Jennifer Smith Broeckling, MBA, BCI, CMAI

Business Broker / Merger & Acquisition Advisor

Jennifer Smith Broeckling is a rare combination: Finance geek and relational extrovert. It’s a powerful combination for owners and acquirers of lower middle market enterprises and main street businesses who need an experienced and talented advisor handling their transaction and want to feel that they truly connect with the person who is guiding them through the process. She values collaboration rather than command, believing that one can be successful in business AND be a good person to others. Jennifer has a gift for making complex problems easy to comprehend and helping parties on both sides of a transaction arrive at a mutually beneficial solution.

Jennifer spent fifteen years in the financial services industry, working in both the customer-facing and the corporate side of the business. During that time, she turned around a failing financial institution (in six months), handled mergers and acquisitions for bank holding companies, raised capital using debt and equity offerings, took a bank public when it reached 500 shareholders, and improved a national bank’s major branch location from the bottom 10% in the country to the top 10% in only twelve months. She left banking in 2007 as the Chief Financial Officer and Marketing Director for a regional bank in order to start a business consulting firm. This provided an excellent platform to also become a successful business broker / M&A Advisor serving main street businesses and merger and acquisition clients. In short: she gets it. She’s been there and has likely done that in her 30 year career. She is widely known as a problem-solver who considers both the mechanics of a situation and the people who are involved (and are often the value driver in a business.)

Jennifer holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Missouri State University, a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from Southeast Missouri State University and graduate degrees in banking through both Vanderbilt and Louisiana State Universities. She is licensed to sell real estate in Missouri and is a REALTOR® in the state of Illinois. Jennifer holds designations as a Board Certified Intermediary (BCI) and as a Certified Merger and Acquisition Intermediary (CMAI). She has been recognized as a Multi-Million Dollar Producer several times and is a top producing business broker / M&A Advisor in the United States. These degrees, designations, and awards are not just plaques hanging on the wall – they serve as evidence that she not only has the pedigree clients expect but also the experience and expertise to facilitate their transaction – and that her collaborative method works.

Although she works nationwide, Jennifer resides in Cape Girardeau, Missouri with her husband, John, their three kids, and their energetic little dog. In her spare time, you’ll find her cooking, reading, enjoying the performing arts, traveling, and SCUBA diving.

Melanie Smollen

Business Broker

Melanie Smollen grew up in a family of entrepreneurs and knows firsthand the amount of time and hard work required to successfully run and grow a business. She has spent over 15 years working with both businesses and faith-based organizations as a trained coach and consultant and has an extensive background in market research to advise clients on consumer behavior and strategies for growth.

As a business broker, Melanie understands that buying or selling a business is an exciting but complicated process and without the right help and expertise, costly mistakes can be made that dramatically impact the sale or purchase of a business.

She assists buyers and sellers with business sales, business valuation & appraisal, business advising, franchise re-sales, buyer searches, and commercial real estate transactions. She specializes in bringing buyers and sellers together to realize their dream of business ownership or retirement. Her top priority is helping them successfully navigate the complex process of buying or selling a business so that they get to the closing table successfully.

Outside of work, Melanie decompresses by cooking and spending time with family and friends. She is a “blackbelt extrovert” that likes to feed people. She loves backpacking and has trekked over 200 miles on the Colorado trail. She grew up in a northern Michigan town called Traverse City and relocated to Cape Girardeau, MO, in 2007. Melanie is married to Paul, who serves on staff at their church, and together they have four kids, two dogs, and a cat.

Kate Roth

Project Manager

Kate Roth joined Murphy Business of Cape as a college freshman. As our project manager, she makes the office tick. She loves that our work changes people’s lives. It is always exciting to help a seasoned business owner step into a healthily funded retirement or help an individual achieve their dream of business ownership. She has been supporting our clients for the past 10 years both behind the scenes and facilitating meetings between buyers and sellers.

Kate serves on the Foundation Board for the Missouri Chapter of Future Business Leaders of America – Phi Beta Lambda (FBLA-PBL). In her free time you can find her searching for deals at auctions with her husband, baking, and running around after their young children.