OUR STORY
The concept arrived early, watching good owners and capable CFOs struggle with a room full of professionals around them. Everyone in their own corner. Siloed experience abundant, diversified experience scarce.
Fifteen years across trading, advising, portfolio management, and commercial credit built the view that makes the work possible. Public capital markets to small business lending, roughly $6B transacted, underwritten, and managed.
Proven in 2024 on a fast-moving 1031 exchange. Significant deal economics, an above-market asset, an unforgiving clock.
The launch waited. More seasoning and more proof were needed, and two young boys took precedence. The work continued in off hours, for free, building the infrastructure in moonlight.
By the end of 2025, three ongoing relationships. One manufacturer, two service firms, none alike, all built around the same two questions: free cash flow rising, cost of capital falling.
For the manufacturer, a model that now guides capital strategy and tactical cash flow decisions, a new bank and credit relationship placed, and an information memo kept current. That is Capital Management and Financial Services Management working together.
For the first service firm, growth funded without outside debt, and an accountant relationship rebuilt so the books finally tell the truth about profitability. Financial Services Management and Accounting Facilitations.
For the second service firm, a working capital strategy that gave the owner confidence to invest in her staff and carry real overhead. Revenue doubled, run-rate profitability tripled in twelve months.
The missing piece surfaced in those engagements. Fifteen years reading financial statements, and owners across the table who depended on the same statements without being served by them. Facilitation replaced the hand off, and the third pillar was built.
Then the name presented itself. Franklin’s leather apron class, the tradespeople who built and held up a society. The modern version: self-financed, unprivileged, no parent company. Industrial, technical, earning profit through craft and engineering.
That’s who this is for. The three pillars are how.
HALDEN KANEB, FOUNDING PRINCIPAL
Halden began independent advisory in 2024, which is the work described above. Before that he spent eight years in commercial credit at regional and national institutions, sitting as an analyst and then portfolio manager on the most complex deals those banks held: cash flow lending, sponsor acquisitions, asset-based facilities, capital restructurings, and telecommunications and digital infrastructure. That is where the judgment came from. He underwrote and managed credit through the post-crisis recovery, the COVID swing, and into the regime we’re in now.
He also carried a book as a relationship manager, which is where he saw most of the struggles firsthand. Owners and experienced finance teams with good businesses and no one looking at the whole picture. Those conversations are the reason Leather Apron exists.
The seven years before that were on the securities side, at Charles Schwab, New York Life, and JPMorgan Chase, trading, advising, and originating for clients of every size.
Fresh off the ship, he earned a Bachelor of Science in Financial Services Management at Johnson & Wales University, graduating Summa Cum Laude. After moving to Colorado he obtained an International MBA from the University of Denver, both paid for by the Post-9/11 GI Bill at a net cost of about $5,000.
He earned that bill over six years in the Navy, aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard out of San Diego, running emergency diesel generators and small-boat search and rescue across two deployments during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
Pressure, accountability, and incomplete information were standard military evolution, giving Halden and Leather Apron a battle tested element.
For now, this page has one face on it.
That’s on purpose. Leather Apron is built to serve a handful of owners completely, not a hundred of them halfway. As the right people join, you’ll meet them here.
Built to grow, in no hurry to.