Mark Leiter has joined DeSilva + Phillips as a Senior Advisor. Mark is Chairman of Leiter & Company, where he specializes in helping business-to-business organizations improve their performance.

Mark recently served as Chief Strategy Officer of Nielsen (NYSE: NLSN), an S&P 500 company that delivers information services to 20,000+ clients in over 100 countries. He was a member of the CEO’s senior executive team and the firm’s executive committee. Mark was part of a leadership team that raised Nielsen’s enterprise value by 200% — from $9 billion to $27 billion. The team completed over 30 acquisitions and 15 divestitures while driving organic top-line and bottom-line improvements.

During his tenure working with Nielsen from 2006 through 2016, Mark played a central role in designing Nielsen’s growth and go-to-market strategy while also serving in several division President roles.

Nielsen went private in 2006, returned to the public markets in 2011, and was added to the S&P 500 index in 2013. The company’s core private equity sponsors were Blackstone, The Carlyle Group, Centerview Capital, Hellman & Friedman, KKR and Thomas H. Lee Partners.

Mark spent the first fifteen years of his career as a management consultant, primarily with McKinsey & Company, where he served on McKinsey’s marketing practice leadership team. While at McKinsey, Mark was a founder and leader of the firm’s B2B Marketing and Branding practices. He started his career at Bain & Company as a charter member of the firm’s Loyalty practice.

Reed Phillips, CEO & Managing Partner of DeSilva + Phillips, said, “Mark brings a wealth of experience in creating organic and M&A-driven growth strategies for B2B corporations in both private and public markets. We are excited to have him advising our clients, particularly across the information services, marketing services and technology sectors.”

Mark currently serves in Board of Directors and/or appointed Member roles for these organizations: Bard College, The Committee for Economic Development, The Conference Board’s Global Counsellors and Global Advisory Council, The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Strategy 50 and the VH1 Save the Music Foundation. He is also a Partner at Pereg Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage B2B information services and analytics enterprises.

He was a research fellow at Harvard Business School, holds an M.A. from Harvard University and a B.A. from State University of New York at Albany.

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 21 years, clients have included Advance Publications/Conde Nast, Deutsche Börse Group, Elsevier, Hachette, JP Morgan Partners, Microsoft, The New York Times, Time Inc.,TPG and Wasserstein & Co. The firm is part of Oaklins, the world’s most experienced mid-market M&A advisory network with 700 investment banking professionals in 40 countries. In the last five years, Oaklins has completed transactions exceeding $75 billion in value.