Headshot of Paul Mariani

Paul Mariani

Managing Director | Investment Banking

Paul Mariani is a managing director with Mesirow Investment Banking, where he leads the group’s food, beverage and agribusiness practice. He is responsible for developing key sector-relevant relationships, originating transactions, leading deal teams throughout the transaction process, and providing advisory services to the firm’s food, beverage and agribusiness clients.

Paul has more than 20 years of experience as an investment banker with expertise in mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”), capital formation transactions (both public and private equity, and debt), and financial restructurings. Over the course of his career, Paul has focused primarily on the food value chain with a particular expertise advising agribusiness, baking and milling, and branded and private label packaged food companies, distributors and wholesalers, ingredients processors, growers, restaurants, and retail grocery chains. Clients have included Fortune 500 publicly-traded companies, privately-held/family-owned businesses and private equity firms.

Prior to joining Mesirow, Paul co-established KPMG’s U.S. food and beverage corporate finance practice. Prior to KPMG, he was a partner at Brown Gibbons Lang & Co. and he began his investment banking career in Chicago with BofA Securities.

Paul currently serves on the board of Naturally Chicago, an organization focused on shaping and growing the natural and good food ecosystem. 

Paul earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and his Master of Business Administration from the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. He holds FINRA Series 7, 24, 63 and 79 licenses.