Mr. Ben Pickering

Ben Pickering, CPA, CIRA is a principal in Ernst & Young?s Restructuring Advisory Services group in New York and has more than 30 years of professional experience addressing special situations and distressed matters for a wide variety of constituents. Mr. Pickering has in-court and out-of-court experience addressing issues such as strategic alternatives and operating models, stakeholder management and negotiations, financial analytics and alternatives, liquidity and testimony. He has also served as interim management (including as CFO of a distressed portfolio company) and in similar capacities ranging from operating distressed business to winding down an international financial institution and its port-folio of assets around the globe. Immediately prior to joining EY, Mr. Pickering served as the interim CFO of a distressed pharmaceutical company. In this role, he led the negotiations with its sponsor and lenders, as well as other key stakeholders. He also reorganized the accounting and treasury functions, and implemented cash-flow and financial forecasting for use in business planning and negotiations with key stakeholders and restructured operations. He also prepared and negotiated the potential financing options required to support the company, and led the preparations for a potential chapter 11 filing and, ultimately, the sale of the business via a creative mechanism. In addition, Mr. Pickering has also advised clients on crisis resolution and rapid cost takeout, operational alternatives and related impacts, including strategic assessment and options analysis, the restructuring of operations, divisional consolidation/rationalization, business divestitures and debt restructuring. His international experience includes matters in the U.S. and Canada, Trinidad, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the U.K., Cyprus, Greece, Ivory Coast,Liberia, China (including Hong Kong and Macau before the handovers) and Thailand. Mr. Pickering received his B.A. in commerce from the University of Toronto.