AlixPartners announced that Dennis Cassidy has joined as a managing director and co-lead of the firm's Energy Practice. Cassidy, who has more than 20 years of industry and consulting experience leading strategy-based transformation, growth and profit-improvement programs for global oil, gas and chemicals companies, started his career with ExxonMobil Corp. and was most recently a vice president in the global oil, gas and chemicals practice at Booz & Co. He is based in Texas.

Said Fred Crawford, CEO of AlixPartners: "It's no secret that the entire energy industry is facing unprecedented challenges today, from scaling up to deal with new natural-gas discoveries on the one hand to coping with low energy prices and high overcapacities on the other. AlixPartners is a firm well-versed in helping companies, owners and other stakeholders deal with big change, including in the energy sector, where we've worked for years. Dennis's deep background and experience in the industry makes our offering all the more attractive to energy players who want to wind up as winners in the future."

Cassidy's areas of expertise include business transformation and performance improvement through portfolio optimization, supply-chain optimization and due diligence, as well as post-merger integration, cost reduction and growth strategies. His past work has included:

• For a global speciality-chemicals company, leading efforts to transform a major business unit, repositioning it for growth and a $300 million improvement in EBIT within 18 months;
• For a global "supermajor" oil-and-gas company,  leading multiple engagements to define unconventional-resource (heavy oil, shale, etc.) strategies and to stress-test current assumptions, while simultaneously assisting with the due diligence and business case for the acquisition of a large, undeveloped reserve base;
• For a large oilfield-services company, leading a team responsible for the creation of the company's strategy, which included both short-term tactical objectives and medium-term alternatives such as growth-expansion plans, capital-investment strategies, and mergers and acquisitions, and the refining of core competencies in operations and the supply chain; and
• For a global specialty-chemicals company, leading a corporate-restructuring engagement to transform its natural-gas business units and dramatically reduce SG &A costs, while positioning the company for above-market growth.

Said Cassidy:  "I'm excited to join the AlixPartners team, as the firm has a wealth of talent globally across the energy-industry value chain.  I look forward to further leveraging the skills and experience of our group, and of AlixPartners' distinctive 'senior-teams' approach to serve clients in the energy sector with some of their most challenging and exciting opportunities."

AlixPartners, LLP is a global business-advisory firm offering comprehensive services in four major areas: enterprise improvement, turnaround and restructuring, financial advisory services and information management services.