Rob Lia, general counsel of the entertainment, marketing and investment company Wheelhouse Group, has joined the growing list of top in-house lawyers who have been tapped to serve nonlegal executive leadership roles. 

Wheelhouse founder and CEO Brent Montgomery named Lia president of the firm on Tuesday, stating in a news release that his chief lawyer “possesses expertise across so many disciplines critical to our business, and he has the ability to navigate important short-term needs, and the vision to take the long view, anticipating and planning for the future.” 

Montgomery added he and chief strategy officer Ed Simpson work “in lockstep” with Lia, who is “instrumental in constructing and executing our partnerships and M&A activity which will hit overdrive this fall.” 

While wearing his president hat, Lia will oversee the business affairs for Wheelhouse and its subsidiaries, which includes entertainment and content, marketing, investment and real estate deals. He will remain general counsel. The company, which Montgomery founded last year, describes itself as a “first of its kind disruptive multi-vertical entertainment and media platform.” Its divisions include production label Spoke Studios and Jimmy Kimmel’s media company Kimmelot. 

“If you’re fortunate the way I am at Wheelhouse, the job of an in-house general counsel can transcend negotiating and papering deals, and really embed you into the larger scope and trajectory of the overall business,” Lia wrote in an email. “At Wheelhouse, our CEO Brent Montgomery is a proponent of that kind of shared vision, which can set the stage for an attorney and business advocate like me taking on a larger strategic role.”

He added that as president he can “ensure that all parameters of our work—from content, talent, M&A and investment agreements to the in-house systems of the company—support the Wheelhouse business overall as it evolves, which ultimately will drive our growth and value over time.”

Lia works at the company’s offices in New York and Stamford, Connecticut. He began his career as a certified public accountant for KPMG and Ernst & Young. In 2000, after graduating from New York Law School, he entered the world of Big Law, first as an attorney at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, according to his professional bio. 

He later took a position as a senior associate for Latham & Watkins, where he specialized in private equity work. In 2007, he joined Boies Schiller Flexner as a partner focused on executive compensation and taxation in mergers and acquisitions-related transactions.

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