Her Story
About Iris
I am the managing partner of Mattis Investments, a private equity firm focused on the lower middle market acquisition. We serve businesses from above 3 million EBITDA, and we do full acquisitions and growth equity through those businesses. We have been very successful, with our criteria including focusing on businesses that are high-tech, such as software, IT telecom, and industrial software and asset management. A typical day for me looks like calling with company owners that are close to sellers, so people who want to sell their company. I meet with investment bankers back-to-back for lunch or coffee meetings in person. At the end of the day, I spend a whole amount of time on deal sourcing, analyzing financials, and creating positively forecasted scenarios for the acquisitions and structuring the deal. I also spend a little bit of time talking to my bankers and lenders to make sure how I can structure those deals. I have about 8 years of private equity experience and fund management. One of my greatest achievements has been being able to build a successful PE firm that is well established in the U.S. market with key important platforms and acquisitions that were able to continue growing. I have also held several leadership roles within the industry. I was PIDEX president for over 3 years, which is the Petroleum Industry Data Exchange, which covers all the oil and gas measures and service companies, over 30 in more than 2 trillion capitalization. That has been a great tool for me to be able to coach other people and young people coming into digital careers in energy. I was also the president of the Women's Network for over 3 years, and during my tenure, we grew the network 130% from 3,000 to 7,000 members. The network grew globally in all four continents across 127 chapters, and that allowed us to reach a lot of young women early in their careers who are engineers that wanted to grow their professional achievements.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Iris
01What do you attribute your success to?
A lot of my success has to do with drive, positiveness, and hard work. There are three things: there is drive, there is positiveness, and there is hard work. When you're always willing to do the three of them, I think, you know, personally and our firm, we're very driven individuals who work hard, and we always keep a positive outlook to make things happen.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Never give up, you know? Don't give up on your dreams. Whatever are your goals, never give up on them. I mean, whichever are your goals, always try to set them and go for them, and wherever you are, it's never too late to start today or tomorrow. Whether it is to get into a finance degree and get stronger analytically, or advance into your personal fitness goals, it's never too late, so don't give up on your goals.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would tell them to get prepared. I think having a strong analytical preparation is fundamental to break into finance and PE careers. Either being an engineer, accounting, or a business degree, being willing to study hard, you know, go for the extra mile to get those certificates and MBA would really help. So I think preparation is the key to success.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I don't know that it's specific to our industry, but I think there is a lot of changes in technology. I mean, we're investing in a lot of technology companies, IT, telecom, so I think there is a disruption of AI, which is really adding a layer of lack of trust or transparency into some of the processes. I think a lot of people are getting scammed, or they receive fraudulent messages that they don't know they can trust, so I think it's adding a layer of disruption and complexity to the mix of our business. So I would just say the AI disruptions that we're yet to see how they unfold. We're trying to embrace it for our efficiencies and technology, but I think it also adds more security threats, you know, with cybersecurity, and we think that affects a lot of our companies.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think there are three values. The first one is people, because we value what people have and what they do for everything, so that's one important value we stand in everything that we do, is to support our people. There is integrity to do the right things, you know, when nobody's looking, and always be honest and transparent while doing business. And the other one is courage. Like I said, courage to pursue high goals within our organizations on a personal and private matter. People, integrity, and courage.
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