One on One with FTI Consulting's Brent McGoldrick

Technology and big data have dramatically transformed the strategic communications landscape. In the age of Twitter, where both good and bad news can travel the world in an instant, communications professionals need the latest digital tools in their arsenals. Consulting caught up with FTI Consulting's Brent McGoldrick, who was recently appointed as Senior Managing Director in the Strategic Communication segment, heading up a combined practice of Digital & Creative Communications and Strategy Consulting & Research.

Consulting: This is a return to FTI for you. What's changed?

McGoldrick: In many ways is FTI is a different and better company than when I was there last. There's much better integration around the go-to-market between the various segments, which frankly was part of the appeal of coming back. I saw the opportunity to combine a couple of practices, both within strategic communications, as well as better tether what we're doing to the things FTI does day-in and day-out. FTI sits on and processes a lot of data around law firms, regulators, portfolio managers and traders, and one of the things we're going to be tapping into on the communications side is who are these people, how do we communicate with them better, how do we put a message in front of them better, how do we measure outcomes more. Communications isn't just about press releases and investor roadshows. It's about identifying audiences, making sure we're putting compelling messages in front of those audiences, and then tying what we're doing to business outcomes, whether those are share price, or employee retention or reputation measures.