Michael Geczi

Managing Director

Torrenzano Group

Michael Geczi is a managing director of The Torrenzano Group, a strategic communications firm specializing in building and protecting corporate reputations, enhancing shareholder value and helping clients grow their businesses—the Torrenzano Group helps organizations take control of how they are perceived.

Mr. Geczi, who has been a leading professional in the world of financial communications for 30 years, also has an expertise in cross-border communications, especially involving Russia and Asia-Pacific.

Prior to joining The Torrenzano Group, Mr. Geczi was a senior vice president and director in APCO Worldwide’s New York office. He also served as the Hong Kong-based President of Asia-Pacific Financial Communications for Edelman, after previously serving for a year as an Executive Vice President (based in Los Angeles) in the U.S. Financial Practice. Previously, he was a member of the firm at Sitrick And Company (specializing in international clients and splitting his time between Los Angeles and Moscow)). Prior to that, he was president of Gavin Anderson & Company, New York, with management responsibility for the international firm's North American operations. He was also senior managing director of the corporate and financial practice Group at Ogilvy Adams & Rinehart, New York.

Mr. Geczi's in-house experience includes positions as vice president, media relations for Merrill Lynch Capital Markets and as director of corporate communications for Midlantic National Bank of New Jersey. His career in journalism spanned 16 years, with editorial positions at The Wall Street Journal, Business Week magazine, The Dallas Morning News, the Associated Press and The Financial Times of Canada.

As an outside consultant, Mr. Geczi established himself as one of the United States’ leading communications consultants, providing counsel to domestic and international companies in a variety of situations, including mergers and acquisitions, hostile takeover defenses, bankruptcies and restructurings, litigation support, crisis communications, economic development and investor relations.

In recent years, he has extended his expertise both to Asia-Pacific, where he has worked extensively throughout the region with companies such as ING Investment Management, Lehman Brothers, First Pacific Company and Asia Global Crossing. He also has extensive experience working in some of the republics that were part of the former Soviet Union. In 1999, Mr. Geczi spent a significant portion of the year providing counsel to Russian companies and political leaders in connection with the Bank of New York “money laundering” scandal. In addition to advising senior government and corporate officials on strategies to assist in the transformation to market economies, Mr. Geczi was the project leader for the USAID-sponsored public education program in Ukraine.

Mr. Geczi has counseled numerous by global companies, with a particular emphasis in the financial services and electric utility industries. In the former, he has counseled many of the world’s leading commercial and investment banks – including Deutsche Bank of Germany, Union Bank of Switzerland, Bankers Trust of the U.S. and Banco Santander of Spain – as well as specialist firms such as Swedish private equity firm Investor AB, technology investment bank Hambrecht & Quist of San Francisco, and private equity firms such as Desai Capital Management Inc. of New York.

In the field of mergers and acquisitions, Mr. Geczi has provided senior counsel on numerous transactions, including Delhaize Group/Delhaize America; Southwest Gas/ONEOK/Southern Union; Washington Mutual/Great Western Financial/H.F. Ahmanson; UtiliCorp United/Kansas City Power & Light/Western Resources; Fleet Financial/NatWest Bancorp; Baltimore Gas and Electric/Potomac Electric Power; Mobil Chemicals/Packaging Corporation of America; BankAmerica/Security Pacific; Chevron/Pennzoil; McCaw Cellular/LIN Broadcasting/Bell South, and AT&T/NCR.

His experience in crisis communications also includes advising Ahold/U.S. Foodservice regarding government investigations into accounting irregularities; Honeywell on its patent-infringement litigation against Minolta and several other Japanese camera manufacturers; Hambrecht & Quist in its defense in the Miniscribe litigation; Chevron in several areas, including environmental and public affairs issues, and Fleet Financial in several litigation matters.

:: close::