Greg Acton, Principal
Greg has broad experience in financial and operational transformations at dozens of organizations, both for-profit and not-for-profit. Since 2011, he has been the founder and President of Two Bell Group, LLC – a consultancy focused on sales operations and growth/turnaround strategy. His clients range from technology startups, to strategy groups of mature global businesses, to foundation-sponsored turnarounds of public institutions.
From 2008 through 2010, he was a sales executive with SmartOps. First based in the United States, then from Brussels as the Director of the EMEA Region, he designed and led the commercial expansion into Europe for the Pittsburgh-based enterprise supply chain software company. Responsible for recruiting, partner, and customer relationships across multiple countries he also worked extensively with executives responsible for supply chain, finance, and IT and helped lead their teams’ decisions to deploy SmartOps software.
From 2004 through 2008 he was a consultant at McKinsey & Company focused on general strategy and transformation of sales and operations. His industry experience spans Education/Not-for-profit, Commercial P&C Insurance, High-Tech, Chemical, and Automotive.
Greg earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science while studying on a full academic ROTC scholarship at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. After his service in the United States Navy, he returned to Carnegie Mellon where he earned a Master of Business Administration degree with concentrations in operations, finance, and quantitative analysis. He interned with Amazon.com’s Operational Excellence/Six Sigma group.
In addition to his teaching through thoughtLEADERS, Greg teaches “Strategic Analysis of Business” at Sunstone – India’s largest online business school. He also holds Flight Instructor certificates from the United States FAA in single- and multi-engine airplanes, including instrument instructor privileges.