Hugh Burns has advised boards and management teams on their most significant communications issues for over twenty-five years. He has extensive experience with financial transactions and disclosures, shareholder activism, crisis and reputational issues, litigation support, restructurings, and executive changes. Hugh also has managed many long-term corporate positioning and investor relations programs.

Representative client engagements include:

• The merger of SPARC and JCPenney to form Catalyst Brands;
• Chapter 11 proceedings for 23andMe and Forever 21;
• First Republic Bank’s Executive Chairman on FDIC receivership issues;
• A leading DeFi company in response to potential SEC charges;
• Haveli Investments on its Apollo strategic partnership, software and gaming investments;
• DOJ and civil opioid litigation for multiple clients; and
• Chesapeake Utilities on its acquisition of Florida City Gas.

Hugh has been selected as one of Lawdragon’s Global 100 Leaders in Legal Strategy & Consulting from 2021-2025 and ranked by Chambers and Partners from 2022-2025 as a leader in the area of litigation support and/or crisis communications.

Before co-founding Reevemark, Hugh was a Partner and General Counsel of Sard Verbinnen & Co. (now FGS) and a member of its Executive Management Committee. Prior to that, Hugh was a litigator at both Sullivan & Cromwell and Latham & Watkins.

Hugh received an A.B. from Princeton University and a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law, where he graduated cum laude, Order of the Coif and edited the Fordham Law Review. He lives in NYC with his wife and two children and serves as a Trustee of the Frederick Gunn School.