Robert Montgomery takes over the Banff Television Festival from former CEO Pat Ferns, in the wake of the event’s recent bankruptcy crisis. Eight of Banff’s 30 full-time employees lost their jobs in the handover to Achilles Partners, but Montgomery says relations in-house have improved.

He credits the staff for maintaining good relations with attendees and sponsors during the difficult bankruptcy process, and for bringing him up to speed on the finer points of the festival. Although Montgomery has experience in the media business – he was previously managing director of California-based research firm Kagan World Media – he has never attended the Banff festival.

He says he’s looking forward to seeing what all the excitement’s about, and is keeping his personal schedule as open as possible so that he can ‘observe, listen and learn’ about the landmark event. He will also host an open feedback session on the morning of June 16.

So, just who is Montgomery? When he, a 42-year-old Winnipeg native schooled at the University of Manitoba, took over the Banff festival along with the team at Achilles earlier this year, neither was particularly well-known in Canadian media circles, leading some to wonder if they would run the ailing event any better than the old management.

Achilles bills itself as an investment and advisory firm, based in Toronto and founded by Montgomery and partner Jonathan Bulkeley, who works out of New York.

Montgomery’s most recent job was president for the Americas of The Fantastic Corp., a Swiss software provider for media and IT companies that rose to some prominence in the e-boom of the late 1990s. It survived an IPO in 1999 and the e-crash of 2000, and still operates in Switzerland and San Mateo, CA.

Before that, Montgomery was with Kagan, stationed in London, where, according to his C.V., he led research and analysis teams, advised large media companies and financiers, and hosted assorted conferences. He also did time with an events and publishing outfit in London, working on the Digital Media World Events in England, Singapore and Australia.