ACEC National competitors

Tom Johnson is Chief Executive Officer of Abernathy MacGregor and head of its Mergers and Acquisitions practice. He works with companies across multiple sectors on a wide variety of topics, and has a particular expertise with M&A, private equity and closely held companies. His client experience includes work with a number of Fortune 100 companies and several of the world’s largest and best-known private companies on a wide variety of corporate communication and investor relations challenges, including reputation management, executive changes, activist investor preparedness and crisis response plans. His M&A expertise covers the full range of high-profile takeovers, cross-border acquisitions, contested merger situations and proxy contests. He is also an expert in media strategy, having spent more than a decade as a financial journalist prior to joining Abernathy. Mr. Johnson’s recent M&A advisory work includes working with Anthem on its acquisition of Cigna, Exor on its acquisition of PartnerRe, Coty on its acquisition of P&G’s beauty business, Office Depot on its merger with Staples, Sprint on its merger with Softbank and acquisition of Clearwire and Joh A. Benckiser on its acquisition of Peet’s Coffee & Tea and D.E. Master Blenders. Other transaction clients include Sanofi, Hewlett Packard, Alcatel SA, Carlyle Group, Blackstone Group and Starwood Capital. His proxy contest and activist defense experience includes advising CVR Energy, Office Depot, QEP Resources, Hewlett Packard, Sovereign Bancorp and Yahoo!. Prior to Abernathy MacGregor, Mr. Johnson was editor-in-charge of Investment Banking and Finance for Reuters, where he also ran the M&A and IPO desks. Earlier, he worked at CNN Financial News and at The Daily Record newspaper in Baltimore. He serves on the Board of Volunteers of America’s Greater New York Chapter.

Robert Ivy (FAIA) is the Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) since 2011.

Quentin Messer is a Board Member at International Economic Development and Chief Executive Officer at Michigan Economic Development Corporation and is based in New Orleans, Louisiana. He works or has worked as Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for Children at Capital Area CASA. Quentin L attended Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Columbia University Center for Law & Economics.