Phillip (Phil) Ahn began his tenure with B. Riley Financial in 2010 as senior vice president of strategy and corporate development of its Great American Group affiliate. He was appointed CFO and COO in 2013. In 2014, B. Riley merged with Great American Group to become a publicly traded company. Since then, Ahn has played a pivotal role in a series of transformational transactions that have meaningfully enhanced the B. Riley Financial platform. Acquisitions completed since 2015 include Friedman, Billings, and Ramsey (2017); Wunderlich Securities (2017); GlassRatner (2018); National Holdings (2021) in addition to principal investment companies, United Online (2016) and magicJack (2020).
What was once a 200-person boutique brokerage and specialty finance firm serving the Southern California market is today a 2000-person strong diversified financial services platform operating in over 50 offices and serving thousands of stakeholders across the U.S. and internationally. Today, the firm offers a diverse range of complementary end-to-end capabilities spanning middle market investment banking and institutional brokerage, private wealth and investment management, corporate advisory, restructuring, due diligence, forensic accounting and litigation support, appraisal and valuation, and auction and liquidation services.
Ahn’s role has proved pivotal in driving the company’s record financial performance over the last five years. The company’s meaningful growth and expanded national footprint reflect this. Over the last five years, B. Riley has grown revenues from over $112 million during its first year as a public company in 2015, to over $900 million by the end of 2020.
