Mark HuYoung
Managing Partner
Mark is responsible for the overall health and direction of NorthWind Partners. Under his leadership, NorthWind has grown to become a top 40 executive advisory in North America.
Having designed NorthWind’s organizational structure, evaluative frameworks, and market diligence processes resulting in an industry-leading success rate, Mark remains deeply committed to ensuring that the firm stays focused on producing positive outcomes for clients that far outpace the top percentile of peers. As an experienced LP and GP, Mark is also responsible for the creation & oversight of NorthWind Investments, an affiliate that primarily invests & co-invests with the financial sponsor clients of NorthWind Partners for genuine long-term alignment. Mark is an active, experienced PE/VC board director and advisor who provides guidance and insight to investors, founders, and CEOs on how to achieve greater value creation through improved alignment of boards and enterprise leadership teams with the defined strategic goals and anticipated outcomes of platforms/assets.
During his tenure as an executive advisor, Mark successfully led and completed over 650 engagements. He continues to advise NorthWind clients on a range of critical board & leadership issues including pre-acquisition diligence, succession planning, leadership development & behavior, and organizational assessment/ integration/ restructuring. His passion over the past decade has been to mentor and develop senior advisors who repeatedly earn the trust of clients and build successful, sustainable practices and to provide discrete counsel to CEOs and founders who desire a pivot or are experiencing a transformative life event i.e., assumption of a new leadership role, transition to board & advisory work, creation/sale/acquisition of a business, etc.
Prior to founding NorthWind, Mark helped found a leading healthcare executive advisory as well as the technology and industrial practices of a global retained search firm. Mark previously held executive roles in corporate strategy with a public media company and corporate development with a venture-backed software company. Mark was named one of the top recruiters in ADG by ExecutiveBiz as well as most one of the most influential executives in Tennessee by Business TN. He is a member of ACG and has spoken regarding and published articles on a broad range of human capital topics to include the C-Suite, best leadership practices, succession planning, retention, board diversity, compensation, and more. He holds a degree in business & economics from Wheaton College and serves on several industry and advisory boards to include funded and independent private equity firms, an AI analytics software company, a digital media company, a human capital services firm, and a non-profit supporting children & orphans in Central Asia.
