Board of Governors

John Chachas is the Managing Partner of Methuselah Advisors, an investment banking and investment firm he founded in July 2010.  He also serves as the Chief Executive Officer of INYO Broadcast Holdings, an owner of Ion affiliated TV stations headquartered in Salt Lake City.

Before forming Methuselah Advisors, Chachas was a Managing Director of Lazard Ltd., a global investment bank, where he was co-head of its media practice in the Americas.  He left Lazard to become a candidate for the United States Senate in a primary race in June 2010 in his home state of Nevada.  He formed Methuselah shortly after that run for public office.

John has had an extensive career advising both public and private media and digital companies and at Methuselah maintains the firm’s relationships with leading companies including Berkshire Hathaway, The E.W. Scripps Company, Entravision Communications, Gannett, Hearst Corporation, Koch Industries, and The Walt Disney Company, among others. He is regarded as among the leading advisors to American television and newspaper companies, having been involved in a long list of transformative transactions in broadcasting (TV and radio), cable programming, news, digital content, and related areas.

In 2020, Methuselah advised on the $2.7 billion acquisition of ION Media by E.W. Scripps, a transaction financed by a $600 million investment in Scripps by Berkshire Hathaway, which he arranged.  Methuselah also invested directly in broadcasting, forming INYO to acquire 23 TV stations in association with the transaction, making it among the largest owners of broadcast licenses in the US.  Other notable broadcasting industry transactions include advising Hubbard Broadcasting on its acquisition of Bonneville International; advising the board of Clear Channel Outdoor concerning capital finance matters; advising the board of Clear Channel Communications for its go-private transaction; advising the board of Walt Disney for the separation and sale of ABC Radio to Citadel Broadcasting, among others.

John has provided advice on numerous corporate transactions in the past two years with publishers, including the sale of The New York Daily News, the sale of the Virginia Pilot, the sale of Rolling Stone magazine, and the sale of US Weekly Magazine.  In 2017 he advised on the $300 mm sale of Journal Media Group to Gannett; the $2.4 billion dual-spin mergers of Journal Communications and merger with E.W. Scripps in 2017;  the recapitalization of the Minneapolis Star Tribune Company (on behalf of creditors); the McClatchy Company concerning capital finance alternatives; the Journal Register Company for its reorganization;  the Hearst Corporation for its investment in Media News Group; and the Tribune Company where he served as the valuation expert in Tribune’s Delaware bankruptcy case from 2009 until its emergence in 2012.

Before his decade at Lazard, he was a Managing Director at Merrill Lynch (2000 to 2002). Prior to that, he was a Managing Director of Credit Suisse First Boston (predecessor to Credit Suisse), which he joined in 1986 as his first job out of college.

He and his family also own and operate a luxury retail business, Gump’s, which has had a physical retail presence in San Francisco since 1864.  Gump’s also runs a direct-to-consumer eCommerce business operated from its eCommerce service facility in Salt Lake City.

Chachas is a Corporate CEO member of the US Council on Competitiveness and a National Commissioner on the Council’s Innovation and Competitiveness Frontiers initiative. He is a Trustee of the American College of Greece, one of the oldest English language colleges in Europe, where he serves on ACG’s Investment Committee managing its endowment.