Ed Trissel
Partner
For more than three decades, Ed has provided strategic communications counsel to U.S. and international companies and private equity firms contending with mission-critical business opportunities and challenges. He is known for his solutions-oriented approach to high-stakes work including mergers and acquisitions, cybersecurity incident response, C-suite management changes, a wide variety of crisis matters, and shareholder activism defense. Ed also assists clients with ongoing reputation management, long-term corporate positioning, and investor relations programs. His cross-border experience includes matters throughout Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas.
Recent Highlights
Select Experience
M&A / Transactions
Ed regularly advises companies on communications in both friendly and unsolicited M&A, IPOs, SPACs and PIPE transactions. Assignments include assisting Discover Financial Services with its sale to Capital One; Stratasys with its PIPE investment from Fortissimo Capital; Amcor with its acquisition of Berry Global; DNOW with its announced combination with MRC Global; TPG Inc. with its acquisition of Angelo Gordon and its IPO; Equitrans with its sale to EQT; S&P Global with its acquisition of IHS Markit; Kansas City Southern with its acquisition by CP; EngageSmart with its sale to Vista Equity Partners; Warby Parker, Affirm and Frontier Airlines with their IPOs; Translate Bio with its sale to Sanofi; Sinclair Cos. with the sale of its branded marketing, renewable diesel and refining businesses to HollyFrontier; Reinvent Technology Partners with SPAC business combinations with Joby Aviation, Hippo, and Aurora Innovation; Mastercard with its acquisition of Finicity; and WESCO International with its acquisition of Anixter International.
Cybersecurity
Ed is sought out for his experience and expertise in preparing for and responding to cybersecurity incidents that combine a mix of providing strategic counsel and pragmatic problem solving all while helping clients see around corners. Clients have spanned across many industries, including financial services, industrial, energy, retail, technology, business services, healthcare, among others. Ed’s preparedness planning and tabletop exercises, and incident response experience involves supporting clients on a variety of attacks including malware, social engineering, network, applications, access and credentials, and supply chain.
Crisis Communications
He has considerable crisis and issues management experience including cybersecurity, government investigations and enforcement actions, ethics violations, litigation, layoffs, management changes, and earnings misses and restatements.
Shareholder Activism, Short Attacks and Corporate Governance
Ed’s experience includes counseling clients on engagement with and defense against activist hedge funds, dissident shareholders and short attacks including Match Group (Elliott Management, Starboard Value, Anson Funds), e.l.f. Beauty (Muddy Waters), Berkshire Hills Bancorp (HoldCo Asset Management), Endurance International (Gotham Research), Gannett (MNG Enterprises), MBIA (Pershing Square), Newell Brands (Carl Icahn and Starboard Value), Sina (Aristeia Capital), Burlington Stores (Spruce Point Capital) and Samsonite (Blue Orca).
In Conversation
What are you most proud of in your career?
I’m most proud of the relationships I have forged with clients, other advisors, and colleagues. I believe success is about longevity and I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by people of high character and integrity who have helped enable client successes and my rewarding career during the past 30 years.
What was it like to serve as the Chief Communications Officer at a global private equity firm?
It afforded me the opportunity to learn how to do business in other countries and further appreciate other cultures and approaches to decision making, and the importance of emotional intelligence. The experience strengthened my counseling skills because I’m able to speak from the in-house perspective of a communications executive in that seat.
What are you most proud of in your career?
I’m most proud of the relationships I have forged with clients, other advisors, and colleagues. I believe success is about longevity and I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by people of high character and integrity who have helped enable client successes and my rewarding career during the past 30 years.
What was it like to serve as the Chief Communications Officer at a global private equity firm?
It afforded me the opportunity to learn how to do business in other countries and further appreciate other cultures and approaches to decision making, and the importance of emotional intelligence. The experience strengthened my counseling skills because I’m able to speak from the in-house perspective of a communications executive in that seat.
Personal Side
In the News
Credentials
Ed served as a managing director and then a partner at Joele Frank from 2007 to 2011 and rejoined the firm in 2016. From 2011 to 2016, he served as the chief communications officer of Warburg Pincus. In this role, he led the private equity firm’s global communications strategy and team as well as the firm’s service offering to its portfolio companies around the world. Earlier in his career, Ed was a founding principal at Vistance Group, a corporate and financial communications advisory, and held senior roles at international public relations firms including Hill & Knowlton and Ketchum. He is a member of the Arthur W. Page Society. Ed has lectured on communications topics at a wide variety of industry and academic functions on topics including cybersecurity incident response, crisis communications, M&A and activism defense. He received a bachelor of journalism degree from The University of Texas at Austin.