Cardwell Group

Cardwell Group has been developing leaders since 1983. Its flagship 306 Group program runs CEO-development cohorts, and its Connections consulting and software line keeps executive teams strategically aligned. The core market is large credit unions, where Cardwell counts roughly 70 of the 100 largest as clients, with a growing practice among middle-market companies.

Jim Cardwell placed 83 CEOs as an executive recruiter before professional independence rules ended that line of work at his firm, so he built his own. Four decades later, heading toward retirement, he had two priorities in a sale: protect the equity of Joselie Wright, the partner he had trained as his successor, and find a buyer who understood that leadership development is a craft, not a spreadsheet line.

Cardwell Group ran one of the longest processes on Rejigg, drawing dozens of buyer conversations over two years, and Jim was patient through all of it. The right one arrived in October 2024: his first call with Dickens Aubourg ended with swapped cell numbers, and within days they had met in person. Dickens signed an LOI in December 2024, and after SBA underwriting ran its course, the deal closed in August 2025.

Dickens Aubourg, a Tampa-based operator with consulting years at EY and IBM and product leadership experience as Head of Product Management at Paycom, funded the acquisition personally alongside an SBA loan. He bought Cardwell to work inside it, consulting alongside the team rather than watching from a board seat, and pitched Jim a leadership philosophy on their first call that mirrored the firm's own methodology.