Academic Degrees
- MBA, Finance, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, 1979
- BBA, Accounting, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, 1977
Biography
Robert Gross co-founded Prairie Capital Advisors, an employee-owned company that provides investment banking and valuation services to support the growth and ownership transition strategies of middle-market companies. These include private sales, management buyouts, Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and others. Following his retirement from Prairie Capital Advisors in 2020, he remains as a member of their Board of Directors and has also joined the Boards of Directors of two other companies that are manufacturers with global footprints.
Since the 2014 academic year, Gross has been teaching a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in finance as an instructor in the Department of Finance & Real Estate at DePaul University and also at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. He has always derived great satisfaction from helping people learn, whether they were family members, employees or clients, and especially now with his students. He is the proud recipient of the 2021 and 2022 Adjunct Teaching Award from DePaul University’s Driehaus College of Business.
Over a 40-year career, Gross has gained a massive amount of relevant experience in the fields of corporate finance and business valuation, bringing those experiences into the classroom to enhance and explain course content in real-world terms. Lastly, as a co-founder of a highly regarded, multi-office investment banking and valuation firm, he shares insights with students from both entrepreneurial and career perspectives.