Our Stories

Bridging the Gap between Numbers and Words

In New York, Max Dutcher applies MAcc Val skills to strategic communications

Max Dutcher
Vice President, Gladstone Place Partners

Vanderbilt MAcc Valuation 2013

As he sees it, Max Dutcher occupies a niche that “bridges the gap between numbers and words.” But he also is a bridge between companies and continents.

Since his promotion in March 2017, Max has served as a Director for FTI Consulting in New York City’s Financial District, managing teams as well as clients within the company’s industrials group.

Max’s focus for clients is strategic communications. Often, that involves working with the C-suite of public corporations to communicate with investors in drafting shareholder letters and scripts for quarterly conference calls. Sometimes, it involves much more, as when Max and his team worked with a client in agricultural chemicals and traits, Monsanto, counseling them through a bid for a competitor and ultimately an agreement with a buyer for the company, Bayer AG.

“We were constantly working with (FTI’s) European offices on the Bayer deal,” says Max. “We had to understand the current state of affairs with stakeholder markets on both continents and make sure we were clear and consistent in communicating with employees, regulators, investors and the public. There were a lot of teams and moving parts.”

When he’s not busy serving clients, Max — who calls the music industry his “hobby” — and some of his friends host events to showcase up-and-coming bands on the Lower East Side, where Max lives. Along with several other alums from is undergraduate days, Max also helped start a scholarship at Furman, called the Furman Metropolitan Fellowship, that helps a rising senior to land their ideal summer internship in New York and covers their housing and incidentals. It’s not only a way to give back, Max suggests, but a strategy to help build the Furman brand in the city.

Meanwhile, Max stays connected to a number of his former MAcc classmates who work in New York. “I was just at a friend’s birthday party,” he says. “There are definitely a lot of social ties.”

“We were constantly working with our European offices on the Bayer deal.”