Managing Director, Visual Communications Consulting

Ankura • Houston, TX

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

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.

Requirements

• 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.
• Bachelor's degree required

Nice To Haves

• 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.
• advanced degree welcome.

Responsibilities

• 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 This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior