Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) appointed Preston Parker, former KPMG global leader for its deal advisory and strategy integration and separation practice, as managing director and leader of its new corporate transactions group (CTG).

Leveraging A&M’s operational, restructuring and management consulting heritage, CTG officially launched its U.S. practice. This new practice combines the firm’s existing corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&A) services with top-tier expertise in financial and accounting, tax and operational due diligence and integration and separation transactions.

“Where others see upheaval and turmoil across the global consultancy landscape, we see opportunity. CTG underscores the firm’s flexibility, operational expertise, strategic vision and global integrated platform in adapting to changing market needs,” Bryan Marsal, co-founder and co-CEO of A&M, said. “As corporates require streamlined, innovative and implementable solutions, A&M’s legacy of execution and bias toward leadership, action and results are critical differentiators.”

Joining with Parker, CTG welcomed managing director Jeff Wilson, former U.S. national leader for the transaction execution practice and consumer and retail leader of KPMG’s strategy practice, and managing director Marcos Cortes, former managing director with KPMG’s healthcare and life sciences strategy practice. Additional new CTG hires formerly from KPMG include Amir Zhumatov, senior director, and Dan Kogan, director. Their appointments are accompanied by industry experts hires, senior director Marc Bromstad, who previously held leadership positions in finance and M&A at SunTrust and Regions Bank, and director Amy Bugyis, formerly Honeywell International’s global integration lead.

Combining with CTG is A&M’s M&A veteran and managing director Colin Harvey and a team of over 20 M&A integration and separation professionals, including managing directors Nancy Tseng and Mat Hency.

CTG’s talent bench also boasts traditional financial and accounting due diligence professionals, including Kevin Martin, former leader of KPMG’s consumer and retail deal advisory practice, who joins CTG as a managing director with more than 25 years of transaction, strategy and finance experience. Martin will be supported by both dedicated CTG financial and accounting due diligence professionals as well as the over 1,000 global professionals currently serving in A&M’s global transaction advisory group (global TAG).

“A&M’s history dictates that when we see a problem in the marketplace, we build a solution. As the Big Four faces advisory businesses challenges around the world, A&M stands apart as the future of professional services with a unique, global, independent platform to launch a new solution with CTG,” Paul Aversano, managing director and global practice leader of global TAG, providing firm oversight for CTG, said. “We are here to challenge and disrupt what is, in our opinion, a marketplace where corporates are being underserved by the Big Four and traditional management consulting firms.”

“A&M’s integrated approach, along with CTG’s talent bench strength, strongly positions us to meet corporate clients’ emerging needs from diligence through value creation and realization,” Parker said. “CTG connects the firm’s M&A practice to its industry prowess generating indisputable horsepower for corporates. A&M’s platform, with an emphasis on speed and bias toward action, serves as CTG’s blueprint for addressing clients’ unmet needs from both the Big Four and traditional management consulting firms. We see an opportunity to disrupt the transaction advisory market and a client base that is asking for an alternative. We will deliver on that ask.”