Marti Frucci, Managing Partner of Momentum Ventures Advisory, has been doing investment banking for over 25 years.

She got there via an unconventional path, however, stopping and starting her higher educational pursuits a few times to take

advantage of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that came her way.  First, she was a staff member of President Reagan’s

campaign, the Inaugural Committee and The White House in the Presidential Advance Office, where she worked on the

logistics for his trips and events, as well as Rose Garden ceremonies and South Lawn ceremonies for visiting heads of state.

(Met a lot of cool people!)  The second interruption from school was to join the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, where Marti ran the Awards Ceremonies Department and with her staff of 350 was responsible for producing all 229 award

ceremonies over 16 days in 26 locations for the 1984 Games.  (Happily no flags were raised the wrong way nor wrong anthems played!)  She ultimately went on to complete her BS and her MBA in a joint degree program at Columbia University.

 

Her investment banking career began with bulge bracket banks – Bankers Trust (now Deutsche Bank), Lazard, and DLJ

(now Credit Suisse/USB) – in groups that covered media, entertainment, sports, communications and internet infrastructure.  She then went on to work at a few boutique investment banks so that she could use her experience to help largely founder-led

companies realize their goals versus the large corporate entities that dominated her time at the big banks.  During this period,

as digital media was evolving she added that to her sector experience.  Ultimately, Momentum Ventures Advisory was formed

in late 2015 in order to work with dynamic media & digital media companies that have, well, momentum, and on transactions

that might not fit into a neat little box.  Marti has always been intrigued by unusual situations anyway!

 

This invaluable background of traditional banking and unique non-banking roles has made her confident in any setting and with people in any position, as well as very detail-oriented, tenacious, resourceful and skilled at how to best present a client.  The plethora of transaction types that she has worked on – M&A, private placements, LBO’s, high yield offerings, restructurings,

private equity, IPO’s and stock repurchases – means that she is able to see a transaction not just from her client’s perspective

but that of the buyer or investor, which makes facilitating a transaction much smoother.  She has worked on both public and private transactions, deal sizes ranging from as large as $10 billion to as small as a few million, and she’s adept at cross-border

deals as many of her transactions have had a non-US buyer or investor.  Her vast sector experience, such as that shown below,

has led to contacts and relationships far and wide.