About
An investor and operating executive who has spent more than two decades building, leading and buying businesses in insurance and financial services.
Founder & CEO
Ryan Addis founded Oak Stream Partners in 2013 to acquire, invest in and grow lower-middle-market companies alongside capital partners. Since then he has sourced more than 2,000 acquisition opportunities and has repeatedly stepped into operating roles at the companies he backs.
He was Chairman and CEO of SCJ Insurance Services, a national P&C and auto MGA writing more than $150 million of premium through more than 2,100 independent brokers, where EBITDA margins rose from 24% to 39% in 18 months. As President and COO of DeepFuse.com, a 45-state insuretech agency, he helped double revenue in a year. He has also placed reinsurance and served as an operating partner at a lower-middle-market private equity firm.
Earlier, he co-founded a wholesale mortgage business that reached $1.2 billion of annual origination volume across 26 states before a 2005 liquidity event, and led strategic planning for a $1.6 billion P&L division at Bank of America (Countrywide) through the financial crisis. He began his career at AIG.
Ryan holds an MBA from Pepperdine University’s Graziadio Business School.
Philosophy
Ryan’s approach pairs rigorous financial discipline with genuine team building and transparent governance. He advises leadership teams on value-creation plans, KPIs, coaching, succession and exit readiness, and he believes strategy, at its simplest, is allocating resources: how do you play your hand with the cards you’re dealt?
He favors brutally honest analysis over assumption, strategies distilled to a few key themes, and plans built with the people who will carry them out. Before making a decision, he tests it with tools like inversion: rather than asking how to make a plan succeed, ask what would make it fail.
For years he wrote about these ideas on his blog, Poor Richard’s Junto, a forum on management, leadership and entrepreneurship modeled on Benjamin Franklin’s Junto, his club for mutual improvement.
“Talent is the one thing you can leverage in abundance without undue risk.”Ryan Addis, “How to Interview,” Poor Richard’s Junto
Career
2013–present
Private investment firm focused on lower-middle-market acquisitions. Sourced more than 2,000 opportunities and led or supported transactions and operating mandates in insurance and financial services.
2021–2022
Lower-middle-market private equity. Sourced 50+ deals, wrote the firm’s Fund IV investor presentation, delivered a keynote and designed its internship program.
2019–2020
45-state auto and home insuretech agency with $175M+ in-force premium; revenue doubled and EBITDA grew fivefold within 12 months.
2017–2019
Placed a $30M quota-share reinsurance program for a $45M-premium auto MGA.
2015–2016
National P&C and auto MGA with $150M+ in premium through 2,100+ independent brokers.
2009–2010
Co-founded a business club and CSQ, a business magazine.
2007–2008
Strategic planning for a $1.6B P&L wholesale division serving 36,000 brokers through the financial crisis; identified a 10% bottom-line improvement.
2006–2007
Led the business association as executive director.
2002–2005
$1.2B in annual origination volume across 26 states; liquidity event in 2005.
2000–2002
Began his career in insurance.
Recognition & teaching
Education
Graziadio Business School
How we’re structured
Oak Stream Partners is a private investment firm that invests deal by deal alongside its capital partners rather than from a committed fund, a structure often called an independent sponsor model.
Capital partners
Oak Stream invests alongside two tiers of capital partners: search fund investors for smaller companies and private equity firms for larger ones.
Company EBITDA, approximate. Where the ranges overlap, around $3–5M, either type of capital can fit, and some deals may draw on both.
Tier 1 · Search fund investors
~$1–5M EBITDA
For lower-middle-market companies, we invest alongside an established network of search fund investors and operators: founders and executives behind companies such as Asurion and Oracle, and funds dedicated to the search fund model.
Meet the investor networkTier 2 · Private equity firms
~$3–15M EBITDA
For larger companies, we invest alongside institutional private equity firms, which gives us the capacity for larger transactions and follow-on acquisitions.
How our capital worksInternship program
Students from schools including Pepperdine, Stanford, USC, Cal Lutheran, UC Berkeley and Northeastern.
About the programIntermediaries
A straightforward, reliable counterparty for your clients, with buy-side fees for unrepresented referrals.
For intermediariesConfidential conversation
Read through our background and our investors’ to get a sense of who we are. Then call. We would welcome the conversation.