John Panfil has over for 35 years of direct and indirect experience in business and real estate development; management; merger and acquisitions (M&A); performance contracting; and overseeing new facility construction to occupancy (40+/- story towers from 500K to 2M SF) with companies such as Hyatt, John Buck, Advance Mechanical, Northern Trust, and Landis & Gyr (Energy Performance Contracting). He has served in capacities such as Director of Business Development for large companies and interim President/CEO for small & mid-sized companies. 

John also performed intense turnarounds for hotels, franchises, and manufacturing companies in cooperation with federal, state, county and city governments. He was an integral lead in a team environment of several funding programs both domestically and internationally with NIST/MEP (under Department of Commerce) and countries like Finland, Austria, England, Italy, Russia, Baltic countries and South Africa - millions of dollars where procured for business and job growth. These projects included developing new government funded “White Paper” programs such as the national Professional Business Advisors (PBA) with NIST/MEP, the Finnish American Manufacturing Extension (FAME) program and a $500 million economic development project with the World Bank for South Africa. In addition, John was involved with several smaller projects, for example leveraging a brown field site for future development which resulted in securing large new contracts for a small manufacturer, growing its sales from $6 million to $12 million. He was also working with US manufacturers to expand into Europe and surrounding emerging markets via joint ventures, M&A’s, and technology transfer projects. During this time John was a dual American and European resident and had offices in the World Trade Center / Merchandise Mart in Chicago, Finland, St Petersburg, Moscow and Estonia. 

Living in Arizona for the past 16 years, John during this time started a high end automotive business turning a hobby into a ±$4M business, acquired 2 land development projects both resulting in successful eminent domain sales with ADOT, and secured the first digital billboard contract in the state with Clear Channel. He also established an energy consulting business with the first client being a national franchise owner of 50 sites. John implemented “hands-on” strategies to perform a turnaround resulting in an estimated $1.5 million reduction in annual operating & capital expenditures. With this cost reduction and an achieved 3% increase in sales, the company was sold a year later for $135 million, which was significantly higher than the owner’s original $110 million sales goal. 

The common thread for John is the ability to add octane into properties and companies by incorporating a strategic “solutions driven, out of the box thinking” to leave no stone or grain of sand unturned. He can quickly identify key organizations and government agencies, develop required relationships, and expedite regulatory compliance that catapults cycle times. He excels in producing significant results well above industry standards in record time.