About TMA
What We Do
TMA Strategy Consulting (“TMA”), is a full-service boutique, founded by former Disney & Hulu strategist, Jordan Terry. TMA is focused on helping companies and investors in the Technology, Media, and Advertising industries unlock their full potential. Our services include core strategy consulting, performance improvement, financial analysis, M&A support, IPO & transaction readiness, go-to-market strategy, content monetization, market & industry research, product strategy, competitive intelligence, temporary strategy & finance staffing solutions, and others.
Experience
With nearly two decades of experience guiding business leaders and investors, first as an investment banker and buy-side research analyst on Wall Street and later as a strategy consultant and corporate strategist for the world’s leading technology, media, and advertising companies. Jordan’s unique experience enables TMA to deliver deep, data-driven, actionable insights to our corporate and financial clients. Jordan has written about finance, strategy, investing, economics, and public policy for The Atlantic, Forbes, Business Insider, TheStreet, Yahoo Finance, and has been quoted by CNBC, The Financial Times, The Deal, The Australian Financial Review, and other leading publications as an expert. Jordan has an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business with dual specializations in Corporate Finance and Business Law, and a BS in Finance from Penn State with a minor in Information Systems Technology and Engineering & Entrepreneurship.
Who We Work With
Our target clientele are private equity & venture capital investors, their portfolio companies, startups, and more mature companies looking to adapt and prepare for the ever-changing, increasingly-competitive nature of the industry. We also have experience with, and provide tailored services to activist investors, hedge funds, and other market participants in contested situations, proxy fights, litigation matters, restructuring, and other special situations.
Company Background
We are first and foremost students of history and ardent believers in the adage, “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” a belief we bring into all of our work.
Why do we focus on TMA when most advisors and investors still segment by TMT (Technology, Media, and Telecommunication), M&E (Media & Entertainment), and Advertising under a broader business service sector? Because businesses and industries have evolved and these groupings no longer capture industry dynamics, org structures, ownership, or economics. Many of the world’s largest technology firms generate much of their revenue (and profit) not from the sale of physical products or access thereto, but rather from advertising itself. After AT&T spun off WarnerMedia in 2022, telecom firms, notwithstanding Comcast and a few others, seem to have finally abandoned the fantasy business model synergies that were supposed to come from owning both the pipes and the content flowing through them, at least for the moment. Meanwhile, media firms look a lot more like technology firms (and vice versa in some cases) than ever before. The 2nd largest streaming business in the world is Disney. Netflix, Amazon, Apple are increasingly diving deeper into acquiring and producing original content, a trend we expect to continue.
Traditionally, TMT firms were grouped together at investment banks, professional services firms (consulting, law, audit), and investment firms, as much as for convenience, organization, and of course, sales, as any actual relationship between the variety of business models, products, and services sold by all of these firms. This grouping largely began around the Bell System and rise of AT&T near the turn of the 20th century, and made sense until, at the latest, the advent of broadband internet and adoption of the web in the 1990’s, when business models, value chains, ownership structures, industry ecosystems, technology, content, and economics fundamentally changed. One could argue the shift from TMT to TMA started much earlier, with the use of telecom infrastructure for radio and TV broadcasts funded by advertising in the 1950’s and 60’s.
Regardless, the days of AT&T and other physical network owner/operators capturing the majority of economic value derived from TMT are behind us. Companies selling physical products (equipment, infrastructure, servers, and other B2B products), and devices (B2B and B2C, including handsets, smartphones, televisions, gaming consoles) are as critical as ever, but with some exception, their market cap, profits, margins, and other metrics show how much the world has changed over the past ~30 years, if not 100+. The majority of profits across technology, media, and advertising industry accrue to tech companies like Google and Meta via advertising, software and cloud service providers like Salesforce, Microsoft, and Amazon from respective subscriptions/services, and a handful of companies making physical products (effectively vessels for software and services ecosystems, Apple being the prime example of course).
Today, these three industries, Technology, Media, and Advertising, are inextricably linked in every way; as customers, suppliers, partners, through M&A, joint ownership, product and content monetization, you name it. This is why TMT is now TMA, and why we chose TMA not just for our name, but for our areas of focus.
Mission
TMA Strategy Consulting was created to provide clients with the expertise and perspective gained only through two decades of experience on both the outside (as a consultant, research analyst, and banker) and on the inside, as a corporate strategy and finance professional working across technology, media, and advertising. We understand the needs and concerns of both company executives as well as investors and analysts, and keep our fingers on the pulse of the key factors important to each constituency, why, and to what degree. We are long-term oriented with a keen focus on delivering short-and intermediate-term results, and we encourage our clients to think similarly, affording them the time to ideate, innovate, create, execute, and deliver on their visions. Across technology, media, and advertising, we view the primary challenge facing executives as figuring out how to encourage innovation and creativity while also delivering strong financial and operational results to shareholders. While there is no panacea, and no quick fix, we act as trusted partners and advisors to executives and investors looking to solve this age-old question efficiently, effectively, and permanently.