Christopher Thorne

Christopher Thorne is an authority on Private Equity Finance, Systems-thinking, Negotiation, and Business Law. He is an experienced global CEO who has served leadership roles in a number of industries. He is Chairman and CEO of Powermers Smart Industries, Inc. (PSI), a leading solutions integrator for the commercial transportation and industrial equipment markets. For the past two decades, he has served as Chairman and CEO of Broadline Capital, the global alternative investment firm. Broadline primarily invests in category leaders and category creators that are helping to reshape their industries. 

Chris has applied his approach to negotiation and collaborative problem-solving in a remarkable range of business deals, mergers and acquisitions, and investments involving both public and private corporations – including some of the most creative deals in the history of their category.  He is recognized with the Highest Possible Attorney Rating (10.0) for multiple consecutive years in a global attorney ratings and review system. Chris was inducted into the Ohio Supreme Court State Bar in 1995. 

Previously, Chris served leadership roles at McKinsey & Company, the global strategic consultancy, where he managed high-impact strategic and operational engagements for Fortune 500 companies. After excelling there, he left the firm to pursue his entrepreneurial vision and launched his first high-tech company, which became a category leader. As its founder, chairman and CEO, Chris pioneered one of the world’s first profitable SaaS business models while creating fundamental advances in inter-enterprise technologies. The resulting company successfully sold to Roper Technologies (NYSE: ROP) for $525 million in an all-cash transaction. After achieving a quality exit for himself and his investors, Chris took the skills he developed at Harvard and McKinsey, and as a high-tech entrepreneur, and applied them towards building a high-performing global investment firm, Broadline Capital. Chris was then appointed to the Harvard Faculty to share in the classroom what he has learned from three decades of deal-making and business-building. 

Chris received his Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, graduating Magna Cum Laude and receiving the John Harvard Scholar award. He received his Doctor of Law (J.D.) with Honors from Harvard Law School, and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School (final-year honors). When he was a student here, Chris initiated positive changes across campus, serving as president of the university-wide student government and as the founder of the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, while serving as the Training Director for the Harvard Mediation Program. He also served as Executive Editor for the International Law Journal, wrote the Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard, and competed in three intercollegiate sports (Rugby, Soccer, and Wrestling).