Runningen is a Principal of the firm. He has participated in or lead 80 separate investment banking or M&A transactions for 44 companies, with aggregate value of $18.6 billion and he has served as a Director on twelve (12) corporate boards of these companies.
 

Previously Runningen was a Managing Director at a local investment bank that  handled corporate advisory, M&A, strategic planning, and capital raising for middle market companies nationwide.  He has also served as a Senior Vice President at WebMD (NASDAQ: WBMD) after it merged with Healtheon in 1999.  Prior to WebMD, Runningen was a General Partner at Cordova Ventures, a $250 million venture fund. 

For more than a decade in the 1990s Runningen was the Senior Healthcare Analyst with The Robinson-Humphrey Company (a division of Smith Barney). He held a similar position with Morgan Keegan & Co. in the late 1980s. Mr. Runningen was a founder, CFO and a Director of QualiCorp, Inc., an owner and operator of medical office buildings and nursing homes as well as Alliance Surgery and Quality Surgery Centers, which owned and operated ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs).

Mr. Runningen received his BA degree, with high honors, from Luther College. He earned his MBA degree in Finance and Marketing, with high honors, from the Freeman School of Business at Tulane University.