Ken Harding
Senior Managing Director and Global Publishing Practice Leader, FTI Consulting
Ken Harding is a senior managing director in the FTI Consulting Corporate Finance |Telecommunications, Media & Technology practice and is based in Denver. Mr. Harding is the global practice leader for the Publishing Group in TMT and has 30 years of professional experience in the publishing and media industry. He has provided strategic business, due diligence and operational advisory services and leadership to newspaper and media companies of varying size. Mr. Harding has worked at the corporate and business-unit level to lead business improvement and growth – performance improvement – as well as due diligence and merger integration.
With direct involvement in more than 300 newspaper and publishing projects, Mr. Harding’s industry experience is unmatched. His recent projects have delivered broad transformation and value-based solutions for advertiser and consumer revenue enhancement and expense optimization in advertising and editorial operations; production; transportation and distribution including postal expense optimization.
Mr. Harding has recently provided services to Publishers of varying scale; including Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Dallas Morning News, Denver Post, GFR Media, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post, Playboy, Portland Oregonian, San Francisco Chronicle, Tampa Bay Times and U-T San Diego.
Recent newspaper corporate clients include Advance Publications, AH. Belo, CNHI, Civitas Media, Cox Media Group, Digital First Media, Gannett, Hearst Newspapers, Journal Media Group, Lee Enterprises, McClatchy, Morris, Postmedia, SCNI, Sun Media, Tribune Publishing [tronc] and Unidad Editorial.
Recent magazine corporate clients include Condé Nast, Hearst magazines, Meredith National Media, Trusted Media Brands, The Enthusiast Network and Time Inc.
A recognized industry leader, Mr. Harding has served on nationally and globally-focused committees for the media industry. He has spoken at several industry events and conferences, including WAN|IFRA, IFRA Expo and various Newspaper Association of America events. He works closely with publishers and industry executives to develop project solutions that will garner immediate positive impact to the business.
Prior to joining FTI Consulting, Mr. Harding was president and chief executive officer of Harding Consulting Alliance, a boutique consulting firm specializing in performance optimization across media businesses’ core functional areas.
Before that, he was corporate vice president of operations and distribution for Tribune Publishing, where he was responsible for publishing group initiatives and support of operations and distribution at each of the business units through local vice presidents. In that position, Mr. Harding reviewed and approved capital projects for all Tribune newspapers and directed benchmarking and continuous improvement initiatives in operations and distribution, as well as other areas of publishing. Mr. Harding’s career has included ownership roles for established industry firms.