ROBERT S. MILLER JR.

Robert S. Miller Jr.

is one of the most battle-tested corporate restructuring executives in American history. He started his finance career at Goldman Sachs before joining Ford Motor Company, then moved to Chrysler in the late 1970s as Deputy CFO.

When Chrysler was 60 days from insolvency in 1979, Miller was in the room where the $1.5 billion government loan guarantee was negotiated — the deal that kept Chrysler alive and set a precedent for every corporate bailout that followed.

He later took the CEO role at Morrison Knudsen (1993–1996), a construction and engineering company in distress. That assignment ended messily — the accounting problems were deeper than disclosed, and he was ousted after a painful shareholder battle.

He redeemed himself at Bethlehem Steel, guiding one of America's oldest steel companies through Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001. Then came Delphi in 2005 — the largest auto-parts bankruptcy in US history.

Miller spent two years negotiating with the UAW, reducing headcount, and engineering a sale that eventually put Delphi back on its feet.

In 2010, he became non-executive Chairman of AIG, taking a steady hand to the post-bailout restructuring of the world's most notorious insurance collapse. He documented his career in the 2008 memoir 'The Turnaround Kid: What I Learned Rescuing America's Most Troubled Companies.'

Chrysler (Deputy CFO during 1979-80 bailout), Morrison Knudsen (CEO 1993-1996), Bethlehem Steel (CEO through Chapter 11, 2001-2003), Delphi Automotive (CEO through Chapter 11, 2005-2007), AIG (Non-executive Chairman, 2010-2012)

Distressed corporate investing and operational turnaround. Miller doesn't buy assets — he takes control of broken enterprises, restructures their debt, renegotiates union and supplier contracts, cuts what's unsustainable, and then either sells or stabilizes what remains.

He is the operational version of distressed investing.

Chrysler in 1980. A company burning through $4.75 billion in losses with 60 days of cash left.

Miller helped structure the loan guarantee package that convinced a skeptical Congress to back the bailout. Chrysler repaid the loans seven years early, saved 600,000 jobs, and went on to become profitable again.

For Miller, this was the template for everything that followed.

Morrison Knudsen (1995). Miller took the CEO role at the troubled engineering giant but the accounting was far worse than the due diligence revealed.

Cost overruns on fixed-price contracts were systematically hidden. The board ousted him in a chaotic process that played out publicly.

He's acknowledged that the Morrison Knudsen experience taught him to demand deeper financial transparency before accepting any future assignment.

Survival before growth. Get cash flow positive.

Cut what is structurally unsustainable. Build trust with unions and creditors through honest communication, not spin.

Then, and only then, worry about winning. Miller has said repeatedly that most companies die not from bad strategy but from the failure to make hard decisions quickly enough.

Married to Maggie Rowe. Has four children.

Based primarily in Portland, Oregon and later Washington, D.C. He kept a deliberately low personal profile throughout his career.

B.A. in Economics, Stanford University, 1963.

J.D., Harvard Law School, 1966. He chose law over pure finance because he believed legal training taught you how systems actually worked — an insight that proved useful in every bankruptcy he ever navigated.

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