Jay Alix founded AlixPartners in 1981 and currently serves on the firm's board of directors. His vision and leadership propelled the firm to achieve 25 years of uninterrupted revenue growth and profitability, and today AlixPartners is recognized as the industry leader and the employer of choice for the best and the brightest talent in these segments.
Sought out by executive management and corporate directors, Jay has served as CEO, COO and CFO for a variety of companies undergoing significant change. In addition, he has served as an advisor to major lenders, bondholders, trade creditors, shareholders, and city and federal government agencies to assist them in maximizing the value of and recoveries from distressed companies.
Under Jay’s leadership, AlixPartners has served as advisor to management and corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies on a broad range of global matters, including financial restructuring, strategic operating matters, corporate governance and internal investigations.
Demonstrating its leadership of the restructuring industry, AlixPartners has played a key role in a leading share of the major corporate restructurings of the last two decades, including WorldCom, Enron, Refco, Calpine and Kmart Corporation. The firm also serves as a confidential advisor to many leading US, European and Asian companies that seek to solve urgent and high-impact issues that inhibit financial performance.
In 1995, Jay co-founded Questor, a private equity firm focused on investing over $1.2 billion of equity capital in underperforming and distressed companies targeted for turnaround. Questor successfully raised, invested and is now harvesting its second fund.
In addition to his investment activities and consulting work, Jay has lectured widely, written many articles on turnaround management, co-authored two books published by West Publishing on the financial issues facing companies in reorganization, and given many speeches on companies in transition, debt negotiations and the corporate revitalization process.
Jay was awarded Wayne State University’s 2005 Michigan Executive of the Year award. He received the Harvey R. Miller Outstanding Achievement Award for Service to the Restructuring Industry in November 2004. The Japanese Association for Turnaround Professionals honored him as its Inaugural Foreign Member in April 2003. The Turnaround Management Association presented Jay with the 2002 Chairman’s Award in recognition of his “pioneering leadership role” in helping to create and build the turnaround industry. Former President Clinton appointed Jay to the National Bankruptcy Review Commission in December 1994, the only businessperson to serve on the commission.
Jay served as a strategic advisor to Dennis Archer during his first term as Mayor of Detroit in 1994. Jay established, built and now serves as co-chair emeritus of the Michigan Cancer Research Foundation, established to raise funds to support cancer research.
Jay completed the YPO/Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School, and holds an MBA in accounting from Rutgers University and a bachelor’s degree in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He began his career as a C.P.A. with Price Waterhouse in New York.