Longtime media and advertising executive Robert Wussler has joined Los Angeles-based asset management company Manhattan West as executive director. Among other duties, Wussler will provide tailored asset-management services to a select group of high-net-worth private clients, and he will expand the firm’s New York City presence. He also will launch a practice specializing in evaluating investment opportunities, including venture funding and private equity transactions, in the technology-media-telecom (TMT) sector with a focus on opportunities within the media/entertainment, sports and consumer tech fields.
“Manhattan West, while based in Los Angeles, has clients all over the country, which made it a logical next step to establish a New York footprint,” says Lorenzo Esparza, chief executive officer and founding principal of Manhattan West. “I’ve known and collaborated with Rob for decades and his analytical approach as well as the skill sets he brings – in developing client relationships, building business portfolios and evaluating broad trends, among others – are ideal for our mission and will be invaluable as we grow our firm.”
“As an active investor in real estate, capital markets, private equity and venture capital over the last 30 years – and a client since Manhattan West’s inception – I’ve had a very successful personal relationship with the team here and the opportunity to join them is the perfect fit for me,” Wussler says. “My business experience will help me to bring a disciplined data-driven approach to identifying and helping clients make sound investment decisions, and I’ll be working with some very smart and accomplished colleagues hailing from the top universities and firms such as JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley.”
Wussler brings to Manhattan West a diverse professional background in media, technology and analytics, and has held senior-level positions with several global media enterprises. He spent more than three decades in media – initially selling advertising on behalf of Blair Television, and later selling programming on behalf of, among others, Genesis Entertainment, Turner, Paramount, and NBC Universal. In his most recent post at Fox’s Twentieth Television, as vice president, sales and integration, he managed major advertising agency relationships for the company’s syndication business, a portfolio in excess of USD300 million. He also directed integrated media executions across all company platforms, cultivated new advertisers, developed new revenue streams via non-traditional advertising clients, and drove formation of several new technology partnerships.
Wussler is a senior advisor to two vertically integrated technology companies where his experience and guidance drove numerous financial innovations and created new revenue initiatives. He also has successfully completed the development of eight residential real estate projects.
Wussler earned a bachelor’s degree from Hobart College and completed the Series 65 Uniform Investment Advisor Law Examination. He is an active Mentor at American Corporate Partners, a 501 nonprofit organisation dedicated to assisting United States Veterans in their transition from the military to the civilian world. He and his wife reside in Greenwich, CT, where they are raising their two daughters.
