Gil Bean

Gil’s business career prepared him well for his current role as a Partner at ExitSmarts, and even though he would like to take credit for orchestrating that outcome, he can’t. Serendipity played its part.

All but two years of Gil’s career has been in technology sales. The early years focused on product sales with companies like IBM and CompuServe, but he eventually shifted to the problem-solving aspect of technology with companies like Cullinet, JD Edwards, and SAP. He counts himself as fortunate to have worked with some of the most noteworthy entrepreneurs in the history of enterprise software.

In 2018, Gil became an EOS Implementer, working with business owners and nonprofit executives to improve the way their companies and agencies operate. During his initial EOS training, Gil met and became friends with Dan Paxton, who eventually invited Gil to join him at ExitSmarts. Again, serendipity played its part. Now Gil and Dan work with a third partner – Ross Trahan – to help business owners and their closest advisors affect successful business transitions.

Gil is a graduate of Bowling Green State University, where his studies in Journalism and English somehow landed him a position as a technical writer with IBM. More serendipity. He lives in Galloway Township in southern New Jersey with his wife, Deborah, and he wouldn’t hesitate to tell you that meeting her was, without question, the most serendipitous event of his life.

His intense interest in history – and especially the history of indigenous people in North America – culminated in a historical novel that Gil published in 2014. Writing, horticulture, and hiking are the three passions of Gil’s personal life, and as the business owners and advisors who work with ExitSmarts will undoubtedly acknowledge, he doesn’t do anything he’s not passionate about.