Steven Carrillo is an accomplished sales, operations, and corporate development executive whose more than 30 years of leadership experience have been defined by a consistent ability to grow businesses, strengthen organizations, and create measurable enterprise value. From leading multi-state operations approaching half a billion dollars in annual revenue to serving as a chief executive and directing acquisition strategy, Steven has built his career at the intersection of people, performance, and growth. His leadership philosophy centers on assembling strong teams, creating clarity around objectives, and giving people the tools and confidence to make sound decisions that move organizations forward.
Steven’s professional foundation was built in the paints, coatings, and building materials industry, where he developed a deep understanding of sales, customer relationships, distribution, operations, and frontline leadership. Early in his career with Kelly-Moore Paints, he consistently exceeded sales expectations in the Houston market and earned advancement into district sales leadership for Dallas/Fort Worth. Those formative experiences established a pattern that would continue throughout his career: strong performance leading to greater responsibility, increasingly complex organizations, and opportunities to influence strategy beyond the sales function.
Steven subsequently spent more than two decades advancing through leadership roles with PPG Industries. As Regional Sales Manager across multiple Texas markets, he developed sales teams, managed pricing strategies and accounts receivable, and expanded his responsibility from approximately $18 million to more than $30 million in managed revenue. His performance earned multiple Top Gun and Region of the Year recognitions, reflecting his ability to combine commercial discipline with the relationship-oriented leadership style that has remained central to his career.
As his responsibilities expanded, Steven moved into increasingly significant operational and enterprise leadership positions. As Director of Operations for PPG’s Midwest and West Zone, he helped oversee a business representing approximately $225 million in annual revenue while advancing operational excellence across geographically dispersed markets. He also participated in the acquisition and integration of The Glidden Paint Company as part of PPG’s $2.3 billion transaction, helping identify savings opportunities and coordinate cross-functional integration. These experiences broadened Steven’s perspective from managing individual business units to understanding how acquisitions, operational systems, culture, and execution combine to create value at scale.
Steven continued his progression through Zone Director and General Manager positions, ultimately becoming Senior General Manager of PPG’s Southwest Zone. In that role, he held full P&L responsibility for approximately $475 million in annual revenue and led an organization of roughly 950 employees spanning multiple states and layers of management. His responsibilities encompassed sales, operations, company-owned stores, retail distribution through The Home Depot, national account development, and relationships with major homebuilders and multifamily organizations. Leading at this scale sharpened his ability to translate corporate strategy into execution while keeping hundreds of employees aligned around shared financial, operational, and customer objectives.
In 2022, Steven brought that extensive corporate leadership experience into the CEO role at Blue River Coatings. As Chief Executive Officer, he directed strategy and daily operations while guiding the company through substantial growth and transformation. During his tenure, Blue River achieved approximately 45% compound annual revenue growth while improving EBITDA by 12% over three years. Steven also drove manufacturing improvements, reduced operating costs, accelerated delivery, introduced products into emerging growth segments, and diversified the company’s sales portfolio. His work demonstrated his ability to apply lessons developed within a global enterprise to a smaller, entrepreneurial organization where leadership decisions have an immediate impact on performance and value creation.
Steven’s career has since evolved further into corporate development. As Chief of Corporate Development for Cherry Coatings, he has led acquisition sourcing, due diligence, valuation analysis, and integration activities supporting the company’s inorganic growth strategy. His work has included several key acquisitions representing approximately $60 million in acquired revenue, as well as reviewing financial performance, margins, pricing structures, confidential information memoranda, and transaction documentation. He has also incorporated AI-driven sourcing and market analysis into the acquisition process, demonstrating a willingness to embrace emerging technologies when they can improve competitive intelligence and strategic decision-making.
This combination of CEO leadership, large-scale P&L management, sales execution, operational transformation, manufacturing experience, and corporate development gives Steven a particularly relevant perspective for boards overseeing growth-oriented businesses. He is well positioned to contribute to private equity-backed companies, venture-backed organizations, technology and SaaS businesses, healthcare organizations, manufacturing firms, financial services companies, and middle-market enterprises navigating expansion, acquisitions, transformation, or strategic exits. His experience is especially applicable to paints, coatings, building materials, and adjacent industrial sectors, while the breadth of his leadership background enables him to contribute effectively across industries.
Mergers and acquisitions represent an especially valuable dimension of Steven’s board-level perspective. He has experienced transactions from several vantage points: as an operating executive participating in major corporate integrations, as a CEO building enterprise value, and as a corporate development leader sourcing and evaluating acquisition opportunities. This allows him to consider not only whether a transaction appears attractive financially, but also whether the organization has the operational capacity, leadership structure, customer strategy, and cultural readiness required to realize its intended value. For companies preparing for a sale or seeking to grow through acquisition, Steven can help leadership teams examine the decisions that ultimately influence valuation and successful execution.
At the heart of Steven’s leadership style is a strong commitment to people. Throughout his career, he has developed leaders, coached sales professionals, reorganized teams, strengthened operating disciplines, and built cultures around accountability and collaboration. He describes himself as a people person, and that orientation is reflected in his approach to customer relationships and employee development alike. Whether addressing thousands of employees at national sales meetings or working directly with leadership teams on complex business challenges, Steven focuses on communicating clearly, creating alignment, and helping others make informed decisions.
Steven’s commitment to service extends beyond the corporate environment. He has served on the board of Blue River Coatings and has supported Camp Hope in Houston through fundraising and events benefiting veterans. These experiences reflect a broader belief that leadership carries an obligation to contribute beyond personal or financial success. Away from business, Steven is an avid golfer who also enjoys hiking and spending time with family, interests that provide balance to a career characterized by ambitious goals and significant organizational responsibility.
As Steven expands his board service, he brings the perspective of an executive who has operated businesses at dramatically different scales—from companies generating less than $15 million to organizations responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue. He understands the challenges of scaling, restructuring, acquiring, integrating, selling, and leading through change because he has participated directly in those processes. At this stage of his career, Steven is motivated by the opportunity to apply that experience where it can have meaningful impact: helping executives and fellow directors identify opportunities, evaluate investments, strengthen organizations, and make decisions that position companies for sustainable growth and long-term value creation.
Character:
Steven leads with accountability, humility, and a genuine commitment to helping people and organizations succeed. His dedication to developing leaders, supporting veterans, and contributing his experience to others reflects a service-oriented approach to leadership that extends beyond financial performance.
Knowledge:
He brings more than three decades of experience spanning sales leadership, operations, manufacturing, P&L management, corporate development, customer strategy, and mergers and acquisitions. His experience managing businesses ranging from smaller entrepreneurial companies to a $475 million multi-state operation gives him an unusually broad understanding of how organizations perform at different stages of scale.
Strategic:
Steven combines an operator’s understanding of execution with a corporate development executive’s ability to evaluate opportunities, transactions, markets, and long-term enterprise value. He is particularly effective in environments involving expansion, acquisitions, integrations, organizational transformation, and preparation for strategic exits.
Communication:
A confident and experienced communicator who has addressed audiences numbering in the thousands and led teams across multiple levels, functions, and geographic markets. His relationship-driven style enables him to communicate complex objectives clearly, build trust among stakeholders, and create alignment around the decisions required to achieve results.
