The Owner's Question
Every middle-market business eventually faces a moment when the owner asks:
"What is the right next chapter for what I have built?"
In our experience, sophisticated owners — and especially Veteran owners — want more than the highest price.
They want to know who succeeds them. They want process discipline. They want senior attention.
We exist to be that counsel.
The Veteran Thesis
Veterans are one of the most disciplined and leadership-tested talent pools in the U.S. economy. Yet structured pathways into ownership of established businesses remain fragmented. Meanwhile, generations of business owners face succession decisions over the next decade — many of whom would prefer values-aligned successors over conventional private-equity buyers.
Valor Advisory Partners is building toward the intersection of these two realities: a Veteran-anchored platform that supports values-aligned generational business transitions, with senior-led advisory at its foundation.
The Phased Plan
We are in the early phase. Senior-led advisory is our current practice. Veteran operator partners are being added deliberately. The eventual platform — a majority Veteran-owned advisory firm with a coordinated operator-backed acquisition vehicle — is the long-term destination.
We believe disciplined progression is more durable than premature scale.
Said Armutcuoglu
Co-Founder & Principal
On Wall Street, reputations are built on results. Said Armutcuoglu spent 17 years at Lazard Frères — one of the most storied names in global investment banking — and left as a Partner. Along the way, he earned something harder to put on a business card: a reputation as the person you called when a deal absolutely had to get done.
Over a 33-year career spanning Lazard, Loeb Partners, and LSH Partners, Said has advised boards of directors, management teams, family offices, and creditors on some of the most complex and consequential transactions of his era — across M&A, capital markets, and restructuring. His clients have included household names and category-defining companies in telecommunications, media, technology, healthcare, consumer, and logistics. He has worked on transactions in the US and across borders, in industries defined by disruption, in situations where the stakes were existential and the margin for error was zero.
He is a generalist in the truest sense — as comfortable structuring a large private offering as he is advising a creditor committee through a balance sheet restructuring or guiding a founder through a sale. That breadth, forged across decades of senior deal work, is rare. Most bankers specialize out of necessity. Said specializes in getting it done.
He holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago and FINRA Series 24 licensure as a General Securities Principal — the credential that authorizes him to supervise and execute the work, not just advise on it.
At Valor, Said is the execution engine — the senior practitioner who takes the most important moments in a business owner's life and sees them through with the discipline, judgment, and quiet force that only 33 years at the highest levels of the business can produce.
Randy Elliott
Co-Founder & Principal
Some people know a lot of people. Randy Elliott knows the right people — and more importantly, he knows how to bring them together in ways that create something neither could have built alone.
That gift has been tested at scale. Over eight years as an elected Davis County Commissioner — serving as Chair and overseeing a workforce of more than 1,000 employees and a budget approaching $250 million — Randy earned a reputation as someone who gets things done without leaving people behind. He shepherded major public infrastructure projects, helped establish the Northern Utah Economic Partnership to drive regional job creation, and was consistently recognized by colleagues across party lines for his financial judgment, integrity, and ability to build consensus where others saw deadlock. He was known as indispensable. His constituents called him back for a second term.
Before and alongside public service, Randy built an equally strong record in business development, government relations, and strategic advisory — working across the private sector and with major defense and aerospace organizations to generate thousands of high-paying jobs in the Mountain West. He is a rancher, a real estate operator, and a builder of things that last.
But what people remember most about Randy isn't the resume. It's that he picks up the phone. He listens more than he talks. He genuinely cares whether the outcome is good for everyone at the table — and he has the relationships, the credibility, and the track record to make it happen.
If Randy is in your corner, the right doors open.