The Next Chapter: A New Home for an Industry Veteran
Fashion Mannuscript
April 4, 2012
Abby Parsonnet
Managing Director
Fashion Mannuscript asked Harriet Greenberg, certified public accountant and partner at Friedman LLP, one of the preeminent accounting firms in the fashion industry, to interview Abby Parsonnet, formerly regional manager and head of the Textile, Apparel and Jewelry group at JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., about her move to the Corporate Finance/Restructuring practice at FTI Consulting and her view on the current challenges facing the apparel industry.
In banking… you’re on the outside looking in.
Through my banking career, I was fortunate to have had many different roles and responsibilities. The majority of my career was focused on delivering financial solutions to clients in the textile, apparel and related industries to whom we provided working capital financing and trade finance and financed various capital transactions. I also was involved in restructuring, both as a special credits officer in JPMorgan Chase’s Investment Bank and as the national head of Remediations for Chase Business Credit.
As I concluded the remediations assignment in mid-2011, rather than look for my next opportunity in the bank, I focused on ways in which I could continue to use my skills to help borrowers facing liquidity issues or other performance challenges, as well as assist lenders faced with a borrower going through some level of financial distress. Consulting was the logical progression in a finance career that had been dedicated to client service with a strong analytic bent.