High Mountain Performance Group delivers uncommon intelligence for strategic capital allocation, empowering discerning investors to navigate today's complex technological landscape. Forged by over a decade of experience building and scaling advanced solutions at Google's strategic core, High Mountain provides the clarity needed to identify true value drivers and mitigate risks in a rapidly evolving economy and a once-in-a generation AI supercycle.
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Strategic Advisory Focus
Strategic Advisory Focus
Informing Critical Investment Decisions
Informing Critical Investment Decisions
The Challenge: Rapidly assessing the true technological capabilities, strategic positioning, and potential risks of investment targets in a hyper-complex, innovation-driven environment.
Our Value: We provide unparalleled, insider insights to rigorously vet advanced technology strategies and technical robustness, whether evaluating an acquisition's core technology or assessing its dependency on major platforms like Google, OpenAI, or others. This enables faster, more confident capital allocation by uncovering hidden risks and validating value drivers in next-generation solutions.
Shaping Future Investment Theses
Shaping Future Investment Theses
The Challenge: Developing forward-looking strategies to capitalize on transformative technology's power and navigate disruptive market shifts.
Our Value: We deliver strategic foresight that translates complex technological advancements and the evolving digital ecosystem (including Google's strategic trajectory) into actionable insights for your long-term investment strategies.
Accelerating Portfolio Company Value Creation
Accelerating Portfolio Company Value Creation
The Challenge: Driving tangible EBITDA improvements and optimizing exit multiples through effective technology adoption and strategic alignment within existing portfolio companies.
Our Value: We partner with operating teams to identify and implement high-impact technology solutions that directly enhance product experience, operational efficiency, and revenue generation. Our insights accelerate the adoption of advanced technologies that deliver measurable ROI.
Executive Engagement & Thought Leadership
Executive Engagement & Thought Leadership
The Challenge: Gaining unparalleled insight and inspiring key stakeholders on the strategic implications of transformative technology and major digital platforms.
Our Value: We offer exclusive, custom briefings and keynotes that leverage an insider's perspective to detail market dynamics, competitive threats, and value creation opportunities rooted in next-generation technological innovation, for investment committees and industry events.
Strategic Lineage & Expertise
Strategic Lineage & Expertise
Steve McDermott
Principal Managing Partner & Founder
Prior to launching High Mountain, Steve led a $12B+ portfolio of Google’s largest advertisers where he drove digital transformation efforts rooted in mobile excellence, compliant data integration and activation, automation, and ultimately ML+AI strategies. Steve also led go-to-market efforts for the launch of Performance Max, (Google’s flagship AI product for advertising), was Head of Industry for Retail, and served as a key member of the start-up team responsible for scaling YouTube advertising revenue.
Previously, Steve worked on both the sell-side and buy-side of the media investment industry at Grey Advertising, Publicis Media, and Comcast NBCUniversal.
Throughout his career, Steve has always kept an eye on the future to help clients understand and navigate disruptive innovation - this perspective, combined with a deep well of industry-centric expertise and historical perspective, has consistently helped clients adapt and thrive through change.
Today, Steve helps guide capital allocators and key decision-makers by providing unique investment intelligence and strategic perspectives that allow them to understand, grow, and evolve in a market being disrupted by AI across the value chain and in all aspects of business.
Steve earned his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Villanova University and also completed the Leadership & Strategic Impact executive education program at the Tuck School of Business. He lives in Wyckoff, NJ with his wife and their four children.
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