HighView Media Execs Join FTI Consulting

LOS ANGELES: Business advisory board FTI Consulting is beefing up its media and entertainment group, bringing aboard several execs from HighView Media (HVM).

Co-leading the division will be Philip Schuman, HVM’s co-founder. Schuman joins the firm as senior managing director, where he will work with co-leader Luke Schaeffer and evaluation experts Roy Salter and Eric Briggs. Other senior HVM executives joining FTI Consulting include Cindy Wang and Daniel Punt, who both join the firm as managing directors. Additionally, Alexander Trauttmansdorff and Fabrice de Sez of HVM’s European unit will become affiliated with FTI Consulting to provide media and entertainment expertise in that region.

“FTI Consulting is an ideal platform for the HVM team to join as the industry pushes closer to a tipping point because of new technologies, consolidation and globalization,” said Schuman. “By combining HVM’s sector expertise, business development and strategic assessment capabilities with FTI Consulting’s global reach, leading media and entertainment valuation and financial advisory services, we believe our combined group will create its own special alchemy. Together, our knowledge base, experience and contacts will give us the ability to anticipate and implement strategic and operational responses that will position media and entertainment companies for the transformative changes that confront the industry today and will confront it tomorrow.”

Carlyn Taylor, the head of FTI Consulting’s TMT practice, added: “Phil and the HVM team give us added depth and another key point of entry into media and entertainment companies, especially at a time when both sectors face not only intense day-to-day strategic, competitive and operational challenges, but potentially disruptive technological changes as well. With the HVM team and our already strong existing services, we have created a leading large-scale media and entertainment group designed to assess, recommend and execute the actions needed for our clients to prosper amid transformative changes facing their industries.”