OPERATING ADVISORY FOR ACQUIRERS OF LOGISTICS & DISTRIBUTION BUSINESSES
I work with the people accountable for what happens after close — PE operating partners, independent sponsors, and first-time buyers financing the deal with an SBA loan — diagnosing what's actually constraining performance in logistics, distribution, and warehousing, then rebuilding the operating model before it costs you the business.
THE INTEGRATION GAP
Acquisitions close in weeks. Organizations take years to catch up — if they ever do. Decision rights stay undefined. Priorities compete for the same scarce leadership bandwidth. Escalation becomes the default operating rhythm. Every quarter that gap stays open, it compounds against the multiple you underwrote.
Services
Three ways I close the gap.
Defined scope, fixed timelines, and deliverables you can act on — whether that's an investment committee or your own decision.
01
The Two-Day Operational Read
A fixed-fee, fast-turnaround read on what it actually takes to run the business day-to-day, what breaks if the seller walks, and what needs to happen in the first 90 days. No scope creep, no committee required. This is usually where an engagement starts.
02
30/60/90-Day Operating Plan
Milestones the investment committee can track, not a binder that sits on a shelf. 30 days: decision rights and priority sequencing set. 60 days: the operating cadence installed and running. 90 days: early wins proven, thesis on track — built with the management team, so it’s theirs to run, not mine to defend.
03
Interim & Fractional Operating Leadership
Accountability inside the business, not advice from the sideline. Hands-on leadership through a transition, a leadership gap, or an integration — until the organization can carry itself.
WHERE I WORK
Fifteen years inside the operations your portfolio is buying.
3PL & Warehousing
Multi-site operations where acquisition has outpaced standardization.
Last-Mile & Delivery
Labor-intensive networks where cost per unit lives or dies on execution discipline.
Freight & Transportation
Asset and brokerage operations under margin pressure and integration strain.
Industrial Distribution
Growth that has outrun the systems and leadership structure supporting it.
THE ENGAGEMENT
From thesis to an organization capable of delivering it.
A structured operating review and value creation plan, delivered inside the first 100 days.
Envision
Define what the business must become to deliver the investment thesis, and what currently makes that impossible.
Clarify
Identify the decisions, leadership gaps, and structural constraints limiting execution.
Align
Establish decision rights, shared priorities, and clear ownership across the leadership team.
Advance
Install the operating cadence and accountability that hold the gains after I’m gone.
ABOUT
I’ve run the shift, carried the P&L, and made the payroll.
I’m Liam Gaines. I started as a package handler at FedEx Ground and spent seven years working up to area manager over hub operations. I then spent four years at Amazon across logistics, fulfillment, and robotics, moving from area manager into continuous improvement leadership. After that I ran my own logistics company for three years — 150 people, my own trucks, my own payroll.
Across all of it — a Fortune 100 hub, Amazon’s fulfillment and robotics networks, and my own company — the constraint was rarely the work. It was that nobody had defined who decides what. I started Elxis to close that gap inside logistics and distribution businesses where growth or acquisition has outpaced the operating model.
Most advisors in this sector arrive with a framework and no floor time. I arrive with both.
BEFORE WE TALK
The questions I get on every first call.
How is this different from a consulting firm?
You get an operator, not a team of analysts. I do the work myself, which means smaller scope, faster answers, and no pass-through of your engagement to someone two years out of undergrad.
How fast can you start?
Operational due diligence typically runs two to three weeks. A 100-day plan begins within a week of close. I take a limited number of engagements at a time so timelines hold.
Will management see this as a threat?
Only if it’s done badly. The plan gets built with your leadership team, using their language and their data. Buy-in isn’t a phase at the end — it’s how the work gets done.
What do we actually receive?
A written diagnostic, a prioritized value creation plan with owners and dates, and an operating cadence your team runs without me. Everything sized to be read by an investment committee.
YOUR NEXT MOVE
The thesis was sound. The operating model has to catch up.
A focused conversation about the asset, where execution is straining, and what the first 100 days should address.