Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips, the investment bank focused on the media, marketing, information, and technology industries, is pleased to announce that John French has joined the firm as Senior Advisor. John was one of the B2B media industry’s most prominent and successful CEOs. He was President of PRIMEDIA’s B2B division when it was sold to Wasserstein & Co., and remained in that role when the company was renamed Prism Business Media. During his time at PRIMEDIA and Prism he oversaw average CAGR digital growth of 50% a year. Later, when Prism acquired Penton Media, John became CEO of the industry’s largest company, Penton Media.
His next role after running Penton Media was as CEO of Cygnus Business Media, where he created digital platforms for each of the brands and then successfully sold the company in several parts. Earlier in his career, he spent time working for some of the other major players in B2B media, including IDG, PennWell and CMP Publications.
Now John advises senior managers on business transformation and other important issues. He has done this for the past six years at French LLC in partnership with his wife, Nancy, the company’s COO. He will continue in his advisory role with the clients of French LLC.
John is a graduate of Boston College and he completed the Executive Management Program at Columbia Business School and the Publishing Executive Program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Reed Phillips, Managing Partner of Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips said, “John has been CEO of some of the world’s largest B2B media companies where he excelled in creating value for investors. His expertise extends beyond media to include marketing services, events, technology, SaaS and data/analytics. We are delighted he is joining us. His experience and skills will be valuable additions to our M&A expertise.”
Oaklins | DESILVA+PHILLIPS is an investment bank for clients that operate at the intersection of content, technology and services. This includes enterprises operating within the media, advertising & marketing, education, healthcare, information services and technology sectors. Over 25 years, clients have included Advance Publications/Condé Nast, Deutsche Börse Group, Elsevier, Hachette, JP Morgan Partners, Microsoft, The New York Times, Time Inc., TPG and Wasserstein & Co., among others. The firm is the TMT practice co-head and industry specialist in Oaklins, the world’s most experienced mid-market M&A advisor, with over 850 professionals globally and dedicated industry teams in more than 45 countries. We have closed 1,700 transactions in the past five years.
At Oaklins, we are passionate about M&A. It’s what we do, every day. We give nothing but our very best to do justice to the extraordinary effort our clients put into their businesses. Our partnership with our clients works because we both believe in never settling until we deliver excellence. Coming from every corner of the world and with a diverse range of backgrounds, together we are one global team. The world’s most experienced advisor on mid-market deals.
Oaklins is the collective trade name of independent member firms affiliated with Oaklins International Inc. For details of the nature of the affiliation, please refer to www.oaklins.com/legal.
