The Story of a Firm Forged by Experience and Defined by Action

Real Lives. Real Work. Real Adversity.

Areté was built by people who have been in the room when it matters most. Founders Shawn Hassel and Grant Lyon each came up in environments where hard work had real consequences and accountability wasn’t optional.

Our founders spent decades watching what separates companies that make it through hard moments from those that don’t: leadership.

This worldview now shapes how the firm approaches every engagement, and how its people show up when clients need clarity, steadiness, and judgment they can trust.

The Founders

Built by Operators. Led by Founders.

Shawn Hassel

Co-Founder & Managing Partner · New York

Shawn spent 14 years leading Alvarez & Marsal’s Phoenix restructuring practice and guided its national practice as a member of the firm’s Restructuring Executive Committee. After years of watching highly charged situations lack the steady leadership they needed, he co-founded Areté to bring independent fiduciary services with a strong bias to action and tangible value creation — rooted in a belief that embracing the human element is the only thing that consistently moves the needle.

“What differentiates us is a mindset: scrappy, no excuses, value-oriented. You have to be willing to bet on yourself to belong here.”

Meet Shawn

Grant Lyon

Co-Founder & Managing Partner · New York

Grant brings more than 34 years across corporate restructuring, expert testimony, and corporate governance — with engagements spanning airlines, dairy, industrials, consumer businesses, and a $5 billion hotel and casino recovery for the Government of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. His philosophy is the same in business and in life: people matter. That conviction shapes how he leads every engagement, and how Areté shows up when clients need clarity most.

“Leadership matters, but what matters more is alignment with the people doing the real day-to-day work. Their contributions are the foundation of any organization.”

Meet Grant

Why We Built Areté

Most firms offer advice. Areté offers something different: leadership that stays in the room, owns the outcome, and does the work alongside you.

We built this firm because we believed the market needed fewer reports and more accountability. Fewer recommendations and more people willing to stand behind them. Our founders had spent enough time watching good strategy fail without the right leadership to carry it forward.

That is what Areté was built to be.

How We Choose to Lead

Our philosophy values action over posture, ownership over observation, and decisions grounded in judgment and empathy. Our work isn’t purely analytical. It’s human. The ability to sit with someone in a moment of real uncertainty and help them see clearly through it is central to what we do.

The people closest to the work deserve our utmost respect.

We move quickly, think pragmatically, and align fully with the people we serve. Real value is created only when the work has tangible impact.

Areté hires people with resilience, humility, and the drive to solve without waiting for perfect conditions. At the center of it all is a simple belief: the people closest to the work deserve our utmost respect.