Bob Nilsen
Managing Partner
Bob began his career as a consultant at world-renowned Bain & Co. He later went on to serve as an operator for some of the world's largest restaurants. As a young executive of Yum Brands, he lived in South Africa, Australia, and Singapore before eventually being named COO of Taco Bell where he led one of the largest turn-arounds in the industry.
Following Taco Bell, Bob served as world-wide President of Burger King. And in 2004, he led the purchase and expansion of Utah-based Café Rio where he served intermittently as Chairman or CEO for nearly 15 years as the chain expanded from six to 109 restaurants before ultimately being acquired by Freeman Spogli in 2017.
Bob currently serves as CEO of Greenix, as well as CEO of Sidecar Doughnuts.
Bob holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Randy Rigby
Partner
Randy served as Senior VP of CFS Financial and was a founder at Rigby & Christensen, a private equity group. Randy then spent over 30 years as an executive for the Larry H. Miller Group of Companies where he had the opportunity to serve as President and COO of Larry H. Miller Sports & Entertainment.
The highlight of Randy's sterling career is the 10+ years he thrived as President of the Utah Jazz.
Randy is very involved in the community and sits on the Board of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce and on the Advisory Board at Brigham Young University.
Randy holds a bachelor's degree (B.S.) in Finance from Brigham Young University.
Mark Smith
Partner
Prior to joining Nilsen Ventures, Mark was the VP of Finance at Alder Holdings. Mark is currently serving as President and Chief Operations Officer at Greenix, a Nilsen Ventures company, where he has led the company's world-class operations through rapid growth as the company expanded from $1.6M in recurring annual revenue in 2015 to its now over $100M in RAR.
Under Mark's leadership, Greenix has been recognized by Utah Business Magazine as one of the Emerging Eight fastest growing companies for three consecutive years, and made the Inc. 5000 list for its overall revenue growth during the same period. Greenix has also been recognized as the 15th largest pest control provider in the U.S. by the PCT 100.
Mark holds a bachelor's degree (B.S.) in Accounting from Brigham Young University where he co-founded the Accounting Society, the Marriott School's largest student club.
Bridger Thomas
Partner
Bridger served as the President of Greenix from 2016 to 2021 where he led the company's day-to-day operations. During this period, Greenix grew from $1.6M in recurring annual revenue to over $100M and was recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in the country by Utah Business Magazine, PCT and the Inc. 5000. In 2020, Greenix recapitalized with Riata Capital Group, a Dallas-based private equity firm.
Bridger is a Board Member of Ivy City, a leading direct-to-consumer women's fashion retailer founded by his wife, Natasha Thomas, who was named in 2022 by Utah Business Magazine as one of the top 40 business leaders in the state under 40 years-old. In 2022, Bridger led the acquisition of Ivy City to KarpReilly, a leading privavte equity group focused on high growth consumer brands.
Bridger is also a partner at X-Development, a Utah-based commercial real estate development group.
Bridger holds an M.B.A. from the Marriott School at Brigham Young University.
Kevin Pohmer
Partner
Kevin enjoyed 14 years at J.P. Morgan Chase in Worldwide Securities as an Executive Director before persuing a fruitful career as a fintech entrepreneur. Kevin was the founder and CEO of Financial Guard, a pioneer in the Roboadvisory industry. He led the team that built, scaled and brought the company to market prior to its successful aquistion by Legg Mason (NYSE: LM) in 2016.
Thereafter, Kevin served as CEO of IXN, a leading SaaS provider of digital data-exchange solutions in the life insurance industry. IXN was acquired by Insurance Technologies in 2021.
Kevin holds an M.B.A. from The Ohio State University.
Bari Cruze
Senior Associate
Prior to joining Nilsen Ventures, Bari gained experience working in corporate finance for two Fortune 500 companies -- General Electric and Fifth Third Bank.
Bari also operated a private money brokerage for real estate projects in London and is currently serving as VP of Operations at Greenix, a Nilsen Ventures company.
Bari earned a bachelor’s degree (B.S.) in International Business from the University of Cincinnati. He also holds an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.