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What does it take to buy and scale a company in a foreign country, with your spouse, right before a global pandemic?
In this episode of CEOs Unscripted, host Jane Gentry sits down with Corbin Butcher, Managing Director of Beire Exhibitions in the Czech Republic, for a raw, unfiltered conversation about entrepreneurship through acquisition, cross-cultural leadership, and what it really means to evolve from a 1.0 to a 3.0 company.
Corbin shares how a military career, a "mediocre" stint in investment banking, and a Kellogg MBA led him and his wife Evona to buy a Czech exhibition company, armed with a shoebox full of business cards as their CRM, and turn it into a thriving, scaling business with 80 employees and 2.5x revenue growth.
Whether you're leading a $10M or $100M business, this episode is packed with hard-won lessons on scaling systems, building partnerships, managing culture across borders, and knowing when to evolve as a leader before your company outgrows you.
00:00 — Cold open: No backup plan, just make it work
01:07 — Welcome to CEOs Unscripted: Jane's intro & what the show is about
02:46 — Meet Corbin Butcher: From Chicago to the Czech Republic
04:18 — Corbin's background: Army officer, Iraq tours, Kellogg MBA
06:06 — Why investment banking wasn't the fit — and what was
07:07 — The search fund model: Buying a business with your spouse
08:18 — The challenge of being a European company trying to break into the US market
10:51 — How to vet a strategic partner (and why face-to-face is non-negotiable)
13:44 — The qualities that make or break a partnership under pressure
15:08 — American work ethic vs. European work culture: The real clash
17:08 — How Corbin built a high-performance culture within European labor laws
20:31 — The pros and cons of being an American CEO leading a European company
21:50 — Running a business with your spouse: The investor who called it "marital risk"
24:38 — How Corbin and Evona divide roles and break ties
25:36 — First-time CEO with no safety net: How do you learn on the fly?
28:59 — The shock of COVID hitting an 85% leveraged company in year two
31:40 — Biere 1.0 vs. 2.0 vs. 3.0: The lifecycle framework every CEO needs to understand
33:13 — Sales in 1.0: A shoebox of business cards as a "CRM"
36:53 — Operations in 1.0: When everything depends on one person
38:18 — Why promoting your best operator to supervisor is often a mistake
41:30 — What changed in 2.0: Systems, structure, and elevating internal talent
43:05 — The power of vision: Can every employee in your company articulate where you're going?
46:01 — How Corbin had to change as a leader from 1.0 to 2.0
49:46 — How strategic planning evolves at each stage of company growth
52:54 — Honest reflection: Some parts of Bira are still in 1.0 — and that's okay
54:01 — Rapid fire: Who's the smartest person in your phone?
55:36 — Best book of the last 12 months: The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
57:09 — What Corbin does when he feels stuck
58:27 — Closing thoughts and where to find more
Key Topics Covered- Entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA) and the search fund model
- Scaling a mid-market company from 1.0 to 3.0
- Cross-cultural leadership and managing European vs. American work culture
- Building and vetting strategic partnerships in international markets
- Why founder-dependent businesses are fragile — and how to fix it
- Running a business with your spouse without losing your marriage
- Leading through COVID with zero revenue and high leverage
- The danger of promoting your best individual contributors into management
- Why communicating vision is the #1 job of a scaling CEO
Hosted by Jane Gentry, CEO advisor, Harvard Business School Entrepreneurial MBA mentor, and consultant to mid-market leaders for over 20 years, CEOs Unscripted is a bi-weekly podcast featuring unfiltered conversations with founders and executives who've been where you are. No fluff. No jargon. Just real talk that drives real growth.
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