Steve Ellis
President and CEO
Steve Ellis is President and CEO of Automated Solutions, a privately-held diversified manufacturing company located in the greater Charlotte area of North Carolina. He also serves on its board of directors. The company manufactures a range of primarily packaging products, some of which are featured in the storage and organization department of The Home Depot stores. The company’s products are sold across the U.S. as well as into Europe, Australia, and Mexico. Steve has led the company to its four best years over its 18-year history, including its highest sales and EBITDA, with a sales CAGR of 27% and EBITDA CAGR of 36%. He has also led the company into new product lines as well as more than tripled its manufacturing footprint and number of employees.
He joined Automated Solutions in 2013 after over 20 years of progressively higher leadership positions in primarily international corporations, most recently as EVP and CFO for HSM Solutions (formerly Hickory Springs Manufacturing Company), a global diversified manufacturer of integrated solutions. In his role at HSM he held P&L responsibility for the Plastic Technology, Inc. (PTI) venture majority-owned by HSM as well as corporate business development in addition to the “typical” CFO functions of finance, treasury, accounting, IT, and credit. HSM is a large middle market company and is privately-held. Steve also served on HSM’s board of directors. Highlights of his time at HSM include turning around PTI to generate its highest profitability ever, engineering the first pension buy-in transaction in the U.S. with Prudential, and discovering a $2 million IT fraud, investigating, recovering most of the stolen funds, and assisting in obtaining criminal convictions for the people involved.
Steve has served in a variety of leadership positions nationally and internationally. He was a VP with Tarkett, at over $2 billion in revenues one of the largest global manufacturers of integrated flooring and sports surface solutions. Tarkett was publicly-traded on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange at that time. He served Gate Gourmet, at over $2 billion in revenues the world's largest independent provider of airline catering and provisioning services, for over six years until moving to join Tarkett. Gate Gourmet was owned by global private equity firm TPG. His positions with Gate Gourmet took him to places across the U.S. and beyond, including almost three years living internationally in both Zurich and London.
Steve started his career as a Naval Officer in 1988 where he gained early leadership and operations experience as a line officer and international experience with a total of a year deployed to the Mediterranean Sea. He transitioned from military service into Big 4 public accounting, first with PwC and then with EY. His first role in the corporate world was as a controller for Horseshoe Gaming, at that time a $460 million privately-held company with publicly-traded debt and SEC filings.
Steve was raised in Fayetteville, Arkansas and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Louisiana State University and a Master of Business Administration degree from The University of Memphis. He still holds an active Certified Public Accountant license in the state of Georgia. He and his wife have three children and live in Hickory, North Carolina, where they are active in local non-profit organizations. Steve is ultra-competitive in everything but is best in tennis and golf and enjoys maintaining a high fitness level, including competing in the first Obstacle Course Racing World Championship.