Business As Unusual | Leadership & Growth Livestream

December 10, 2026
at Noon CT

From Momentum to Market Expansion

How to Scale Without Overextending Your Business

When mid-market leaders start considering an expansion, there are a number of traditional options to consider: entering a new market, opening another location, adding an additional service line, or acquiring a company. What follows is a series of questions, including how much should I invest, when will that investment pay off, and can my business handle the growth?

In this Business as “Un”usual session, Red Caffeine CEO Kathy Steele is joined by Kari Blankenship, Partner at SeatonHill, a national CFO advisory firm, to explore how to evaluate an expansion opportunity and build a financial and operational plan to support it.

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What to Expect:

This session focuses on how to connect an expansion strategy with financial planning, including the assumptions behind revenue projections, working-capital needs, and the timing of investments. We also examine an often-overlooked question: What happens if the opportunity takes off faster than expected?

Drawing on Kari’s experience with market expansion and acquisitions, the conversation explores why finance, sales, and operations need to plan together, and how leaders can assess what their business is ready to take on.

Session Highlights:

Learn how to connect an expansion opportunity to a realistic financial plan.
Prepare for best and worst-case outcomes, including faster-than-expected growth.
Understand how cash flow and working capital affect what you can invest.
Explore the staffing, systems, and operational capacity needed to meet new demand.
Learn why bringing finance, sales, and operations into the planning conversation early can improve outcomes.

If expansion is part of your 2027 plan, join us to learn how to evaluate your next expansion opportunity and prepare your business to support it.

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Meet the Guest Speaker & Host

Guest

Kari Blankenship, MBA
Partner
SeatonHill

Kari Blankenship is a Partner on SeatonHill’s Midwest team with more than 25 years of experience as a finance executive, CFO, board member, and strategic…

Kari Blankenship is a Partner on SeatonHill’s Midwest team with more than 25 years of experience as a finance executive, CFO, board member, and strategic advisor to private and private equity-backed companies with revenues ranging from $100 million to $1 billion. Her career began with Cenex and Koch Industries. Since then, she has helped middle-market companies navigate expansion, acquisitions, restructurings, and refinancings across manufacturing, construction, distribution, energy, and business services. Kari’s experience includes building a new regional business for a global distributor and leading financial strategy for a $220 million enterprise through rapid acquisition-driven growth. Known for her approachable leadership style, she brings finance, sales, and operations together to turn growth plans into decisions the business can support.

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Connect with Kari

Host

Kathy Steele
Chief Executive Officer
Red Caffeine

Kathy Steele is a visionary leader and entrepreneur with over thirty years of corporate strategy, branding, marketing, and technology expertise. As an operating executive, consultant,…

Kathy Steele is a visionary leader and entrepreneur with over thirty years of corporate strategy, branding, marketing, and technology expertise. As an operating executive, consultant, founder, and board member, she advises executives on innovative growth, brand, and talent management strategies that drive shareholder value while protecting reputational risk and improving customer and employee engagement. Currently, Kathy is the CEO of Red Caffeine, a growth consultancy that builds Grow-to-Market™ strategies for mid-market companies in the manufacturing, technology, professional services, and education sectors with combined revenues exceeding 4 billion. She has advised executives on developing and promoting first-mover technologies, positioning and launching new products and services, changing brand perception to aid business turnaround, and helping organizations with their human capital strategies. Kathy has successfully guided the management of a crafting product from idea to acquisition by the largest strategic player in the space, a technology product launch campaign that led to 80% revenue growth, more than doubling their business, and an award-winning repositioning strategy that reached a global audience, changed negative market perception, and drove new customer acquisition.

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Catch up on Past Livestreams

We do our best to build each Business as “Un”usual livestream event around evergreen topics, so you can find valuable insights from our entire library of content.

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