About Legacy Forward Consulting
Why We Exist
Most acquisition advisory is built for institutional buyers with large teams, established processes, and dedicated deal professionals. The result: independent buyers and small-to-mid-market operators are left to navigate acquisitions with fragmented advice, generic templates, or sheer improvisation.
Legacy Forward Consulting was built to close that gap.
We provide structured acquisition intelligence — from initial deal evaluation through post-close execution — for buyers who will actually operate the businesses they acquire. Our work is designed to be decision-grade, repeatable, and practical, regardless of whether you have a deal team of one or ten.
Our Perspective
We believe the acquisition itself is only the beginning. The real value — and the real risk — lives in what happens after close. That conviction shapes everything we do: how we evaluate deals, how we structure diligence, and how we build post-close plans.
We are not brokers. We are not investment bankers. We do not represent sellers or take transaction fees. We sit on one side of the table — yours — and our only incentive is to help you make better decisions and execute with discipline.
How We Think
Outcomes over activity.
We measure our work by the quality of the decisions it enables, not by the volume of slides it produces.
Structure creates speed.
Repeatable frameworks and disciplined scoping let us move fast without cutting corners.
Diligence is a decision tool, not a compliance exercise.
Every finding should lead to an action: pursue, renegotiate, plan for, or walk away.
The first 90 days define the next three years.
Post-close planning is not optional — it is the highest-leverage work in the acquisition lifecycle.
Confidentiality is non-negotiable.
We protect our clients’ information and our own methods with equal rigor.
Clarity over complexity.
Our deliverables are written to be read, understood, and acted on — by operators, boards, and lenders alike.
Buyer-side only, always.
Undivided loyalty to the acquirer eliminates conflicts and sharpens our advice.
Institutional quality at any scale.
A $2M acquisition deserves the same analytical discipline as a $200M one.
Our Team
Legacy Forward Consulting is an M&A modernization firm built for acquisition entrepreneurs who operate the businesses they buy. We combine structured advisory methodology with applied AI to deliver institutional-quality acquisition intelligence — deal screening, diligence, post-close planning, and operating-cadence design — at a pace and price point that fits independent buyers and small operating groups.
Ryan Gorman
Co-Founder, Legacy Forward Consulting
Ryan brings a background in institutional wealth management, having served as a Private Client Group Officer at PNC Financial Services Group, where he managed portfolios and advised high-net-worth clients on complex financial strategies. He holds Series 7 and Series 66 securities licenses.
Driven by a desire to build and operate rather than solely advise, Ryan founded and grew Cleaning Pittsburgh Homes LLC into a recurring-revenue residential services business — experiencing firsthand the operational realities that acquisition entrepreneurs face post-close. That operator lens now shapes every engagement at Legacy Forward: diligence findings are written for the person who will run the business on Day 1, not just the person signing at close.
Based in Pittsburgh, PA
Yasmine Johnston-Ison
Co-Founder, Legacy Forward Consulting | Founder, IndigoINT LLC
Yasmine is a former Tier-1 military intelligence professional with deployments spanning Iraq and Afghanistan, where she led human intelligence (HUMINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), and open-source intelligence (OSINT) operations in high-stakes, time-compressed environments. That background — pattern recognition under uncertainty, structured analysis, and rapid decision-making — translates directly into how Legacy Forward approaches deal evaluation and post-close planning.
She founded IndigoINT LLC, a cyber threat intelligence and security consultancy, and has since focused on building AI-augmented operational systems. Yasmine holds certifications in Anthropic Claude AI, Notion workspace design, and Google AI, and is a Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH). At Legacy Forward, she leads delivery operations, AI enablement, and the design of scalable advisory frameworks.
Based in Atlanta, GA