Eight years building the platform from the inside, and now Mike Valdes runs it. BKM Capital Partners just handed its finance and operations engine to the executive who helped construct it, and the succession could not be smoother.
When Newport Beach-based BKM Capital Partners announced that Mike Valdes will become chief financial officer and chief operating officer, succeeding the retiring Bill Galipeau after a planned transition, the firm celebrated two careers at once. Galipeau leaves an extraordinary legacy: he joined during a transformative period and helped scale BKM into one of the nation’s leading owners and operators of multi-tenant light industrial real estate. Valdes, who has spent eight years building out BKM’s finance and operations platform, steps up as the natural heir.
His preparation is textbook. As senior managing director of finance and accounting, Valdes owned the firm’s accounting, tax, audit, and financial reporting functions and led its financial planning and analysis work, from financial modeling to cash-flow forecasting to performance analytics. Before BKM, he spent nearly eight years at PricewaterhouseCoopers advising asset managers on fund operations, valuation, and internal controls. He is a licensed CPA with a dual-degree MBA, with honors, from Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management.
“Mike is a highly accomplished executive whose leadership, financial expertise, and operational perspective make him exceptionally well suited for this role. We are confident in his ability to help lead BKM forward as we continue to scale the platform and capitalize on future opportunities.”
Brian Malliet, Founder, CEO & CIO, BKM Capital Partners
The dual title tells its own story about where the industry is heading. Across Southern California’s investment firms, the most trusted finance leaders are being handed operations too, because founders want one executive who can close the books and run the platform with the same hands. It is part of the larger shift we have written about in why CFOs are the new CEOs: the modern finance chief is a builder, not a bookkeeper.
For every Big Four professional in Orange County wondering what the next decade could look like, Valdes just drew the map. Leave public accounting for a growth platform you believe in, compound for eight years, and let your work argue for you. BKM’s light industrial niche is one of the strongest corners of commercial real estate, and the firm keeps proving that Newport Beach can grow institutional-caliber leadership at home, a theme we see across the quiet money corridors of OC.
And a word for the man handing over the keys: a retirement that includes a planned transition, a groomed successor, and a genuine friendship with the firm is the definition of finishing well.
BKM’s own trajectory makes the timing sweeter. The firm has spent a decade proving that focus wins: pick an underserved niche, build vertically integrated expertise, and compound relentlessly. Light industrial went from overlooked to institutional darling, and BKM rode the thesis to national scale from a Newport Beach headquarters. Handing the CFO and COO mandates to the executive who built the financial machinery behind that run is the kind of alignment between platform and person that makes the next growth chapter feel inevitable.
To Mike Valdes: congratulations. Two mandates, one platform, and eight years of receipts behind you. Go scale it. And to Bill Galipeau: a masterclass in building something that outlasts your tenure. Enjoy every minute of what comes next.
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Sources & verification
Appointment & quotes: company announcement, June 2026, via New York Real Estate Journal
Chief Talent Strategist & Editor-in-Chief | 26-year global recruiting veteran, #1 bestselling author, cancer survivor & humanitarian. Founder of Recruiter Hustle, OC/LA's no-filter media platform for talent, finance & recruiting professionals. Heart. Human. Hustle.