Chris Mellen is a senior managing director with VRC, leading its Boston office and serving as its national practice leader in gift and estate valuation. He specializes in the valuation of closely held businesses, professional practices, and intangible assets. His experience includes involvement in nearly 4,000 valuations since 1989 across a wide range of industries providing valuation services in support of tax planning and compliance, strategic planning, financing, mergers and acquisitions, fairness opinions, post-acquisition purchase price allocation, financial reporting, estate planning, exit planning, buy-sell agreements, marital dissolution, shareholder disputes, and appraisal review. In addition, Mr. Mellen helps support the global valuation services of VRC’s affiliate network, Valuation Research Group (VRG), serving on both its Advisory Committee and its Litigation Services Committee. Prior to joining VRC, he was President and founder of Delphi Valuation Advisors, Inc. for 15 years. Prior to that, he held senior level positions in the valuation departments of two major accounting firms – as a Principal and practice leader of the Valuation Services Group within Tofias, P.C. (now CBIZ) for five years; and as a Director of Valuation Services in KPMG’s Boston office for four years prior to that. Mr. Mellen holds six professional designations - accredited senior appraiser (ASA), master certified business appraiser (MCBA), certified valuation analyst (CVA), international certified valuation specialist (ICVS), accredited in business appraisal review (ABAR), and certified merger & acquisition advisor (CM&AA). In addition, he holds a Bachelor of Arts degree, with concentrations in industrial relations and economics, from McGill University, and a Master of Business Administration degree, with a concentration in finance, from Babson College. Mr. Mellen is a frequent presenter on valuation issues and has been an active business valuation instructor worldwide for over 20 years. He is currently an instructor and on the education committee of the International Institute of Business Valuers (iiBV) that leads the business valuation profession globally by providing educational opportunities, promoting consistent professional ethics and standards, and exchange of information and ideas. Mr. Mellen has published over 40 articles on valuation-related matters, led over 100 seminars, and provided expert testimony in court. Finally, he is author of the third edition of the 480-page textbook – Valuation for M&A: Building and Measuring Private Company Value – published in 2018 by Wiley, translated into Mandarin Chinese, and used in the CM&AA and CBEC certification training programs.