AlixPartners announced that David Garfield and Rob Hornby have been appointed to serve as Co-Chief Executive Officers, effective February 1, 2025. The new Co-Chief Executives, both of whom are currently in senior leadership roles at AlixPartners, were selected following an extensive process, which considered a range of internal and external candidates.
David and Rob succeed Simon Freakley, who has served as Chief Executive Officer since 2015. Simon has become the Executive Chairman of AlixPartners.
Under Simon’s leadership, AlixPartners has grown significantly in size and market recognition. The firm advises many global large corporate, private equity and law firm clients and is recognized as a leader in corporate transformations and high impact consulting.
Commenting on the forthcoming leadership changes, Simon Freakley, Executive Chairman, said: “As proud as I am of our firm’s achievements over the past nine years, I am equally energized about what lies ahead. As our clients regularly tell us, AlixPartners is uniquely qualified to help them capitalize on the opportunities and mitigate the challenges, arising from an increasingly disrupted business environment. I am delighted that David and Rob have taken on this role and I look forward to working with them as they lead the firm to even greater success."
David Garfield, incoming Co-Chief Executive, added: “It’s an immense privilege to have been selected to lead our firm. AlixPartners is a special business, made up of brilliant people, who come together to deliver outstanding outcomes for our clients. Our firm’s success has always been built on combining respect, expertise and trust in everything that we do in pursuit of the best possible outcomes for our clients, and this is exactly how Rob and I will work together as we take on our new role.”
Rob Hornby, incoming Co-Chief Executive commented: “David and I are inheriting an incredible platform for growth and innovation at an exciting time for both our firm and the industry we are a part of. It’s a sector in which we know we already stand out, but there is even more opportunity to do so ahead of us as we blend technological precision with best-in-class human insight. I’m very excited about what the next leg of the AlixPartners journey looks like and am honored to have been chosen to play my part in leading it.”
David Garfield is a proven executive and business leader with a consistent track record of driving profitable growth and shareholder value. He is recognized for his strengths in building strategic relationships with key clients, based on deep trust and memorable results. He has worked across all of AlixPartners’s client constituencies – corporate clients, private equity, and referral channels.
At AlixPartners, Garfield has held a range of senior leadership positions. Most recently, he served as the firm’s Global Head of Industries, responsible for all the firm’s commercial activity by sector, where the firm has grown both revenues and profitability significantly. Prior to this role, David served as the Leader of the Americas and Asia Regions.
Prior to AlixPartners, Garfield served as a Global Relationship Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Co-President and a Member of the Board of Directors of Encore Corporation.
Garfield has been cited by "CEO" magazine as a leading investment thinker, has won the Turnaround Management Association’s Annual Turnaround of the Year Award, and has been published in the Harvard Business Review on a range of topics. He is a frequent commentator in leading business media, and a sought-after keynote speaker and moderator at C-Suite focused events.
Garfield holds a bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, with a major in Psychology from Williams College, and a master’s degree in management from the Kellogg Graduate School at Northwestern University.
Outside of life at AlixPartners David sits on the Board of Directors of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and has served as a guest lecturer at his alma-mater of Kellogg in support of their Executive MBA program. He is based in the AlixPartners Chicago Office.
Rob Hornby is a career technologist who is passionate about leveraging the practical benefits of digital innovation to drive commercial success and enterprise value.
A veteran of start-ups, large corporate environments and consulting organizations, Rob has deep and multi-faceted expertise in delivering digital transformations across numerous sectors gained as both a senior executive and a hands-on external advisor.
Hornby began his AlixPartners career in 2011, returning to consulting after several years in industry with Sky and Old Mutual (now Quilter Plc), which was preceded by seven years at Andersen Business Consulting.
In his AlixPartners career to date, Hornby has held several senior leadership positions, including head of the firm’s Digital practice and, over the past four years, EMEA Regional Leader, during which time he oversaw a doubling of the region’s revenues.
With bachelor’s and master’s degrees in management & computer science plus a postgraduate diploma in humanities, Hornby is regularly sought out for his views as a “Technologist Philosopher”. He has a particular interest in the intersection between AI and society and the opportunities and threats it presents, a subject on which he has been regularly published and asked to speak.
Away from AlixPartners Hornby was announced in December 2024 as Honorary Professorial Fellow of Digital Technologies by his alma-mater, Aston University, Birmingham. He is based in the AlixPartners London Office.