South Oak Leadership

Ben Moody

Founder and Managing Partner

Ben is obsessed with building lasting and valuable companies. He made his first private equity investment in 2010, at the age of 24 years old and has been hooked ever since.

Growing up he has been a constant student of business. Ben has been blessed to learn from world class leaders and investors, who have kindled this fire in him. He chooses daily to grow that fire through hands-on doing and studying the excellence of others. He is driven by the responsibility to be the best partner to those who want to build wealth through lasting and valuable companies. He is motivated in working with others to accomplish what is necessary in the present while aggressively building towards the ideal. He receives tremendous joy when working with complimentary skilled and purposefully driven partners. He attributes a lot of his success in building lasting and valuable companies to being rooted in purposeful partnerships.

When he is not working with his business partners he can be found spending quality time with his family and friends. He is blessed to have an amazing wife and 4 amazing kids and is always trying to find opportunities to pursue his other passions for the outdoors, and honing his culinary skills.

Kevin Moody

Advisory Partner

Kevin is an integral part of South Oak Capital Partners, providing valuable advisory services and serving as a strategic sounding board for the managing partner.

He currently serves as the President and CEO of The Moody Company, a privately held holding company with interests in newspapers, restaurants, real estate, oil and gas, and private equity investments. He has stewarded the family corporation for his 8 siblings since 1986 as the sole family member to work in the business. In 2014 he was the recipient of the Civic Cup and has sponsored many investment opportunities that have proven to help others build wealth through lasting and valuable companies.

Moody has served as a member on the board of directors for The Moody Company, Financial Corporation of Louisiana, America’s Pizza Company, Senderra Rx, Professional Rental Tools, The Community Foundation of Acadiana, The University of Louisiana at Lafayette Foundation, Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center and Crossroads Catholic Bookstore, to name a few.

Kevin grew up in Crowley and has been a resident of Lafayette for over 40 years. He is also a founding member of Moody, Moreno & Rucks, a privately held investment company. Moody graduated from the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1980 with an accounting degree and received his M.B.A. from Vanderbilt University in 1982. He is married to the former Tracy Chappuis of Rayne. Together, they have six children and 13 grandchildren.

Andrew Richard

Partner

Andrew Richard serves as a Partner at South Oak Capital Partners.  

Before joining South Oak Mr. Richard served as Chief Executive Officer at Access Health, a new start urgent care company operating in Texas. He helped to start the company and grew five clinics in less than 12 months. Prior to joining Access Health Mr. Richard was the President and Chief Financial Officer for SouthStar Urgent Care, a private equity backed urgent care platform with locations throughout the state of Louisiana. During his time at SouthStar he oversaw the growth of clinics from 11 when joining to 29 before merging the company with Nova Health. Mr. Richard successfully turned around the revenue cycle operations resulting in increased collections and operational efficiencies.

Before joining SouthStar Mr. Richard served as Managing Director of Consulting Services for The Picard Group, a State and Federal Governmental Affairs and Business Consulting Group. While at The Picard Group Mr. Richard developed an extensive client base for both consulting and lobbying ranging from small startups to Fortune 500 Companies. He assisted clients across a broad spectrum of industries from Academic to Non-Profit and Oil and Gas to Healthcare.

Prior to joining The Picard Group, Mr. Richard served as Vice President of Finance at Schumacher Clinical Partners, the nation’s third largest Emergency Physician management company that operates in 32 states and treats more than 8 million patients a year. In this capacity Mr. Richard oversaw all aspects of financial planning and management for the company including creating and managing an annual budget in excess of $1.5 billion in revenue. In addition to this Mr. Richard led all corporate development, new business Pro Forma development, and analytics for the company. Mr. Richard led the company through the evaluation of more than 40 companies leading to the successful acquisition of 4 companies that added in excess of $600 million of revenue and generated more than $65 million in EBITDA

Before his time at Schumacher Clinical Partners Mr. Richard served as a Director in Constellation Energy’s commodity trading office in Houston, Texas. Mr. Richard was in the groups risk management division and oversaw reporting and risk analytics as well as long term structured transaction reviews. Mr. Richard also served as lead from risk management in the divestiture of the trading operations to Macquarie Group, an Australian investment bank.

Clayton George

Operating Partner