Managing Director, Visual Communications Consulting

About the Practice 

Visual Communications Consulting (VCC) sits inside Disputes & Economics and serves every practice on the Ankura map. We are one bench with three doors. Trial Studio delivers courtroom-grade demonstratives, scientific illustration, 2D and 3D animation, jury research, courtroom technology, and opening and closing presentations built shoulder to shoulder with counsel. Creative Comms carries transformation narratives, executive and board storytelling, crisis and litigation communications, and employee campaigns. Net New Creative is the multiplier: AI-augmented production, analytics storytelling, interactive exhibits, explainability design for models and data, and a content engine that runs across social, video, web, and events, all operating inside the firm's secure AI environment. The overlaps are the offer. Every practice at Ankura produces analysis that must persuade someone; VCC exists to bring those stories to life. We are expanding from a regional trial-services practice into a national and, in time, global one, and we are hiring the leaders who will build it. 

The Role 

We are looking for a Managing Director to do two things at once: lead the Creative Communications arc of the practice nationally, and anchor our regional expansion into Houston and Dallas. This is an origination role for a creative leader who has already run a strategic communications and creative function inside a consulting or professional services firm, who has produced litigation graphics and trial communications for high-stakes disputes, and who has sold, staffed, and delivered work that a client paid for on its own merits. 

You will build a book. You will carry relationships with general counsel, communications chiefs, and outside counsel across energy, industrial, manufacturing, construction, and adjacent sectors where Houston and Dallas give us a natural foothold. You will work alongside Ankura's Forensics & Investigations, Risk & Compliance, Cybersecurity, Turnaround & Restructuring, and Global Strategic Advisory practices to bring visual and narrative intelligence into their engagements, billed to the client and accretive to the work. And you will lead the standing up of the Houston pod, a Trial Director and Trial Technician team backed by the core studio, from a vetted contractor network into a permanent presence as demand proves out. 

The right person is as comfortable in a war room the night before opening statements as in a boardroom presenting a change narrative to a CEO, and is already producing with generative AI tools rather than reading about them. 

What You Will Do 

• Originate and lead client engagements across litigation communications, crisis and issues management, investor and stakeholder communications, transformation and change narratives, and executive and board storytelling. 

• Serve as the practice's senior presence in Houston and Dallas: build the regional pipeline, develop relationships with law firms, corporate legal and communications leaders, and Ankura colleagues in the region, and lead the establishment of a regional trial services pod. 

• Direct trial visual communications on high-stakes matters, translating scientific, financial, and technical evidence into persuasive, courtroom-ready visuals in partnership with counsel and Ankura testifying experts. 

• Partner with Ankura practice leaders across the firm to scope, price, and deliver visual and narrative work as an accretive component of their engagements, and coach them on where that work adds value. 

• Lead cross-functional creative teams delivering presentations, video, web, paid and organic social, live events, and interactive content, managing quality, budgets, vendors, and margins. 

• Champion AI-augmented production across the practice: adopt, evaluate, and govern generative video, image, audio, and application tools inside the firm's secure AI environment, and build the training and change communications that drive adoption inside Ankura and for clients. 

• Recruit, develop, and mentor senior creative talent; contribute to hiring plans, upskilling programs, and the practice's revenue and utilization goals. 

• Contribute to the practice's thought leadership, conference presence, and marketing in the region and nationally. 

What You Bring 

• Fifteen or more years in strategic communications, creative direction, or digital strategy, including senior leadership inside a consulting, professional services, or agency environment where your work was billed to clients. 

• Demonstrated origination: a record of winning and growing client relationships, ideally including anchor accounts you built and sustained. 

• Direct experience producing litigation graphics, trial presentations, or dispute-related communications for major matters, and fluency working with trial counsel and expert witnesses. 

• A portfolio spanning brand positioning, investor and financial communications, advocacy or public affairs campaigns, crisis response, and enterprise change communications, with measurable outcomes. 

• Experience leading multidisciplinary creative teams and managing budgets, vendors, and delivery across web, video, social, events, and print. 

• Working fluency with current generative AI production tools and a track record of driving AI adoption inside an organization. 

• Sector depth in energy, industrial, manufacturing, or construction, or another sector concentrated in the Texas market, is strongly preferred. 

• Expert witness or testifying experience in design, packaging, manufacturing execution, or communications is a plus. 

• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree welcome.