ACG Los Angeles | 2024 Economic & Political Outlook on M&A

Eva is a “savvy dealmaker” who is consistently named a top California lawyer by national and regional publications. With over 20 years of experience, Eva works with some of the most active private equity funds in the country and provides “astute commercial advice” alongside her strategic M&A counseling when negotiating on behalf of U.S. and global public and private companies, boards of directors, and private equity funds involving their most significant transactional matters. Eva is chair of Winston’s Transactions Department and is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee.

Eva concentrates on U.S. and cross-border complex business transactions with a particular focus on mergers and acquisitions and private equity. As an advisor to strategics and private equity funds and their portfolio companies, she has counseled domestic and international clients in public and private M&A transactions, public and private debt and equity financing transactions, including initial public offerings, and distressed sales and investments in and out of bankruptcy. Eva has also represented public companies and their boards of directors and special committees in connection with enterprise-transformative business opportunities and legal challenges, as well as providing corporate governance advice.

Eva has served as lead deal counsel and negotiated and completed transactions in a wide variety of industries, including aerospace, automotive, business and financial services, consumer products, energy, entertainment, industrials and manufacturing, medical devices, pharmaceutical, retail, semiconductor, software, technology and telecommunications. Her transactional experience includes deals ranging from tens of millions of dollars (for initial private equity investments and financings) to more than $5 billion (for acquisitions, industry consolidations, and dispositions).

William (Bill) Adams is senior vice president and chief economist at Comerica Bank. Bill leads Comerica's Economics Department, providing research and analysis that impact the bank's key markets, as well as business leaders and policy makers throughout the country.

Bill joined Comerica in 2022 after spending the previous 10 years with The PNC Financial Services Group, where he served as the senior vice president and senior manager economist. At PNC, Bill developed forecasts and analysis of U.S. growth, inflation, labor markets, and interest rates, as well as regional economies within the bank’s core footprint. He also provided forecasts of international economic and financial conditions covering major foreign developed and developing economies. An expert financial forecaster, Bill's exchange rate forecasts were ranked in the 90th percentile of Bloomberg's forecast accuracy rankings when he left PNC. Prior to joining PNC, Bill was an economist for The Conference Board’s China Center from 2009 to 2011.

He is co-author of In Line Behind a Billion People: How Scarcity Will Define China's Ascent in the Next Decade, published in 2013 by the Financial Times Press, and translated into Chinese in 2014 by Gusa Publishing (Taiwan). He is former president of the Economic Club of Pittsburgh, a local chapter of the National Association of Business Economics (NABE); a former associate of the University of Pittsburgh Asian Studies Center; and a former co-director of the Pittsburgh Warburg Chapter of the American Council on Germany.

Bill holds a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a bachelor’s degree from Harvard.

Matt Klink specializes in strategic and crisis communications, public affairs and political campaigns. He has more than three decades of experience working on complex, controversial and high-profile issues for public and private sector clients, as well as candidates for elected office and ballot measure campaigns. During the last five years, Matt has worked on some of California’s and the L.A.-region’s most high-profile and expensive political issues, winning more than 80% of the campaigns on which he has worked.

Throughout his career, Matt has worked for numerous heavily regulated and taxed clients encompassing a range of industries and subjects, including automotive, cable, energy, fast-moving consumer goods, finance, healthcare/pharmaceutical, oil and natural gas, retail, shipping, sports and entertainment, telecommunications, water and other regulated and taxed industries. Additionally, Klink has worked on candidate and initiative campaigns at multiple levels of government, where he has performed a variety of roles that include general consulting, campaign management, media consulting, campaign spokesperson, direct mail design and production, and coalition building.

Matt is an adept communicator skilled at crafting and implementing strategic campaigns and crisis communication programs. He has substantial experience in integrating grassroots outreach and alliance development efforts to support lobbying activities. An award-winning writer, Klink has developed effective messaging and captivating copy to meet a variety of client needs, including targeted direct mail, speeches, brochures, op-eds, and other types of traditional, online and digital materials. Skilled at working with the news media, Matt has functioned as a spokesperson and primary media contact for a number of corporate clients and statewide initiative campaigns. He has appeared on international, national and local television news broadcasts on behalf of his clients and offered political analysis and commentary.

Matt’s past work experience includes a senior-level position as Director of Government Affairs for Philip Morris International, based in Lausanne, Switzerland. He led a team that created and executed communications and stakeholder outreach programs on regulatory and fiscal issues in more than 35 countries on six continents. Klink has also been an owner and partner of two Los Angeles-based public affairs and government relations firms. Matt also worked as a corporate communications consultant to America Honda Motor Co., Inc. and, while living in Arlington, Virginia, as a media consultant to candidates for U.S. Congress and the Virginia House of Delegates.

Matt holds an MA in political management from The George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management and a BA in history from the University of California at Berkeley. He is the current president of the International Association of Political Consultants, where he travels and speaks around the world on the importance of democracy.

Christopher Thornberg Ph.D. has been called many things throughout his career, but his favorite thing to be called is correct. A renowned economist with deep expertise in economic and revenue forecasting, regional economics, economic policy, and labor and real estate markets, Dr. Thornberg has consulted globally for private industry, cities, counties, and public agencies.

He became nationally known for forecasting the subprime mortgage market crash that began in 2007 and was one of the few economists on record to predict the global economic recession that followed. Amidst the 2020 Covid- 19 shock, Dr Thornberg correctly predicted the rapid “V” shaped economic recovery, the inflation that resulted from excessive government stimulus, as well as the sharp hikes in interest and mortgage rates currently impacting U.S. markets.

Well known for his ability to capture and hold audiences, Dr. Thornberg presents to hundreds of leading business, government, and nonprofit organizations every year. Audiences across the globe benefit from his singular insight, including NAIOP, CoreNet Global, Western Bankers Association, Association of Washington Business, Foreign Trade Association, Western Association of Chamber Executives, The Boeing Company, Kaiser Permanente, Zillow, Mountain America Credit Union, and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. In his data-rich economic outlooks, Dr. Thornberg illuminates national and local economic trends, and warns of danger when political narratives diverge from economic realities.

Dr. Thornberg’s trusted commentary and his evidence-based approach to economic policy analysis has built a legacy of correct calls and an ecosystem that includes some of the world’s most influential entities. Regardless of the audience, client, or project, Dr. Thornberg holds firmly to the principle of objective economic analysis, often saying that ‘you can pay for analysis, but you might not like the answers the data uncovers’.

Dr. Thornberg is a contributor to consensus economic forecasts published by the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, the National Association of Business Economists, and the Seidman Research Institute at Arizona State University. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, is an Executive Member of the Central City Association (Los Angeles), and is a member of the California Association for Local Economic Development.

Prior to launching Beacon Economics, Dr. Thornberg was a senior economist with UCLA’s Anderson Forecast. He previously taught in the MBA program at UCLA’s Anderson School, in the Rady School of Business at UC San Diego, and at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand. He has also held a faculty position in the economics department at Clemson University.

A well-known media commentator, Dr. Thornberg has appeared on all the major networks, CNN, NPR, and is regularly quoted in major national dailies including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times.

Originally from upstate New York, Dr. Thornberg holds a Ph.D. in Business Economics from The Anderson School at UCLA, and a B.S. degree in Business Administration from the State University of New York at Buffalo.