Wind Point Partners Leadership Review: No Risks Uncovered
- Dossity
- Jan 9
- 3 min read
January 8, 2025
Wind Point Partners is a private equity firm based in Chicago. They primarily invest in middle-market, business services, consumer products, and industrial products companies in North America. As of 2024, they have over 40 staff, $6B AUM, and have deployed 10 funds.
The firm was funded and co-founded in 1983 by S. Curtis Johnson III, the billionaire heir to the S.C. Johnson family (behind products like Ziploc, Raid, Windex, etc.) Johnson served 3 months in jail in 2014 after pleading guilty to sexual assault of his 12-year-old stepdaughter.
Another WPP co-founder Arthur DelVesco, was in the news in 2015 when his daughter was murdered in her college dorm. She had been arrested just two months beforehand for possessing ecstasy, LSD, methamphetamine and psilocybin but no connection to the killer or motive was ever determined.
Wind Point's early management eventually moved on from the firm. S. Curtis Johnson III moved into an advisory role around 1998 and cofounders Bob Cummings and Rich Kracum stepped out of the day to day around 2016.
A former Wind Point Managing Director of 14 years, Mark Burgett, made news in 2024. He had left Wind Point in 2017 for "personal health considerations" before starting his own firm Entrepreneurial Equity Partners (E2P) with other former WPP executives. Then in 2024, he pleaded guilty to felony domestic violence charges and resigned.
As specialists in assessing management risks, Dossity analyzed the 5 members of Wind Point's leadership across 10 risk categories:
Criminal Activity
Harassment
Litigation
Honesty
Associations
Political Exposure
Foreign Influence
Behaviors
Online Activity
Personal Finance
Despite the adverse media of former leadership, no risks were found for Wind Point's 5 MDs across each of Dossity's 10 risk categories. Below is a summary of our review.
Nathan Brown
Managing Director
No risks were found for Nathan across all 10 risk categories.
Starting in 1997, Nathan is the most tenured partner, having been with Wind Point for nearly 28 years.
He began his career in Canada, studying at Queen's University and working as an Analyst at ScotiaMcLeod. His father also worked in Finance, previously with Bank of Montreal and First Union.
Nathan has a limited online presence with few public accounts.
Paul Peterson
Managing Director
No risks were found for Paul across all 10 risk categories.
Paul has been with Wind Point for 25 years starting in 2000.
He also has a limited presence online but a Twitter account appearing to belong to him has commented on political and religious topics:
The account is unconfirmed but matches his first name, middle initial, last name and follows/followed by Iowa (where he grew up) and Chicago, private equity related content, etc. He tweeted at Illinois' governor, and separately mentions relevant locations "As an Iowan...", "...we are stuck in Chicago...", etc.
Alex Washington
Managing Director
No risks were found for Alex across all 10 risk categories.
Alex has been with Wind Point for 23 years starting in 2002.
Alex and his wife are active donors to Democratic political candidates and non-profit organizations, donating tens of thousands to organizations like Chicago Foundation for Education, Urban Juncture, Lurie Children's Hospital, WINGS, Beyond Hunger, University of Chicago and more.
Konrad Salaber
Managing Director
No risks were found for Konrad across all 10 risk categories.
Konrad has been with Wind Point for 21 years starting in 2004.
He is bilingual in Polish, co-founded the Heritage Polonia and serves as a Director for the Polish Chamber of Commerce.
Joe Lawler
Managing Director
No risks were found for Joe across all 10 risk categories.
Joe has been with Wind Point for 16 years starting in 2009.
His wife also worked for Chicago-based private equity firms. She was a Vice President for 50 South Capital and then Periscope Equity until 2022.
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This information is from sources deemed to be true and reliable, but Dossity makes no representations of the same. All questions or comments should be sent to info@dossity.com.
Dossity provides deep, investigative diligence research for clients to uncover management risk. We balance automation with human analyst review, open source intelligence with proprietary databases and secondary with primary research. Dossity analyzes claims, behavior, communications, associations, influence and more to go beyond background reports and secure clients’ investments and reputations. To learn more, visit Dossity.com.