Cedar Wave Holdings

About Us

Cedar Wave Holdings is an entity designed to steward active and passive business interests, strategic advisory work, and other pursuits as a reflection of living a fully integrated life.

Over the span of a 20+ year career, Jon Kuhlman has experienced tangible success. But the real reward was learning how to value what matters most in the midst of it — how to steward faith, family, and friendships — and leading others to do the same. Alongside his wife Liz, Jon has spent countless hours wrestling through the tensions of growth, scale, and achievement, while staying rooted in what is true, what endures, and discovering more about himself along the way. The journey is still ongoing.

Through Cedar Wave Holdings, Jon continues to pursue his passions spanning across business development, leadership formation, culture shaping, and community building, while sharing his vision of living a life with purpose and intention.

Background

Jonathan (Jon) Kuhlman is the President and Founder of Cedar Wave Holdings. For over two decades, Jon has been building, leading, and navigating the decisions that shape organizations and the people inside them. His career has taken him from the financial sector to one of the country's most recognized consumer brands, but the through-line has always been the same: seeking to live a fully integrated, fruitful life while helping others do the same.

Jon joined Simple Modern in 2016 as part of the founding team. Over a 10 year period, he helped build the company from startup to nearly $200 million in revenue — fully bootstrapped — becoming one of the world's leading drinkware brands. Jon built the B2B Custom business from the ground up, until he led the human capital efforts in his role as Chief Culture Officer. During this transformative 5-year stretch, the company achieved +200% growth in both headcount and revenue, becoming widely recognized for its values-based culture and out-of-the-box approach.

When the business reached a new level of maturity in late 2025, Jon stepped out of the role and took a three-month sabbatical to rest and reflect. That time was life changing for him and his family, giving him fresh perspective, and led to his decision to exit the day to day operations of Simple Modern in order to build something new.

Prior to Simple Modern, Jon spent years in the financial sector, most notably at RiskMetrics Group, a leader in risk management software for the investment community. During his time there he experienced the full business lifecycle: VC funding, IPO, and eventual acquisition by MSCI for $1.6 billion. Those years were instrumental in learning how companies evolve, and what it takes to scale with integrity.

Jon lives in the Oklahoma City area with his wife and two kids. You can find him on a run, fishing, or somewhere outdoors, cheering on the Sooners and OKC Thunder, writing, building community from his front porch, and thinking about how to experience more deeply the friendship and love of Jesus.

Divisions

Cedar Wave Advisory

Cedar Wave Advisory serves the modern executive in pursuit of fully integrated leadership — the kind of leader who seeks to shrink the gap between who they are and how they lead, who builds culture with intention, and who refuses to let the demands of leadership come at the expense of faith, family, or the people around them.

The work is personal and confidential. It takes two primary forms: advisory for the organization — culture, hiring, leadership dynamics, and key decisions — and advisory for the individual, focused on formation, sustainable rhythms, and navigating the isolation that often accompanies high-level leadership. Engagements are limited by design, with a small client list maintained to protect the depth of each relationship.

For more information on Cedar Wave Advisory, click here.

Cedar Wave Capital

Cedar Wave Capital is the investment arm of Cedar Wave Holdings. Currently within the portfolio are both active and passive business investments spanning everything from consumer products, to real estate, to oil and gas interests, among others. We are actively exploring new investments that align with our mission and purpose.

If you are a business owner or representative seeking capital, and you think your opportunity aligns, we'd welcome the conversation.

Schedule a Call →

The Name

For Jon, cedar represents his Lebanese heritage. Lebanon — a beautiful country marked by both resilience and hardship — is known for its ancient cedar trees, long revered for their strength, durability, and beauty. In Scripture, they appear as symbols of righteousness and abundance.

Wave comes from Liz's story. Liz spent her childhood summers at her grandparents' beach house in New Jersey — a place that helped shape her sense of identity and purpose. It gave her a deep love for the ocean — the surfing, the sand, and even the power of the water.

Like most stories, theirs carries amazing joy, abundance, deep pain, and regular challenges. Individually and together, those experiences have shaped who they are, and continue to do so.

While they each have their own professional paths, Jon and Liz are learning to embrace vocation as something that flows from their marriage. Cedar Wave Holdings is a reflection of that pursuit — a desire to live and build with intentionality, woven together, and marked by the strength, beauty, joy, and adventure that are on display in the cedars and the waves.

CEDAR WAVE HOLDINGS