AlixPartners' Lisa Donahue wins Harvey R. Miller restructuring award
Lisa Donahue, global co-lead of turnaround and restructuring services (TRS) at consulting firm AlixPartners, has won the 20th annual Harvey R. Miller Outstanding Achievement Award in the field of restructuring.
The annual award is sponsored by law and business publisher The Beard Group, and recognizes leaders in the turnaround and restructuring business who have had exceptional careers and played pivotal roles in the largest engagements.
The award was first awarded to Harvey R. Miller, a notable figure in the field who drove the creation of restructuring practices in most major law firms.
Lisa Donahue is the first woman to receive the industry award in its 20-year history, and the third member of AlixPartners to win it. Firm founder Jay Alix won the Harvey Miller award in 2004, and TRS managing director Al Koch won in 2009.
“We congratulate Lisa on this outstanding achievement,” said Simon Freakley, CEO of AlixPartners. “Through her exceptional leadership—both in the industry and within our firm—and her diligent focus on delivering exceptional results for clients around the world, Lisa has been instrumental in helping companies with operational and financial transformations, bringing them out of distressed situations, and positioning them for future growth and success.”
As global co-lead of TRS, Donahue guides underperforming companies through complex operational turnarounds – working with clients across energy, consumer goods, manufacturing, distribution, apparel, retail, telecom, and shipping.
Donahue joined AlixPartners in 1998, and has served as chief restructuring advisor (CRO), CEO, and CFO at numerous distressed companies. Some of her notable engagements include serving as chief transition and development officer at Westinghouse Electric Company, CRO at Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, and CEO at New World Pasta.
At Westinghouse, Donahue led a large-scale transformation that yielded annual EBITDA improvements of $250 million; at Puerto Rico Electric, she generated recurring savings of $525 million and negotiated a restructuring support agreement that resolved $9 billion in debt; and at New World Pasta, she oversaw a broad operational turnaround involving asset sales, contract renegotiations, and remediating manufacturing inefficiencies – which resulted in an EBITDAR increase of 212%.
Donahue was also this year named one of Crain’s New York’s Notable Women in Accounting and Consulting, and was named one of Business Insider’s Power Players in Management Consulting. Donahue in 2018 was inducted into the Turnaround Management Association Hall of Fame.
