Gary Adelson

Gary Adelson is a Managing Director of NHB Advisors, Inc. in the Los Angeles office. He has over 25 years experience in all areas of the media, entertainment and sports and gaming businesses. He has held roles a Chairman, CEO, and Managing Director at entertainment and media companies, venture capital firms, and investment banks and has experience in a range of media verticals such as new media technologies, broadcast, distribution, syndication, production, cable, telecommunications, and online gaming, among others. Mr. Adelson’s experience includes analyzing and implementing strategic and operational change, including re-strategizing and refining and implementing new business strategies and redeployment of capital to changing industry conditions. He has extensive experience in financing and refinancing of businesses, leading them to eventual sale or mergers, and implementing of new strategies including refinement of sales and business development strategies. Prior to joining NHB Advisors, Mr. Adelson was a Managing Director of the Media, Sports, and Entertainment (MSE) Group at Houlihan Lokey, the largest middle market investment bank in America where the MSE Group advised on such transactions as the acquisition of MGM by Sony, Comcast, and various private equity groups, NBC’s acquisition of Vivendi Universal, and well as the sale of Media Defender. The first two were named Media Deals of the Year by various trade publications. Previously, Mr. Adelson was principal and co-founder of Media Connect Partners which provided financial and operating advisory services to media, sports, entertainment and communications companies. Media Connect Partners was acquired by Houlihan Lokey. Mr. Adelson was also Managing Director of EastWest VentureGroup a private venture fund managing over $250 million dollars and with a portfolio of over 20 first and second stage companies pursuing markets in communications and convergence including Digital River (Nasdaq;DRIV), Loudeye Technologies (Nasdaq;LOUD), and Internap (Nasdaq;INAP). EastWest also partnered with Wasserstein Parella, a New York based investment bank to form Wassertsein Adelson Ventures, a $135 million dollar venture fund to invest in new media technologies. Previously Mr. Adelson co-founded and was chairman of Interactive Cable Systems, a privately owned cable and telephony company delivering services to apartment buildings across the country, becoming one of the first “convergence” companies and which was acquired by MCI in 1996. Mr. Adelson began his career in television and motion picture production, first at Lorimar Productions and then at his own production company Adelson Baumgarten Productions. Mr. Adelson produced hundreds of hours of television series, long form TV, and motion pictures before turning to other verticals in the media industry. Gary Adelson received a Bachelor of Arts degree from University of California, Los Angeles. He has served on boards of several charitable organizations including the Pediatric Aids Foundation, Cedar Sinai Sports Spectacular, and was Director of Israel’s 50th Anniversary Celebration. He was Chairman of UCLA’s Venture Capital Board, and a board member of the recently formed New Media Board.