Hiring Slows as Summer Draws to a Close
August has seen several firms, including the Big 4 and specialist services firms, consolidate their positions across core functions including tax, legal, audit and M&A. Similarly, AI continues to take the main stage as firms look to harness the value of innovation whilst economic headwinds grow increasingly turbulent.
People Moves
Kelly Klein and Matthew Roach join the leadership team at Interpath as Managing Directors. Kelly joins with over 20 years of experience with PwC, in their Transaction Services Valuations capability. Matthew joins from KPMG where he was a Partner in Real Estate Tax.
KPMG continues to grow their legal service offering with a number of senior hires, with the aim of doubling their law capability in the UK by 2025. The senior hires include Lee Ellis, joining from Stewarts (focusing on direct tax), Laura Fisher, joining from Baker McKenzie (focusing on international business reorganisation), David Cummings from Mishcon de Reya (focusing on employment law) and Kelly Whiter from Fladgate (focusing on UK immigration).
Audrey Hughes-Jones has joined PA Consulting from EY as a Partner in their Financial Services practice. Audrey will help clients deliver technology-enabled transformation, agility and OpEx engagements.
John Luce joins EOS Deal Advisors as a Partner, to lead their expansion into the US. John has over 25 years of transaction and strategy experience, most notably at Alvarez & Marsal, PwC and KPMG, where he held leadership positions.
PCB Partners, the M&A advisory firm, has hired Khilan Shah as a Partner. Khilan joins with over 20 years of experience and focuses on M&A for Technology and Business Services companies.
Imran Khan has joined Alvarez & Marsal from Grant Thornton as a Managing Director. Imran has previously worked at Deloitte, KPMG and PwC and specialises in transfer pricing and operating model solutions.
Mike Orton, Jonathan Ford and Jonathan Russel have joined Moore Kingston Smith as Partners. Mike Orton joins from Mercer & Hole to strengthen Moore’s corporate finance team. Jonathan Ford joins from PwC, bringing with him a wealth of experience in audit for high growth private and PE-backed companies and Jonathan Russell joins from KPMG to focus on audit for unlisted and listed companies.
PA Consulting has hired Alwin Magimay as their Global AI Leader, where he will lead and strengthen the firm’s AI capabilities. Alwin joins from FTI with over 30 years of consulting experience, during which time he has led global digital transformation and data science projects across multiple industries.
Kai Wrights joins AEQUITA as a Senior Manager and part of the Operations team, focusing on the restructuring, transformation and value creation of AEQUITA’s portfolio companies. Kai joins AEQUITA from TCW Management Consulting, where he focused on transformation and efficiency improvement projects.
Sam Curtis has rejoined Kantar as their Head of Digital Analytics. He rejoins from Lifestream, the AI enabled video analytics company, where he served as their CEO.
David Willis, Mark Schiavello, Doug Houston and David Savage, all join Alvarez & Marsal Australia as Managing Directors from KPMG. In the past four months Alvarez & Marsal has also made key hires from EY, Deloitte and BCG.
BDO has hired Elsa Littlewood as Partner, where she will work with clients on Private Equity deals. Elsa joins BDO from EY, and has previously also spent time at RSM, Monahans and Deloitte.
Ramboll, the engineering and consulting firm, has appointed Kosh Kar as a Director to boost the city’s regeneration offering. Kosh has over ten years of experience in leading architectural projects across the public and private sector.
Paul Sales has succeeded Nathalie Sénéchault as Atos’ Chief Financial Officer. Nathalie has seen Atos through an intense period of transformation, where the internal operations where divided into two entities. Paul has previously served as CFO at CSC/DXC and Sprint Nextel Corporation.
Quantuma, the advisory firm, has appointed Steven Newberry as Director for business development and client relations in the London office. Steven has experience in business development and practice management, with a focus on the legal sector.
Rebekka Reckel, former EY-Parthenon Associate Partner and Director at Roland Berger, has announced she is joining Kienbaum within their Healthcare team.
Promotion Season
PwC UK has announced the promotion of thirteen new partners: David Chong, Sally Graham, Manuela Munteanu, Matt Tomlinson, Matt Curry, Eleanor Scott, Matthew Ward-Close, Rebecca Elnaugh, Jonathan Massam, Minesh Rana, Zeynep Turunc, Michael Willis and Georgie Bryce. The firm also announced that 46% of the Directors promoted to Partner this year were women, rising from 31% last year.
Longevity Partners has announced Ed Wealand as the firm’s Chief Innovation Officer. Ed joined Longevity in 2022, from the engineering consultancy Cundall. The promotion comes alongside the largest number of promotion/internal appointments to date with 40 employee moves in July at Longevity.
Cavan Arrowsmith has been promoted to UK Managing Director of Turnkey Consulting, the specialist risk and security company. Cavan’s promotion will allow Turnkey’s Global CEO Richard Hunt to focus on the firm’s international expansion plans.
Mourant, the law firm led professional services firm, has announced their mid-year promotions. The appointments include three promotions in Mourant’s legal practice, eight in Mourant Governance Services, and one in Business Services.
Uli Schellenbaum has been promoted to Director at Altman Solon, where he will continue to focus on strategy development and M&A for Telecommunications, Technology & Media clients.
Market Intelligence
EQT has announced that their EQT VIII fund will be selling Schülke, a pioneer within infection prevention solutions, to a consortium led by Athos Group. The deal has an enterprise value of circa €1.4billion.
Elixirr, the consultancy, has announced a partnership with US-based AI consulting firm, Responsum. The partnership will support Elixirr’s clients in introducing generative AI solutions into their business.
The Swiss Government has appointed Alvarez & Marsal for an advisory mandate, linked to the rescue of Credit Suisse by UBS. The contract is worth CHf 8.7 million. The Swiss Government has also proposed a guarantee to UBS of CHf 9 billion francs to cover any potential losses linked with the acquisition of the bank.
Zanders has acquired Financial Services risk consultancy Fintegral. Fintegral has offices in London, Frankfurt, and Zurich, strengthening Zanders’ presence in the DACH region and in the United Kingdom.
Fifteen consulting firms and system integrators have been recognised for their achievements in advisory and implementation services, in the ServiceNow Global Partner of the Year 2023 awards. ‘Overall Partner of the Year Award’, was won by Accenture, and ‘Transformation Partner’ was won by KPMG.
Private Equity firm Apax has bought Bazooka Candy Brands for $700million. The US-based confectioner, known for its namesake product Bazooka Bubble Gum, saw a 30% rise in revenue in 2023.
Deloitte has announced an expansion of its alliance with NVIDIA, to build generative AI solutions for enterprise software platforms. Deloitte and NVIDIA will establish an Ambassador AI program that will allow clients advance their AI journey using NVIDIA AI Foundations and NVIDIA NeMo LLM software.
Dutch consultancy Digital Power, has launched a new data strategy offering, led by Charlotte Vonkeman. The new proposition will assist clients in defining and realising their goals for data-driven working.
EY has been offered another opportunity to split itself in two, by private equity firm TPG. TPG approached EY about buying a stake in the firm’s consulting arm, however it has been confirmed that EY rejected the proposal.