Andrew Dyrhood is the founder of Bend Advisors, the nation’s first board-governed executive coaching, advising, and resourcing firm. Bend works across the full arc of ownership, from startup founders to fourth-generation dynastic family businesses. Much of Andrew’s work lives in the hardest parts of that journey: succession, next-generation transitions, and the silence that so often surrounds family enterprise. He built the Bend way, a six-conversation framework that helps owners organize the complexity of passing something on rather than pretending it’s simple.

Bend also celebrates the people doing this work well. Its board collectively selects the recipients of two recognition programs, the Bend Formation Award for entrepreneurs and the Bend Landmark Award for family enterprise, who are featured in the Bend Quarterly, a no-ads print newspaper distributed to 1,000 subscribers once a quarter.
 
His path to advising ran through professional wakeboarding, a stint in vocational ministry, and a career as a geologist in his in-laws’ private equity energy business, where he learned to help leaders make high-stakes decisions without perfect information. That experience inside a family enterprise shaped the love he has for the work he does today. He also serves on the board of WayForward, which helps people connect with God through wilderness adventure trips.
 
Andrew and his wife Brynne have been married 14 years and have three daughters, Gray, Ellis, and Miller. Based in Fayetteville, Arkansas, he’s a beekeeper and mountain biker who hunts trout in his spare time. 

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