Deals teams see significant growth leading into the festive season
A follow on from last month, November’s Key People Moves sees firms continue to grow their strategic and operational due diligence capabilities, with Alvarez & Marsal and Eight Advisory making several strategic senior hires across EMEA. The race towards cyber also comes to a head with the Big 4, system integrators, and specialist advisory firms alike investing heavily into their cybersecurity and strategy capabilities.
Elsewhere, the Middle East remains a key priority for management and strategy consulting firms, with senior hires joining the likes of Roland Berger and KPMG Lower Gulf.
People Moves
Alvarez & Marsal is growing their due diligence and value creation capability with several key Managing Director hires across Europe. In Sweden, Torbjörn Månsson and Johan Lundgren join from Bain. In Spain, Rodrigo Rodríguez joins from EY-Parthenon. In the Netherlands, Harald Meinders joins from PwC, and in the UK, Oleg Zubarev joins from Kearney, Nick Mountfield from OC&C and Tim Wainwright from Kroll (Duff & Phelps).
Oliver Wyman’s London office has hired Carlo Pellerani and Jon Harvey. Carlo will lead the Treasury team and has joined from HSBC, where he served as Group Treasurer and Group General Manager. Jon joins as Head of Anti-Financial Crime, he previously was Managing Director at Promontory Financial Group (an IBM company).
PwC has hired Nicola Quincey from Amazon Web Services. Nicola joins as a Partner and will lead PwC’s alliance with AWS across EMEA.
Richard Hell has joined Alvarez & Marsal as a Managing Director and Head of the European Supply Chain, Operations and Procurement practice, making the move from Oliver Wyman. Samantha Ward has also joined as a Managing Director in the firm’s Travel, Hospitality and Leisure team. Samantha joins from PwC.
Similarly, Kathie Haunton has joined Alvarez & Marsal from Deloitte, as a Managing Director helping clients with their R&D tax relief claims. Andrew Drennan also joins the firm as Managing Director in the Disputes and Investigation practice.
Sinan Erhan joins OMMAX in their London office as Partner and Head of the UK, demonstrating OMMAX’s commitment to European growth. Sinan was formerly Principal at BCG in London, and Global VP of Revenue Growth Management at o9 Solutions, Inc.
Roland Berger has hired Luis Flavio Araujo from McKinsey & Company. Luis joins as a Partner and will lead the firm’s Operations Practice in the Middle East.
Niall O’Dea has joined Eight Advisory as a Partner within the Transaction Services team in London. Niall joins the business from KPMG where he spent more than nine years.
Xynteo, the sustainability advisory firm, has appointed four new Associate Partners. Two of whom have been promoted internally: Alexa Rees Jones and Lara Tyrrell, and two who have joined the firm: Ellie Besley-Gould who joins from Hawksmoor, and Emily Barrett joins from Accenture.
Sophie Wood has joined Grant Thornton as an Audit Partner. Sophie joins from PwC where she spent 23 years, most recently as an Assurance Director.
Accenture has hired Flick Marsh to lead their Cyber Strategy practice across EMEA. Flick has previously worked at Kyndryll, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard.
BearingPoint Germany has hired a 25-person cybersecurity team from EY, following the Partner hires of Gerrit Aufderheide and Roland Ehlies in October.
Damian Grice has joined KPMG as Partner and Chief Operating Officer of the Lower Gulf region. Damian has held a number of COO roles, most recently with Greenstone Equity Partners.
People Promotions
EY has announced that Janet Truncale will succeed Carmine Di Subio as the Global Chair and Chief Executive, when Carmine retires in June 2024. Janet will be the first woman to hold such a position in a Big 4 accounting firm.
Mohamed Kande has been announced as PwC’s next Global Chair. This is similarly historically significant, as it will be the first time a Big 4 firm has had a black leader.
Martina Neary has been promoted to the UK Insurance Leader and FS Midlands Leader at EY. Martina has worked at EY for more than seven years and has been a Partner in EY’s CFO business since 2016.
Oliver Wyman has announced the list of 59 newly elected Partners and Executive Directors across EMEA, APAC and the Americas.
OC&C has announced a trio of Partner promotions in Europe: Casper Roex (Rotterdam) joins the senior ranks of the Private Equity and B2B Services practices. Caterina Sanson (Milan) will continue to lead within the Retail practice, specialising in the fashion, luxury, consumer health and beauty sub-sectors. Matt Willis (London) leverages his expertise serving Retail and Leisure clients, whilst further developing OC&C’s presence in the Energy Transition field, with focus on electric vehicle charging.
Chris Stott has been promoted to Senior Partner of KPMG’s Manchester office, following the retirement of Warren Middleton. Chris also leads KPMG’s Deal Advisory business for the North of England and their Agri, Food and Drink Deals capability in the UK. Chris’ promotion comes as one of over a thousand promotions at KPMG UK, including 56 new Partners and 118 Directors.
Market Intelligence
FTI Consulting has launched FTI Delta, a newly-formed global strategy consulting capability with sector expertise in Telecommunications, Media and Technology and Public sectors. FTI Delta is born out of the acquisition of Delta Partners, a TMT-specific strategy consultancy acquired in 2020, and FTI’s existing TMT and Public sector practices. Senior Managing Directors Luke Schaeffer and Victor Font will co-lead FTI Delta globally.
Global accounting and consulting firm RSM have begun the process of selecting their next CEO following the announcement of Jean Stephens to step down after more than 17 years at the helm. Stephens, a trailblazer in terms of female leadership in the professional services sector, will step down in the next six months, leaving an $8 billion dollar business to her successor.
Following a carve-out from the Kantar Group, the firm formerly known as Kantar Public has rebranded to Verian. Backed by European PE firm Trilantic Europe, Verian has completed a number of acquisitions and high-profile senior hires, including Global Chair Eric Salama.
Eight Advisory has published a new survey detailing that only 40% of M&A transactions in Europe result in the expected post-merger synergies. Having interviewed 92 European firms and private equity funds, responsible for more than 700 M&A deals over the past five years, Eight Advisory’s report shows that unsuccessful culture convergence and change management are largely to blame for the unexpectedly low figures.
Bain Capital has entered into an agreement to acquire global consulting firm Guidehouse for $5.3 billion. The move will support Guidehouse in accelerating their growth and consolidation of their market position.
In a move to boost their human capital management offering, PwC UK has announced an alliance with HR SaaS platform Darwinbox. The alliance will elevate PwC’s HR technology offering for clients across EMEA.
Similarly, PwC Germany has acquired specialist operations consulting firm Schuh & Company. The 15-strong firm specialises in the optimisation of product management portfolios in the manufacturing sector, and will be integrated into PwC’s Operations practice.
In response to growing client demand, BDO have launched a new Commercial Advisory team, to be headed up by UK-based Partner Oliver Back. The newly-formed practice will cover procurement, contract and third party management, and supply chain services.
Accenture have strengthened their Cybersecurity offering across Iberia with the acquisition of 500-strong firm Innotec Security, with offices in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, and the Basque Country.
Similarly, Accenture has also acquired Italian AI advisory firm Ammagamma. The acquisition of the 90-strong team will strengthen the firm’s offering in machine learning and generative AI.
In spite of global economic headwinds in 2023, PwC has reported an uplift of 10% in their global revenues this year, totalling $53 billion across all continents and service lines.