Most business owners will never sell their companies on their own terms. According to exit planning research, 80% of business exits are forced by circumstances outside the owner’s control, whether through illness, financial distress, partnership breakdown, or death. For Joshua Kirshbaum, that statistic is not an abstraction. It is the problem his entire career has been building toward solving.

Kirshbaum is the co-founder of Impact Ventures International, a consulting firm that helps business owners scale, automate operations, and plan exits. Founded alongside business partner Kelly Grandmaison, IVI draws on Kirshbaum’s 15 years of experience across some of the most operationally complex environments in the world, including the United Nations, where he oversaw more than 100 civil society contracts and led diplomatic initiatives on economic development and conflict resolution.

A Career Built Across Borders

Before IVI, Kirshbaum’s professional path ran through sectors that most consultants never encounter. As the youngest-ever Executive Director of Nonviolence International, he managed international disarmament and social justice projects across multiple regions. He raised over $20 million for humanitarian causes, developed 33 educational programs that reached communities across the globe, and chaired the LifeLong Learning Foundation, which established 30 community centers throughout Latin America.

That work gave him something most business consultants lack: direct experience building systems that had to function regardless of who was running them. In conflict zones and post-crisis communities, personnel changed without warning, and resources fluctuated unpredictably. 

The programs Kirshbaum built had to hold together anyway. “Working inside the UN taught me that the strongest systems are the ones that don’t depend on any single person to keep running,” he mentions. “That principle applies just as directly to a mid-sized business in Ohio as it does to a development program in Latin America.“

His private sector work ran parallel to his humanitarian career. By 22, he had already built, scaled, and exited two multimillion-dollar companies. He went on to consult for FIFA, Coca-Cola, and TEDx, while also producing over 500 films, media campaigns, and large-scale marketing initiatives for businesses and social movements worldwide.

What IVI Actually Does

The firm’s flagship program, VentureMax360, is a scaling framework that combines AI-driven analytics with hands-on consulting to help businesses reduce owner dependency and increase enterprise value. Clients who engage the program work through a structured process of operational restructuring, financial planning, and the implementation of automated systems, with the goal of building a company that performs consistently whether or not the founder is present.

Running alongside VM360 is IVI’s CEPA program, which applies Certified Exit Planning Advisor methodology to prepare business owners for high-value transitions well before a sale becomes necessary. The premise is deliberate. A business structured for an eventual exit is stronger at every stage before that exit. 

“Most owners start thinking about their exit when they’re already exhausted or already forced into it,” Kirshbaum adds. “By that point, they’ve left most of the value on the table. We come in years earlier, so they actually have a choice.“

The third component, the IVSS Digital Office, provides the operational infrastructure to support both programs. An integrated CRM and automation platform, it is built to keep businesses running through leadership transitions, ownership changes, and periods of rapid growth, removing the bottlenecks that typically make businesses owner-dependent in the first place.

Purpose Built Into the Model

IVI’s structure reflects a broader argument Kirshbaum has carried across his career, that financial performance and social responsibility are not competing objectives. The firm has committed to donating over $1 million annually to nonprofit causes within three years of founding. Its foundation has already housed nearly 60 people displaced by the Los Angeles wildfires, supported more than two dozen nonprofits in developing sustainable operating models, and connected over 40,000 individuals with resources to start their own businesses.

That commitment shapes how IVI measures its own progress. Revenue and client volume matter, but Kirshbaum is explicit that they are not the only metrics the firm tracks. “The question we ask ourselves is whether the people we worked with are genuinely better positioned than they were before,” he mentions. “If the answer is yes across the board, the business results follow.“

IVI currently serves clients across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Latin America, with active expansion into emerging markets where demand for structured exit planning and AI-driven business optimization is accelerating. The firm projects doubling in size within the next 12 months, driven by growing awareness of its VM360 and CEPA programs among business owners approaching ownership transitions.