About

Built around the people behind the business.

South Twin was built around a simple observation: the most consequential decisions a business owner will face rarely fit cleanly into a transaction structure. The work here is designed for that reality.

Our approach

Closely held businesses often face questions that fall outside the scope of traditional transaction advisory – ownership dynamics, family relationships, stakeholder alignment, and long-horizon planning that don't surface in a typical deal process. Decisions about what happens to the business are also decisions about relationships, legacy, and what the people who helped build it are owed.

South Twin works as a trusted advisor throughout the process: knowing the terminology, knowing the partners, knowing the questions to ask at every stage – and having been through this enough times to know where the complications tend to appear. Most owners will face this once, maybe twice. We've done it a dozen times. That difference matters.

Dan Horan

Principal

Dan Horan

Dan Horan founded South Twin Consulting to address a gap he kept running into: business owners facing ownership transition without an advisor focused entirely on their interests – independent of any particular outcome or transaction.

His interest in this work starts with his own family. Dan grew up working in his father's mid-market distribution business – always with the understanding that he'd take it over one day. When the time came, they made a different decision together: to sell. That experience – knowing what it means to be on the ownership side of that choice – shapes how South Twin engages.

Dan spent years as a Senior Principal at Indian River Consulting Group, where he led strategy and ownership transition work across manufacturing, distribution, and private equity-backed businesses. He holds an Executive MBA from Hamline University, where he teaches Critical Thinking and Strategy, and is himself a small business owner.

Brian Oehler

Principal

Brian Oehler

Brian Oehler works with owners and ownership groups on the structural and strategic questions that determine what's actually possible at transition – before any specific path has been chosen and before the pressure starts.

He is drawn to the parts of this work that most advisors skip: the conversations between co-owners that haven't happened yet, the gaps in family expectations that nobody has named. His view is that the best engagements end with the ownership group seeing each other's positions clearly – and a documented foundation for how to move when the time comes.

Brian's background spans management consulting, operational leadership, and financial analysis. He holds an MBA in Entrepreneurship from the University of Oregon and a degree in Business from the University of Minnesota.