DESILVA+PHILLIPS

Media bankers since 1996

Founded in 1996 by Roland DeSilva and Reed Phillips, DeSilva+Phillips is a leading M&A advisory firm specializing in sell-side and buy-side transactions, capital raises, and valuations for media, entertainment, education, technology, and marketing companies worldwide. A boutique with deep sector expertise, it advises independent owners, entrepreneurs, public corporations, and private-equity sponsors alike.

The record runs deep: more than 285 transactions advised across media, marketing, and technology, over twenty years operating at the intersection of content, technology, and services, and every transaction team led by executives with 25 to 30 years of deal and industry experience. Today the firm is a member of Oaklins, the world's most experienced mid-market M&A network.

Build a global brand

The mandate covered brand, experience, and build: plan, architect, and redesign a complex website to intuitively present a large amount of information across many verticals, while representing the firm's partnership with Oaklins' international banking group. The rebrand had to do two things at once, preserve the independent, boutique character clients trust, and signal the firm's integration into a worldwide network.

A boutique voice, a global signature

Ruckus built a restrained, refined system in navy and gold that reads as a modern investment bank and gives a deliberate nod to the parent brand. Interactive deal tombstones became the signature motif, turning a track record into a living, browsable showcase, backed by style tiles that let member-firm and parent identities share one confident system, and an editorial tone that positions D+P bankers as informed opinion leaders in their sectors.

The site was architected from user stories, MVP workshops, and wireframes up, structured around a single navigable spine: the Oaklins partnership, team and industry experts, expertise and sectors, deals and tombstones, the Dealmaker event series, and resources, news, and careers. An owner exploring a sale, a reporter chasing a story, and a candidate weighing a career all find their path in a click.

The homepage opens on the firm's positioning, Media Bankers for the 21st century media markets, then backs it up with four pillars of the practice, a stats band, and a rotating showcase of recent deals. The production build runs responsive across every device on a client-managed CMS, so the D+P team owns its own copy, imagery, deals, and news.

A boutique firm, now unmistakably global

The new brand surfaces what makes D+P different: through Oaklins, a boutique firm delivers cross-border reach on virtually every mandate, and leads Oaklins' global Media Industry Group, a network ranked first globally for mid-market M&A volume, with more than 700 professionals across 47 member firms in 40 countries.

What shipped was a rebranded, responsive site with a signature deal-tombstone showcase. What it says is that a boutique firm is now unmistakably part of a global banking network. And the partnership the brand was built to signal is now carried in the firm's own name, Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips.