On Thursday, March 20th at 4PM Eastern, I will be interviewing Reed Phillips, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner of Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips and Charlie Slack, an award-winning writer on business, finance and history about their book:

“QuickValue: Discover Your Value and Empower Your Business in Three Easy Steps”

Here is what we will be discussing:

•    Why value creation?

•    Why do midsized companies often overlook valuation?

•    What are the risks of overlooking valuation?

•    How does the QuickValue process work?

•    How can financial executives use this information?

Reed Phillips

Reed is CEO and managing partner of Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips in New York, which he co-founded in 1996. Reed specializes in sell-side M&A in a number of industry sectors, including consumer and B2B media, advertising, market research, consulting, events, information, social media, marketing services and subscriptions. His recent transactions include the sale of Advertising Week, the leading events company for the advertising industry, to Emerald; the sale of Purpose, a social impact agency, to Capgemini; the sale of TechMedia, a conference business, to RLJ Equity Partners; and the sale of three divisions of Bonnier Corporation—two magazine divisions and the leading advisory business in DE&I for the Fortune 100. He also acquired the consumer media company Essence from Time Inc. and the B2B media company Kiplinger for Dennis Publishing.

Reed has been an investment banker for 33 years and has completed over 200 M&A transactions. In 2021, his book “QuickValue: Discover Your Value and Empower Your Business in Three Easy Steps” with co-author Charles Slack was published by McGraw Hill. The book provides a new valuation methodology for midsize companies. From 2017-2021, Reed was president and chairman of Oaklins International. In 2007, he was awarded “Media Deal of the Year” by Mergers & Acquisitions. Reed is frequently called on to comment on M&A by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg TV and the Financial Times and he has published articles in Harvard Business Review, The Washington Post, Inc., Advertising Age and The Deal. He is a graduate of Duke University.

Charlie Slack

Charlie Slack is an award-winning writer on business, finance and history. In addition to working with Reed Phillips on QuickValue: Discover Your Value and Empower Your Business in Three Easy Steps, he has written four mainstream nonfiction books, most recently Liberty’s First Crisis (Grove Atlantic, 2015). Described by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Jon Meacham as “a terrific piece of history,” Liberty’s First Crisis tells the story of the Sedition Act of 1798 and the nation’s first great battle over free speech. His other books include Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America’s First Female Tycoon, winner of the 2005 Connecticut State Book Award for Biography and the Elle Magazine Reader Prize for Biography; Noble Obsession, named one of the 25 best “Books to Remember” for 2002 by the New York Public Library, and Blue Fairways, a finalist for the United States Golf Association’s International Book Award.

As an independent business writer and editor, Charlie works closely with some of the world’s leading financial services firms and other corporations. From December 2013 through June 2015, he served as executive director of financial content for Time Inc. Content Solutions in New York. Previously, Charlie was a reporter for The Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia.

Charlie’s mainstream journalism has appeared in national publications such as Esquire, Reader’s Digest, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, and others.

He holds a A.B. from Harvard, with a degree in English.