William A. Brandt Jr.

Bio:

Bill Brandt is the founder and Executive Chairman of Development Specialists, Inc. (popularly known in the industry as DSI), one of the country’s oldest and most prominent restructuring and advisory firms. He has been involved in literally thousands of insolvency and restructuring cases over his long career with highlights that include the clean-up of the Ohio “Coin Fund” scandal and the stewardship of the Bernie Ebbers Settlement Trust. Mr. Brandt has often advised members of Congress on insolvency policy and he was the principal author of the amendment to the Bankruptcy Code which permits the election of trustees in Chapter 11 cases. He also recently served on the American Bankruptcy Institute’s Commission looking at the reform of Chapter 11, and has just completed serving his third and final consecutive term as Chair of the Illinois Finance Authority, having first been appointed by the Governor in 2007 and confirmed unanimously by the Illinois Senate that same year, and then subsequently reappointed as Chair in 2010 and 2012. Mr. Brandt has written for a number of publications spanning a broad spectrum of thought, ranging from Maclean’s, Canada’s Weekly Newsmagazine, to Corporate Board Member and Urban Land. He is a frequent commentator on topics of corporate restructuring, bankruptcy, municipal insolvency and related public policy issues, and regularly appears on a host of both cable and broadcast outlets. He serves as Chair of the National Advisory Council for the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley and is a member of the Board of Trustees at Loyola University Chicago.

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