J. Steven McNaughton is a Senior Managing Director of McLean, Markowitz & McNaughton, the market intelligence and competitive analysis division of The McLean Group. Mr. McNaughton brings more than three decades of acquisition search and business analysis experience. In 1982 he and his partner founded Markowitz & McNaughton, Inc. a specialty acquisition support and competitive analysis firm servicing the needs of Fortune 1000 corporate acquisition and planning executives. Within 18 years the business expanded to 90 professionals, servicing such firms as General Electric, 3M, Phillip Morris, AT&T, Cincinnati Bell, Master Card, Grumman, Bombardier, Honeywell, Thiokol and numerous others. During that period, Mr. McNaughton pioneered unique business analysis frameworks, ran the firm’s acquisition search programs that resulted in several hundred acquisitions, and performed competition due diligence on thousands of other acquisition targets. Ultimately Markowitz & McNaughton, Inc. was acquired by the worlds’ fourth-largest public relations firm and Mr. McNaughton completed his employment contract in June 2004.

Prior to founding Markowitz & McNaughton, Mr. McNaughton founded a mail order company, which was eventually sold. Previous to that, he was Executive VP and Partner in Harlan Brown International, Inc. where he helped close more than 50 acquisitions and developed the competitive analysis product line that the company still sells today.

For more than 30 years Mr. McNaughton and his team consulted with "Corporate America" regarding the acquisitions and competitive due diligence of privately-held corporations.

He has served as a Board member on several corporations and nonprofit organizations and holds a BA in Journalism and Public Relations from Ohio University.