Christopher Volk

Chris Volk began his career in commercial banking, later moving to Arizona, where he joined a financial services customer, eventually guiding its 1994 public offering and serving as President. It was the first of three companies he would guide and take public across three decades. The most recent of these was STORE Capital, the second company he conceived, founded, and led and which made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014. STORE’s strong business model would attract prominent shareholders, foremost among them Berkshire Hathaway, which became the company’s largest institutional investor. All three companies led by Chris were engaged in providing real estate lease and mortgage solutions to middle-market businesses. Combined, they invested more than $20 billion in thousands of properties across the United States, with each company out performing peer benchmarks.  

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Chris is a frequent writer, having authored numerous articles on real estate, financial statement analysis, business models, leadership, public equities, and wealth creation. In 1999, he devised the Value Formula, or V-Formula, a simplified equation to determine business equity returns and wealth creation potential. His inaugural article would go on to win the Lybrand Gold Medal, bestowed on the best article of the year by the Institute of Management Accountants. The article inspired follow-on pieces, a video series, and eventually a 2022 book, “The Value Equation: A Business Guide to Wealth Creation for Entrepreneurs, Leaders and Investors.”

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Chris was a 2019 regional winner of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of The Year® award and was recognized in 2022 as a distinguished alumnus by Georgia State University. He is Chairman of the Board of Tenet Equity, a net lease company started by prior associates with backing from Cerberus Capital. He has served as a visiting professor at Cornell University, lectures at many colleges, and serves on multiple charity boards. He resides with his wife in Paradise Valley, Arizona and Huntsville, Alabama.