Derick Prelle is a Partner and the Chief Transformation Officer at Butterfly. In this role, Mr. Prelle is responsible for supporting Butterfly portfolio company management teams in the identification, design and delivery of long-term value creation. Mr. Prelle has over twenty years of operational improvement experience, collaborating with dozens of companies to deliver accelerated bottom line improvement and attractive returns to stakeholders.
Prior to joining Butterfly, Mr. Prelle was the Managing Partner, Americas for KKR’s operations team, KKR Capstone, overseeing a portfolio encompassing over $150 billion in revenue and over 700,000 employees. In this role, Mr. Prelle had responsibility for portfolio company operations work across all of KKR America’s industry groups, with personal oversight of the Consumer, Food & Retail sectors. Additionally, he managed KKR Capstone’s functional groups, deploying into the portfolio experts in Risk Management, Insurance, Technology, Procurement and Supply Chain.
In addition to his KKR Capstone leadership role, Mr. Prelle individually led “on the ground” performance improvement work in partnership with dozens of management teams, specializing within KKR’s Consumer, Food & Retail portfolio. During his tenure, he supported efforts at, among others, Dollar General, US Foods, TASC, Inc., Big Heart Pet Brands / Del Monte Foods, Capsugel, Alliance Tire, Mitchell International, National Vision, Channel Control Merchants and Fleet Farm. Within these companies, he drove results across all functions, impacting top line growth, cost/productivity gains and capital productivity improvements. In addition to portfolio company work, Mr. Prelle has managed dozens of Consumer, Food and Retail due diligence efforts, supporting deal teams in evaluating and underwriting operational improvement theses.
Mr. Prelle has also held significant corporate operating roles, augmenting his KKR private equity operations experience with real-world perspectives on driving transformational change. Most recently Mr. Prelle was the President and CEO of KKR portfolio company Fleet Farm, an 8,000+ employee Midwestern specialty retailer comprised of an omni-channel retail business, fuel/C-store operations and an auto repair business. During his tenure at Fleet Farm, Mr. Prelle led a significant operational overhaul including a complete redesign of the supply chain, COGS improvement initiatives, a new in-store service model, a brand refresh, a relaunch of the eCommerce business and a major investment in new store growth.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Prelle was an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he was a member of the firm’s Consumer/Retail practice. His clients included retailers, consumer packaged goods firms, food distribution companies and non-profits. Mr. Prelle has a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University and an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago. At the University of Chicago, he was the recipient of the Bain Scholarship, recognizing that year’s most outstanding student in Corporate Strategy.
