EXCLUSIVE: Brent Montgomery has named his longtime general counsel and business advisor Rob Lia as President of Wheelhouse Group.
Lia will oversee the nascent company’s expanding operations across entertainment, marketing and investment. He will manage all business operations, planning and investing across all subsidiaries of the group including its production divisions, fledgling marketing and brand division Wheelhouse Labs; its events unit and all investment and real estate initiatives.
Lia, who was previously a partner in the corporate department at law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, specializing in executive compensation and taxation in private and public M&A transactions, left in 2015 to run Montgomery’s family office and expanding business concerns, including the launch of Wheelhouse. He is based out of Wheelhouse’s New York City and Stamford, CT offices.
Prior to working with Montgomery, he began his legal career at New York-based law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and Jacobson and then at Latham & Watkins, where he worked with private equity companies including The Carlyle Group, Apollo and KKR.
It is the latest development for the Wheelhouse Group, which was set up by Leftfield Entertainment founder and former ITV America chief Montgomery in 2018. Wheelhouse consists of production labels including Spoke Studios and Jimmy Kimmel’s Kimmelot, as well as investments in digital content studio Portal A, children’s media company Goldieblox; male activewear brand Rhone, live outdoor rower Hydrow and children’s book club company Literati. The company also has media partnerships with the likes of NFL wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., and Jeff Benedict, with whom it is developing his Tiger Woods biography, written with Armen Keteyian into a limited scripted series.
Montgomery said, “The most satisfying part of any entrepreneurial venture I’ve ever been a part of is curating the team I get to work with every day, the people you want in the foxhole with you. Rob possesses expertise across so many disciplines critical to our business, and he has the ability to navigate important short-term needs, and the vision to take the long view, anticipating and planning for the future. Working in lockstep with Chief Strategy Officer Ed Simpson and me, Rob is instrumental in constructing and executing our partnerships and M&A activity which will hit overdrive this fall.”
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