Blair Effron

Blair W. Effron, Partner, co-founded Centerview in 2006. Prior to Centerview, Mr. Effron was Group Vice Chairman of UBS AG and a member of the Board of UBS Investment Bank, where he also sat on several management committees. In his nearly 25-year career, Mr. Effron has advised a range of Fortune 500 and multinational companies and executed over $450 billion in transactions. Mr. Effron has been profiled in industry and general business publications including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and Investment Dealer's Digest. Selected transactions in which Mr. Effron has assisted clients include advising Gillette on its $57 billion sale to Procter & Gamble, advising InBev on its $52 billion acquisition of Anheuser-Busch, advising Unilever on its $24 billion acquisition of Bestfoods, advising PepsiCo on its $21 billion joint acquisitions of The Pepsi Bottling Group and PepsiAmericas, advising Nabisco Holdings and Nabisco Group Holdings on their respective sales to Kraft for $19 billion and RJ Reynolds Tobacco for $10 billion, advising Diageo on its $10 billion sale of Pillsbury to General Mills and on its purchase of Seagram's wine and spirits business for $8 billion, advising News Corp on its $6 billion acquisition of Dow Jones, advising Keebler Foods on its $4 billion sale to Kellogg and advising Blackstone on its $2 billion buyout of Pinnacle Foods. Other recent transactions include the sale of Godiva Chocolates by Campbell for $850 million, the sale of the Commodities Trading Group by ConAgra for $2.8 billion and the sale of Bird's Eye Foods to Pinnacle Foods for $1.3 billion. Mr. Effron currently sits on the Executive Committees of the Boards of Lincoln Center and the Brooklyn Museum, and is on the Board of the Northside Child Development Center, Greater NY, and New Visions for Public Schools. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institute. He holds a BA from Princeton University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.