Brian Kushner is a senior managing director in the FTI Consulting Corporate Finance/Restructuring practice and is based in Dallas. Dr. Kushner is an experienced business leader and turnaround professional with more than 25 years of experience in operating, restructuring and managing businesses. In addition to his role at the firm, Dr. Kushner also serves as chairman of the Innovative Companies, where his team is modernizing the telephone, cable and wireless companies in the USVI, British Virgin Islands and St. Martin; as president, director and chief executive officer (CEO) of Sage Telecom, a competitive local exchange carrier based in Richardson, Texas; and as managing member of a defense contractor.
Experience
Dr. Kushner joined FTI Consulting through the acquisition of CXO, a boutique interim and turnaround management firm specializing in turnarounds, advisory, mergers and acquisitions, operational due diligence, and financial and operational restructuring for technology, telecom, cable, manufacturing, semiconductor and media companies.
Over the last decade, Dr. Kushner and his partners from CXO have bought or sold 20 companies and have served as the CEO, chief restructuring officer or other C-level interim managers at over 25 different companies, including companies in the cable, media, online retail, defense systems, wine, telecom, auto parts, data centers, software and systems integration, electronics, semiconductors, apartment/renter services industries and on multiple confidential assignments.
Dr. Kushner also has experience advising company management, boards of directors, lenders and other stakeholders on business improvement and EBITDA enhancement in these industries, as well as gaming, newspapers, energy and others. He is currently leading a large supply chain management optimization engagement for the merger of two multibillion dollar organizations. Dr. Kushner has also been a testifying expert in over a dozen large matters relating to all aspects of technology and telecom.
Earlier in his career, Dr. Kushner worked for BDM International, a defense and systems integration firm, rising to chief scientist, chief implementation officer and vice president of Systems and Advanced Technology with responsibility for troubled projects, certain classified programs and most of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) related business. Sample project turnarounds include airbag manufacturing systems; semiconductor fabrication; restricted airspace management systems; public subway systems; transmission manufacturing; satellite fabrication; re-entry and launch vehicles; customer care systems and outreach; software development and a number of classified programs. Upon Ford Motor’s acquisition of BDM, Dr. Kushner served as a vice president for Ford until the Carlyle Group’s leveraged buyout of BDM two years later.
Dr. Kushner was the 1997 recipient of KPMG’s Information, Communications, and Entertainment Entrepreneur of the Year award in Austin for Industry Leadership in Entrepreneurial Companies of less than 200 Employees. He has testified before the U.S. House and Senate Committees, the National Research Council and the U.S. Competitiveness Council on issues, such as internet security and computer recycling.