Staff

Carla Zilka

Carla Zilka is the Founder of NexGen Advisors LLC, a global corporate restructuring and business transformation firm advising Fortune 1000 CEOs and Private Equity firms to develop long term strategies for growth and operational excellence. She also acts as interim CEO and COO of companies she advises to help ensure they reach their strategic goals. NexGen, founded in 2007, works with market-leading organizations and private equity firms, among them Hertz, ServiceMaster, Whirlpool, NCR, Phillips, Deutsche Bank CD&R, Riverside and others. She is currently acting as CEO of TruSage International, a health and wellness technology company.

In her role as Principal Advisor, Ms. Zilka is a trusted counselor to Private Equity Partners and CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies. Ms. Zilka has assembled a team of well established professionals, all of whom are certified in the Six Sigma and the KEIRSEY Temperament Assessment methodologies. Ms. Zilka and her team have developed a series of proprietary, patent-pending tools and methodologies for business transformation.

Prior to founding NexGen, Ms. Zilka was a Senior Consultant at Towers Perrin. As a Practice Leader in Restructuring and Talent Management, she was responsible for developing the firm’s restructuring methodologies and services as well as working on large scale transformations. Clients included Johnson& Johnson, American Express, Xerox, Pitney Bowes, VNS and Hertz. Other areas of responsibility included M&A, Change Management, and Organizational Design.

Before joining Towers Perrin, Ms. Zilka worked at GE in various businesses and management roles. Most recently as Vice President of Growth for Consumer Finance, where she was responsible for leading large-scale M&A and Integration deals for a $3-billion business. In that role, she created the standard due diligence process toolkit using Six Sigma, which was seen as a best practice at GE.

At GE’s Corporate Headquarters, she worked in Human Resources where she was responsible for implementing re-engineered processes and technology tools to increase productivity and efficiency for functions in HR, Sourcing, Six Sigma and Technology. She was also involved in outsourcing, organization re-design and talent management efforts for the global CTO’s organization.

As an expert on the subject of restructuring, Ms. Zilka speaks regularly at industry conferences and panels. She has also finished a book titled “Business Restructuring: An Action Template for Reducing Cost and Growing Profit”, published by John Wiley & Sons.

Ms. Zilka began her career on Wall Street working for Shearson Lehman Brothers as a institutional sales broker. Ms. Zilka sits on the Advisory Board of Hudson Clean Energy Partners, as well as the Board of Directors of TruSage International. Her non profit boards include the American Humane Association, which has been protecting children and animals since 1877 and the Avant Dance Company, a nonprofit organization focused on helping inner city children.

Ms. Zilka has a BA in International Relations and Economics from Syracuse University. She was elected to Treasurer of the Student Government Association and also founded the Entrepreneurial Society. She is a sports enthusiast and was a Varsity Cheerleader for SU Football and Basketball for 3 years. Ms. Zilka’s hobbies include yoga, running, sailing, skiing, tennis and hiking. She lives in Rye Brook, NY with her 8 year old son Max.