Zachary Fouts

I’m the one who gets put on the challenging deals — the acquisitions where nobody knows how the tech stacks will fit together, the divestitures where shared infrastructure has to be cleanly separated under impossible timelines.

I’ve been at this longer than most people realize. In ‘97 I was getting pulled out of class to fix the principal’s computer and was the first student in my elementary school to get internet time during lunch. By 16 I was running my own gig — web hosting, VPNs, fixing whatever small businesses needed fixed. The problems have gotten bigger, but the approach hasn’t changed: understand the landscape, find the risks, build a plan, execute without burning the place down.

The Path Here

I didn’t plan to end up here — nobody does. I spent years as a generalist: building cloud infrastructure, writing Go and Python, designing APIs, running Kubernetes clusters, automating everything I could get my hands on. I got pulled into my first acquisition because I was the person who understood how the most systems connected together.

Turns out, that’s exactly what you need when you’re merging two companies — or pulling one apart. Someone who can zoom out far enough to see the whole landscape and zoom in deep enough to understand why that one legacy service can’t just be “turned off.”

One integration became two. Then came a divestiture that was harder than any acquisition. Now it’s what I do.

What Sets Me Apart

I’ve sat on every side of the table. Acquiring company’s architect evaluating targets. Acquired company’s engineer wondering what happens next. The one tasked with cleanly separating shared infrastructure under a hard deadline. That range of perspective changes everything about how you approach a deal.

I lead with reality, not slide decks. Due diligence isn’t about producing a pretty report — it’s about finding the things that will cost you millions if you miss them. Hidden technical debt. Licensing landmines. The single engineer who holds six critical systems in their head and nowhere else.

I think about the humans. Every migration ticket represents someone’s workflow changing. Divestitures are especially hard — you’re asking people to untangle systems they spent years building, often under real uncertainty about their own futures. I approach that with empathy and with a plan.

On Leading People

The part of this work I care about most isn’t the architecture — it’s the people. I’m passionate about leadership, but not the “command and control” kind. My skill is in partnering with the people around me and helping them be the best version of themselves. The best outcomes I’ve been part of weren’t because I had the right answer — they happened because I helped the right people find it together.

How I Operate

Clarity over comfort. If the integration timeline is unrealistic, I’ll say so. If the divestiture requires 18 months and the business wants 6, you’ll know on day one.

Systems thinking. Technology doesn’t exist in isolation. Every architecture decision ripples through teams, budgets, timelines, and culture. I map those ripples before making recommendations.

Ship, then iterate. I bias toward getting systems consolidated — or separated — and stable first, then optimizing. Chasing perfection during a transaction is how you never finish.

Minimize blast radius. Especially in divestitures, the goal isn’t elegance — it’s reducing risk. I build rollback paths and make sure no single cutover can take down both sides.