The Role

We are looking for a Managing Director to do two things at once: lead the Creative Communications arc of the practice nationally, and anchor our regional expansion into Houston and Dallas. This is an origination role for a creative leader who has already run a strategic communications and creative function inside a consulting or professional services firm, who has produced litigation graphics and trial communications for high-stakes disputes, and who has sold, staffed, and delivered work that a client paid for on its own merits.

You will build a book. You will carry relationships with general counsel, communications chiefs, and outside counsel across energy, industrial, manufacturing, construction, and adjacent sectors where Houston and Dallas give us a natural foothold. You will work alongside Ankura's Forensics & Investigations, Risk & Compliance, Cybersecurity, Turnaround & Restructuring, and Global Strategic Advisory practices to bring visual and narrative intelligence into their engagements, billed to the client and accretive to the work. And you will lead the standing up of the Houston pod, a Trial Director and Trial Technician team backed by the core studio, from a vetted contractor network into a permanent presence as demand proves out.

The right person is as comfortable in a war room the night before opening statements as in a boardroom presenting a change narrative to a CEO, and is already producing with generative AI tools rather than reading about them.

What You Will Do

• Originate and lead client engagements across litigation communications, crisis and issues management, investor and stakeholder communications, transformation and change narratives, and executive and board storytelling.

• Serve as the practice's senior presence in Houston and Dallas: build the regional pipeline, develop relationships with law firms, corporate legal and communications leaders, and Ankura colleagues in the region, and lead the establishment of a regional trial services pod.

• Direct trial visual communications on high-stakes matters, translating scientific, financial, and technical evidence into persuasive, courtroom-ready visuals in partnership with counsel and Ankura testifying experts.

• Partner with Ankura practice leaders across the firm to scope, price, and deliver visual and narrative work as an accretive component of their engagements, and coach them on where that work adds value.

#LI-Hybrid