Rachel Chesley

RACHEL is a senior managing director with FTI Consulting, Inc. and leads the restructuring offering within the company’s Strategic Communications segment, providing counsel to companies, boards of directors, lenders, creditors and buyers as they prepare for, execute and emerge from financial restructuring or reorganization. She frequently leads complex mandates involving international operations, workforce reductions, litigation-related cases and/or transactions executed through § 363 sale processes. She also regularly serves as an on-the-record media spokesperson for her clients. Some of her notable restructuring engagements include Akorn, Armstrong Flooring, Boxed, Crédito Real, Diebold Nixdorf, Fusion Connect, GNC, Henry Ford Village, Incora, Imerys, LATAM Airlines, McClatchy, Off Lease Only, OneWeb, Pace Industries, PHI, Sizmek, SmileDirectClub, Teligent, TNT Crane & Rigging, TPC Group, Voyager Aviation Holdings and Virgin Orbit.

Rachel co-chairs the International Women’s Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation’s New York Chapter, and in 2021 she received an Emerging Leaders Award from The M&A Advisor. She also has been listed as one of Business Insider’s 15 Top Financial Public Relations Experts for 2020 and one of Consulting Magazine’s “Rising Stars of the Profession” for 2020, and she received PR Week’s Outstanding Young Professional award in 2018. Outside of restructuring, she has led strategic transactions, merger-integration processes, executive transitions, workforce reductions and issues-management across a variety of industries and companies. Before entering the restructuring field, she was a high school English teacher in Newark, N.J., through Teach For America.

Within her firm, Rachel formulated and launched a biweekly pipeline call across practices and teams, and she has been tapped to ideate initiatives around law firm and private-equity partnerships. She coaches four team members and spends a lot of her spare time in the office mentoring her team, which is largely comprised of young women. She is focused on helping her team members bridge into networking and new business development through organizations, connecting with reporters and fostering relationships with peers. She also has continued her interest and support of education in client work for independent schools in New York City and Chicago, philanthropic and volunteer work with organizations like the Bubble Foundation (now Edible Schoolyard), and pro bono projects for clients.