing opportunities that would not usually be offered.

Finally, MERU values personal time, only traveling when necessary in order to celebrate and respect your personal life. We believe that by encouraging and mandating balance, it will lead to happier and longer-tenured team members.

When you come to MERU, you come to further your career and maintain your entrepreneurial spirit, never losing sight of the desire to provide meaningful impact, solutions, and value to clients. Learn more about our colleagues’ core characteristics and culture here: https://wearemeru.com/meru-way/

Associate Role Responsibilities:

- Creates high-quality analytical models (e.g., 3-statement and 13-week forecasts, EBITDA opportunity assessments) with coaching and direction from senior team members (required)
- Validates all data used in calculations, reconciles models and reports
- Thinks critically and applies rules to produce accurate and reliable analyses independently
- Quality check one’s own work product to ensure that it addresses the subject question, flows logically, and is free from error
- Proactively communicates progress and roadblocks to senior team members on an ongoing basis; proactively develops solutions to the roadblocks
- Develops high-quality presentation materials with coaching and direction from senior team members
- Thinks critically about the information provided by clients and anticipates questions
- Assist in the proposal preparation process by performing company and industry research and drafting situational overviews
- Supports in developing Firm Contribution areas, such as Recruiting, Professional Development, Marketing, etc.

Associate Role Qualifications:

- 2-4 years of work experience in corporate restructuring or management consulting positions with a financial or accounting focus (required)
- MUST be familiar with and have the ability to develop and maintain financial modeling needs (e.g., 3-statement models, 13-week forecasts, EBITDA opportunity assessments)
- Undergraduate degree; MBA, CFA, or CPA preferred but not required
- Ability to develop and analyze business plans and pro-forma financial models to identify key assumptions and value drivers
- Conduct analyses from large sets of data to support strategic recommendations
- Team player who can excel in a fast-paced, challenging work environment
- Confident and efficient speaker, presenter, and business writer
- Support internal firm initiatives (e.g., marketing, recruiting, client pitches)
- Highly proficient in Microsoft Office (specifically Excel and PowerPoint)
- Ability to work collaboratively in a team with people at all levels of an organization
- Ability to travel (<10-30%) based on client and business needs
- Ability to work full time in an office and remote environment; physically able to sit/stand at a computer and work in front of a computer screen for significant portions of the workday
- Authorization to work in the United States
- Commitment to living MERU’s values and core characteristics

$150,000 base salary

In addition to benefits, MERU also offers an extremely competitive bonus program that is based on firm contribution efforts, adherence to our core values, and performance.

Overview of MERU Service Offerings:

Performance Improvement: Help companies identify and achieve their full potential by leveraging a value-focused approach to driving sustainable margin expansion impact. Services include MERU 360° Assessment, Transformation Plan Development, Chief Transformation Officer placement, Cash Cycle and Working Capital Optimization, and Implementation Performance Management.

Turnaround & Restructuring: Partner with clients during uncertain times to help stabilize operations and rapidly triage the causes of financial distress, charting a path back to long-term sustainability. Services include Interim Management, Turnaround Plan Development and Execution, Liquidity Management, Stakeholder Negotiations, Strategic Alternatives Assessment, Bankruptcy, Insolvency, and Case Management.

Transaction Services: Partner with private equity firms across the investment lifecycle, from due diligence to portfolio value creation and exit planning. Services include Due Diligence, Pre-Close Planning, Post-Close Implementation, and Exit Planning.

Data Insights: Work with companies at all stages of their digital transformation journey to automate reporting processes, build scalable data platforms, and leverage predictive analytics to transform data from a liability into an asset. Services include Data Discovery and Analysis, Data Prep and Integration, Self-Service Analytics, Data Visualization and Reporting, Data Science and Advanced Analytics, and Strategy Enablement.

Voluntary Inclusion: It is MERU’s policy to provide and promote equal opportunity in employment, compensation, and other terms and conditions of employment without discrimination because of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, family medical history or genetic information, political affiliation, military service, pregnancy, marital status, family status, religion, national origin, age or disability or any other non-merit based factor in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.

Unsolicited Resumes from Third-Party Recruiters: Please note that we do not accept unsolicited resumes from third-party recruiters unless such recruiters are engaged to provide candidates for a specified opening. Any employment agency, person, or entity that submits an unsolicited resume does so with the understanding that MERU will have the right to hire that applicant at its discretion without any fee owed to the submitting employment agency, person, or entity.

