Founder, Cordis Group LLC
Greenwich, CT / New York, NY
Ron Smith arrived at Manhattanville College in the fall of 2009 as a freshman forward from the tri-state area. Purchase, New York is not a hockey hotbed. There is no packed student section. No ESPN cameras. The rink was cold and mostly quiet on weekday mornings, and the bus rides to away games in western New York were long enough to make you question every decision that led you there. But that was the point. You played at Manhattanville because you loved the game enough to show up when nobody was watching.
The Valiants Men's Hockey program competed in NCAA Division III as part of the ECAC West conference. It was a small liberal arts college with a competitive hockey culture that punched above its weight. The campus sat on a former estate in Purchase -- beautiful in the fall, brutal in January -- and the hockey program was still building its identity during those years. There was no tradition handed down from decades of winning. You had to create it yourself, one practice at a time, one road trip at a time.
Ron played four full seasons from 2009 to 2013. He was a forward who understood his role: work hard, be reliable, compete every shift. The locker room was the center of everything. That is where the real education happened -- learning how to hold yourself accountable, how to show up for the guy next to you, how to handle a loss on Saturday night and still be first on the ice Monday morning. The early morning practices at five or six AM tested your commitment in ways a classroom never could. You learned quickly who wanted to be there and who did not. The guys who stayed were the ones who understood that hockey was not just a sport. It was a way of approaching everything.
What it meant to be part of a program that was still finding its footing is hard to explain to someone who played at a school with banners hanging from the rafters. At Manhattanville, you were building something. Every win mattered more because nobody expected it. Every season was a chance to leave the program in better shape than you found it. The coaching staff pushed hard, the schedule was unforgiving, and the margins were thin. But that is what made it real.
The bonds formed during those four years are not the kind that fade. His teammates are now scattered across industries -- finance, real estate, coaching, law enforcement, technology, sales. They do not see each other every day anymore. But the foundation is the same. When you spend four years grinding through bus rides, early mornings, and road losses with the same group of guys, something permanent gets built. You do not forget who was in the room when things were hard.
Ron graduated from Manhattanville with lessons that had nothing to do with a textbook. Discipline is not a moment. It is a habit. Preparation is not something you do before the big game. It is something you do every single day. Showing up matters more than talent. Those are the things that shaped how he approaches business, coaching, and everything that came after Purchase.
Manhattanville College
Four-year forward for the Valiants Men's Hockey program. Graduated with a degree in business.
AllianceBernstein
Spent a decade in institutional financial services, working with large-scale investment portfolios and institutional clients.
Founded Cordis Group LLC
Launched a pre-process M&A advisory firm focused on founder-owned businesses preparing for exit.
Managing Partner, Cordis Group LLC
Leads market readiness intelligence engagements for businesses in the $5M to $100M revenue range.
Ron coaches youth hockey in Westchester County and Fairfield County because the game gave him something he wants to pass on. He works with the Rye Rangers 14U program and coaches at RCDS Hockey in Greenwich, CT. For him, coaching is not about systems or wins. It is about teaching young players that preparation determines outcomes -- that the work you put in before the game matters more than the game itself. He sees the same patterns on the ice that he sees in business: the teams that prepare the hardest compete the longest. The players who show up early and stay late are the ones who earn their shifts. Hockey taught him discipline, accountability, and the value of doing hard things when it would be easier not to. Coaching is how he makes sure those lessons keep moving forward.
Cordis Group LLC is a pre-process M&A advisory firm that serves founder-owned and family-owned businesses. The firm specializes in Market Readiness Intelligence -- a structured analysis that helps business owners understand what buyers actually see before they go to market. Most owners spend years building their company and then enter the most important transaction of their lives without knowing where they stand. Cordis fills that gap. The firm works with businesses in the $5M to $100M revenue range, helping them identify value drivers, close operational gaps, and position themselves for the strongest possible outcome. Cordis Group is based in Greenwich, CT and New York, NY.