AlixPartners announced the appointment of John D. Finnerty, Ph.D., as a managing director in the firm's Economics-Consulting Practice. Finnerty, a veteran economics expert with extensive experience in the financial services industry, specializes in valuing businesses, securities and derivative instruments; solvency analysis; and calculating economic damages. He has provided litigation support and expert testimony in a broad range of matters involving securities fraud, solvency, employee raiding, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and commercial disputes. He will be based in New York.
Harvey Kelly, colead of AlixPartners' global Financial Advisory Services unit, said, "AlixPartners is expanding its footprint in economics consulting at a time when the use of economic and quantitative methods has become an increasingly important means by which companies can address the critical business and legal challenges they face, including in complex situations stemming from the securitization of mortgages and other asset-backed products. Dr. Finnerty will be an instrumental part of our growing presence, globally, in the economics space. His credentials and experience are second to none."
Most recently, Finnerty was managing principal at Finnerty Economic Consulting LLC and served as a professor of finance at Fordham University's Graduate School of Business Administration, where he was also founding director of a master's program in quantitative finance. Previously, he was a managing principal at Analysis Group Inc. and a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers' dispute-analysis and investigations-securities litigation practice.
Said Finnerty, "I'm deeply impressed with AlixPartners' unique combination of high-level brainpower and 'roll-up-the-sleeves,' results-oriented work ethic. AlixPartners is already well positioned to serve the needs of companies and litigators who require assistance in connection with the increasingly complex economic issues that arise in litigation, and I look forward to helping the firm continue to enhance its capabilities in those areas, including in the financial-services industry."
Finnerty has authored 15 books on finance, most recently Project Financing: Asset-Based Financial Engineering, Third Edition (Wiley, 2013), and more than 100 articles and professional papers. He is a director of the Financial Management Association, a trustee (and former president) of the Eastern Finance Association and a former president of the Fixed Income Analysts Society. In 2011, he was inducted into the Fixed Income Analysts Society Hall of Fame. He also served as a member of Financial Accounting Standards Board's (FASB) Option Valuation Group in connection with the revision of FAS 123.
Finnerty's doctorate degree is in operations research from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. He also holds master's and bachelor's degrees in economics from the University of Cambridge in England, where he was a Marshall Scholar; and a bachelor's in mathematics from Williams College in Williamstown, Mass.
AlixPartners 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.