Defense Contractor Investment Themes in 2012

Justin Pettit

Vice President, Strategic Advisory & Transaction Support

Justin Pettit, Vice President of Strategic Advisory and Transaction Support for IHS Consulting, advises financial sponsors, sovereign wealth funds, corporate boards and senior executives on corporate and portfolio strategy, valuation, M&A and major capital decisions. He is also an expert in JVs, financial strategy and capital market issues, strategic risk management, economic performance measurement and management and strategic transformation.

Mr. Pettit’s advisory career has focused at the intersection of corporate strategy and corporate finance for a wide range of clients around the world. Originally a process technology and development engineer in the auto industry, he moved to corporate development with Norcen Energy Resources after his MBA.

Mr. Pettit is the author of two books, Merge Ahead: Mastering the Five Enduring Trends of Artful M&A (McGraw-Hill 2009), and Strategic Corporate Finance: Applications in Valuation & Capital Structure (Wiley 2007).  He is a contributing editor for the journal, Strategy + Business, has been published in over a dozen business journals, including Harvard Business Review and Morgan Stanley’s Journal of Applied Corporate Finance. He is also a referee for The Journal of Quantitative Finance and The Journal of Pension Economics and Finance. 

A popular guest lecturer at business schools and public conferences such as the Brookings Institute, Financial Management Association and Finance Executives Institute, Mr. Pettit leads topics in strategy, valuation, capital markets, risk management and financial policy.

Joe Lissenden

Director, Aerospace & Defense, IHS Consulting, Alexandria, VA

He has 20 years of business and consulting experience, including Corporate Strategy for ATK, where he was responsible for M&A target identification, business case development and transaction due diligence and analytics. Mr. Lissenden was also a VP with the British Standards Institution. 

He holds an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. He is a credentialed valuation analyst (AVA) and a certified project manager (PMP). He is on the Board of Directors of the Navy League of the United States and the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA).

Guy Anderson

Chief Analyst, IHS Jane's Defense Industry Markets

Guy Anderson, Chief Analyst for IHS Jane's Defense Industry Markets, heads the Jane’s Emerging Markets intelligence service and the Jane’s Defence Industry News information service and is responsible for authoring the biannual Jane’s World Defence Industry reference book. He is also business editor of the iconic Jane’s Defence Weekly.

A frequent commentator on defense industrial matters in national and international media, Anderson is also a research fellow of the UK Defence Forum; a contributor to both the London Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the Moscow Centre for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST); and a member of the defense export strategy board of UK defense and aerospace industry group, ADS.

Prior to joining IHS Jane’s almost a decade ago, Anderson was an award-winning financial journalist. He has written for a series of regional and national publications including the UK Daily Mail. He remains a member of the UK Chartered Institute of Journalists.

Anderson read politics and law at the University of Teesside (UK) before pursuing post-graduate studies in journalism.

David Trachtenberg

CEO, Shortwaver, Alexandria, VA

David J. Trachtenberg is an independent consultant in national security affairs and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Shortwaver Consulting, LLC. He has more than 25 years of public policy experience in the private sector and the Executive and Legislative branches of government.  From 2005-2007, he was Vice President of ACI International and Division Manager of the Strategic Analysis Division at CACI-NSR, Inc.

From 2003-2005, he was Senior Vice President for Homeland Security and Senior Vice President for Corporate Support at National Security Research, Inc.