## About MERU

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: MERU is a values-driven business consulting firm that helps middle-market companies navigate turnarounds, transactions, performance improvement, and data-driven transformation.
- **Entity Type**: Private (privately held, founder-led; no external venture funding disclosed)
- **Headquarters**: Atlanta, Georgia, United States (additional offices in New York, NY; San Francisco, CA; and Orinda, CA)
- **Founded**: 2017
- **Founders**: Nick Campbell and Kyle Sturgeon

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Business Consulting and Services — specializing in turnaround & restructuring, transaction services (M&A diligence and value creation), performance improvement, and data insights.
- **Target customers**: Middle-market companies ($100M–$2B revenue), their Boards of Directors, and private equity sponsors. Over 90% of engagements are company/debtor-side.
- **Industries served**: Aerospace & advanced manufacturing, agriculture & food, construction & real estate, energy/power/renewables, healthcare & pharmaceuticals, materials & mining, restaurants & hospitality, retail & consumer, technology/media/telecom, and transportation & logistics.
- **Mission/purpose**: "A values-driven, bottom-line focused team dedicated to fixing companies" — aligning fees with outcomes rather than billable hours, and working shoulder-to-shoulder with management teams.

## Products & Services
- **Turnaround & Restructuring**: Liquidity and liability management, strategic options diligence, turnaround plan development, capital advisory, stakeholder communications/negotiations, Chief Restructuring Officer services, contingency planning, Chapter 11 administration, and debt restructuring.
- **Transaction Services**: Operational diligence, finance function assessment (processes, systems), reporting package development (dashboards, KPIs), initiative identification and implementation, and first 100-day planning for post-acquisition integration and value creation.
- **Performance Improvement**: 360° EBITDA and balance-sheet assessment, transformation plan development, Chief Transformation Officer services, cash cycle and working capital optimization, and implementation performance management.
- **Data Insights**: Data discovery and analysis, data strategy and enablement, and solution development including data integration, data visualization, and predictive analytics (AI/ML).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (privately held).
- **Key Metric**: Estimated annual revenue of $1M–$5M with ~69 employees, growing +32.6% year-over-year (LinkedIn estimate).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: No external investors. Strategic Partner network of 200+ industry and functional subject matter experts with operator backgrounds.
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Grew from 2 partners at founding (2017) to 7 partners and dozens of engagements.
  - Expanded from turnaround-only roots into transaction services, performance improvement, and data insights.
  - Reported results include $100M EBITDA improvement for a $1B specialty apparel retailer over 2 years, and reduced lead times for an industrial manufacturer.
  - Team members previously worked at top advisory firms including McKinsey, Alvarez & Marsal, AlixPartners, E&Y, and Partners in Performance.
  - Distributed workforce across 5 countries (United States, India, Canada, Kenya, Saudi Arabia).

## Competitive Advantages
- **Incentive-aligned model**: Performance-based fee structure tied to successful outcomes, unlike traditional billable-hour consulting.
- **Operator mindset**: Senior leaders and veteran operators who have served in interim executive roles (CRO, CTO) and work hand-in-hand with management teams.
- **Deep bench**: 200+ specialized subject-matter experts enable rapid ramp-up and access to niche expertise without building large teams.
- **Founders' differentiation**: Founded deliberately to avoid the large-incumbent focus on bankruptcy administration and high-priced, hands-off consulting — positioning MERU as a "partner, not a consultant" for middle-market companies.
- **Values-driven culture**: Core values (Align with our Clients, Strive for Excellence, Collaborate) established before launch and still used as the operating framework.

## Strategic Focus
- **Broadening services beyond turnaround**: Deepening capabilities in transaction services and value creation for sponsors and management teams.
- **Scaling the strategic partner network**: Leveraging 200+ external subject-matter experts to deliver high-impact engagements across industries.
- **Expanding data-driven solutions**: Growing the Data Insights practice, from automating manual reporting to predictive analytics and AI/ML applications.
- **Geographic growth**: Maintaining a multi-office footprint (Atlanta, New York, San Francisco, Orinda) and hiring for senior roles across locations.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: MERU positions itself explicitly as a "partner, not a consultant" — the word "consultant" is reportedly never used by the founders. Culture emphasizes honesty, trust, sincerity, and dissatisfaction with the status quo.
- **Core values**: Align with clients, strive for excellence, and collaborate are used day-to-day to guide how teams work with each other and with clients.
- **Team quality**: The firm actively recruits from top-tier advisory and consulting firms; employees describe the culture as one where "people could work anywhere yet they choose to work at MERU."
- **Professional development**: The company highlights significant hours per year dedicated to professional development and growth.
- **Work environment**: Current roles are on-site (Atlanta, New York, San Francisco) with a full-time, collaborative structure. Open roles as of the latest data include Associate (Turnaround & Value Creation), Director (Marketing & Business Development), and Executive Assistant/Office Coordinator.
- **Impact**: Small enough for meaningful ownership, but with access to senior-led engagements and a 200+ expert network — offering exposure to complex, high-stakes situations in middle-market companies.

## Sources
1. [wearemeru.com](https://wearemeru.com/)
2. [We Are MERU – Careers](https://wearemeru.com/careers/)
3. [We Are MERU – Our Story](https://wearemeru.com/our-story/)
4. [MERU Jobs on Lever](https://jobs.lever.co/wearemeru)
5. [LinkedIn – MERU, LLC](https://linkedin.com/company/meru-llc)

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