A Creative Mindset That Rewrites the Rules of M&A
Before helping founders tell their stories to investors, Chloe Cotoulas spent her career helping brands tell theirs to the world. Trained as a filmmaker at USC and later a creative director in advertising, she learned early how powerful the right story can be: not just in shaping perception, but in driving value.
“I always thought I’d be making movies,” she says. “Then I realized I didn’t love being on set. I loved coming up with stories, and figuring out how to tell them.” That curiosity led her into advertising, where she joined top Los Angeles agencies like Deutsch and rose through the ranks at remarkable speed. “I was incredibly lucky. I worked under some of the most brilliant creative directors and Chief Creative Officers and they really took the time to teach me and mentor me. They gave me opportunities few young creatives get. As a result, I became an associate creative director and then head creative director for an office at only twenty-six or twenty-seven.”
Her work put her in front of CMOs, brand leaders, and executives twice her age, and opened her eyes to how creative decisions connect to business outcomes. “I was sitting in rooms pitching these big ideas,” she recalls. “At some point, I realized I didn’t know what kept them up at night, or how their businesses really worked. I thought, I could understand that, I could be coming up with even more creative and impactful ideas.” That idea led to a bold move. Chloe left advertising to attend Columbia Business School full-time, determined to master the financial side of creativity.
“Everyone thought I was crazy,” she laughs. “But I wanted to understand what drives growth and how companies create value.” At Columbia, she immersed herself in finance and strategy, even spending time working with hedge funds. The experience rewired her approach. “It taught me how to recognize patterns and how to connect what people say to what really moves markets.”
After business school, Chloe moved into M&A advisory for companies, focusing on the sectors she knew better than most bankers – advertising, media and entertainment. This proved to be the perfect bridge between creativity and capital. “I never set out to become a banker,” she says. “What I’ve always loved is understanding complex systems and shaping the most compelling narrative around them. Banking, at its best, is both art and science. You need to move fluently between a company’s P&L and its creative work and tell a story that marries the two.”
That storytelling instinct has since become Chloe’s trademark at Evros Group. She brings the precision of an investment banker and the intuition of a creative director, combining both to craft narratives that make investors lean in. “A lot of banks just repurpose whatever a company uses as their capabilities deck for prospective clients," she says. “But what you sell to your clients isn’t what makes you valuable to a buyer.”
Helping founders uncover that truth is where Chloe’s process shines. “Most founders are too close to the work,” she explains. “They think their strengths are normal, but those small, specific things they take for granted are usually their biggest differentiators. Our job is to find those and build the story around them.”
Her perspective shapes how Evros approaches market positioning across creative and technology sectors. “We spend a lot of time diagnosing what makes a company special before we ever go to market,” she says. We work to find a clear link between what they do great and why they're a great business – connecting those two ideas is where real value is unlocked. Across industries, Chloe has noticed two consistent mistakes sellers make. The first is relying on the wrong materials. “You can’t take a capabilities deck, add financials, and call it a CIM,” she says. “Different audience, different purpose.” The second is overhyping a narrative that doesn’t hold up. “Some firms chase trends or claim every client to be ‘tech-enabled’ because it sounds better. But authenticity always beats buzzwords. The story has to be aspirational, but it also has to be true.”
For Chloe, that’s the lesson that connects every chapter of her career. Whether she’s building an ad campaign or a deal narrative, it all comes down to the same principle: find the most compelling way to tell the truth. “It’s like writing a creative brief,” she says. “Every deal starts with, what’s the story we’re trying to tell, and how do we make it resonate?”
That mindset now shapes how Evros develops materials, runs processes, and partners with founders. “We try to make every piece of the deal feel intentional and alive,” she says. “Forget what a CIM is supposed to look like. What should the CIM for this company look like?”
In her view, the best storytelling doesn’t embellish. It clarifies. “The best story isn’t the loudest one,” Chloe says. “It’s the truest one. And when you tell that story right, the market listens.”
