William Foster

William Foster brings four decades of industrial manufacturing experience to investment analysis, having worked as a plant manager, operations consultant, and manufacturing executive before analyzing industrial companies. His career began on factory floors at General Electric before he earned his MBA from Michigan Ross and joined McKinsey's operations practice. William spent years helping manufacturers improve efficiency through lean production, Six Sigma, and advanced manufacturing technologies. He eventually joined industrial equity research, where his deep operational knowledge distinguishes him from analysts who've never set foot in a factory. William excels at evaluating capital equipment manufacturers, industrial distributors, automation companies, and the complex supply chains serving global manufacturing. He understands order patterns, capacity utilization, manufacturing margins, and the cyclical dynamics of capital spending. William was prescient about how reshoring trends would benefit North American manufacturers and early to recognize automation's acceleration. His analysis examines competitive positioning, technological differentiation, and whether companies can maintain pricing power through economic cycles. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, William remains connected to America's industrial heartland while analyzing companies serving global manufacturing.