Introduction
The global AI and cybersecurity landscapes are undergoing significant shifts, with groundbreaking innovations, strategic acquisitions, and major funding rounds shaping the industry. From Chinese firms challenging Silicon Valley’s dominance with disruptive technology, to global leaders expanding their capabilities through acquisitions, the pace of change is accelerating. The Consulting landscape is experiencing considerable shifts in the market too, with an early focus on European expansion into the Nordics across multiple firms in 2025.
Key People Moves
Simon-Kucher has announced a change of its top leadership team, with Gunnar Clausen and Jörg Krütten appointed as co-CEO’s of the global commercial strategy consulting firm. Continuing a tradition which goes back all the way to 2009, when Georg Tacke and Klaus Hilleke first took the reins together, the firm has once again installed a duo at the top.
EY-Parthenon has hired Maarten Moreels as their Partner of Commercial Strategy and Pricing. He will be supporting corporates & private equity funds (and their portfolio companies) across different industries on a wide range of pricing & commercial challenges throughout Europe. He moved from a senior position as a Partner at Monitor Deloitte and brings around 20 years of experience.
Peter Rodrigues-Renon has joined Stax as their EMEA Value Creation Lead, leaving his position as London Partner at EY-Parthenon. With nearly two decades of experience in M&A and strategy consulting, he specialises in driving growth, scaling businesses, and enhancing operational efficiency for private equity clients.
Virtas Partners has hired Matt Tripodi to join them as their Managing Director in Private Equity. Tripodi has almost 30 years of experience in professional services, and joins Virtas after serving as a Managing Director at Accordion Partners where he supported large private equity clients to address challenges across FP&A, finance transformation, transaction execution, and more.
After 20 years of service, Tom Groom has left EY to join Cerberus Capital Management as their Managing Director. Here, Groom will focus on increasing the value of their financial services investments.
PA Consulting has appointed Shalini Raste as a Public Services Expert within its Strategy and Economics capability, joining as a Partner in the firm. Raste rejoins PA Consulting after leaving 8 years ago as Principal Consultant. Since, she has worked for Palladium and OCO Global, where she was COO.
Ara Kebabjian has joined Virtas Partners as Managing Director, moving from West Monroe, where he led the New York operational excellence practice. His expertise spans strategic sourcing, procurement, supply chain optimization, and organizational transformation, across the M&A/PE space.
OC&C Strategy Consultants have welcomed back three new Partners to their German team: Sebastian Priebe, Sung Ha, and Gregor Enderle.
-Sebastian Priebe brings a wealth of experience, having first joined OC&C 11 years ago and rejoining seven years after a stint at EY-Parthenon. He will continue to drive strategic value creation and transaction work for institutional investors, focusing on delivering results in the sector.
-Sung Ha returns to OC&C with over 20 years of strategy consulting experience. He has worked extensively with national and international clients, specializing in developing growth and digital strategies and executing digital transformation initiatives. Before rejoining OC&C, Ha was a Partner at EY-Parthenon and previously served as Manager of Strategy Development at Deutsche Telekom Group Strategy.
-Gregor Enderle has over 20 years of professional experience in strategy consulting. Prior to rejoining OC&C, he was a Partner at EY-Parthenon. Enderle’s expertise lies in the B2B services and media sector, with a particular focus on B2C and B2B media, including broadcasters, publishing, and digital platforms. He also has a notable specialization in digital classifieds and marketplaces.
Arthur D. Little has welcomed Hans Boezel as Partner in their TIME (Telecommunication, Information, Media and Electronics) Practice. Boezel has extensive experience in the consulting industry, having held senior positions in OC&C, EY-Parthenon and Kearney.
EY-Parthenon has welcomed two new Patners in their Retail and Consumer Goods Practice. Nina Scharwenka and Jan-Sebastian Hovest-Engberding both bring extensive experience in the consumer goods and retail industries. Scharwenka specialises in pricing, growth, and market entry strategies within the durable consumer goods sector. Hovest-Engberding advises retailers on developing and implementing strategies, transformation initiatives, and performance improvement programs.
David Cooper has joined EY in their Cyber Security Practice as a Partner. Cooper comes from a background in consulting, having moved from Accenture as their Managing Director, and previously working for Booz Allen Hamilton.
EY-Parthenon has welcomed Lukasz Lachowicz as a Partner in their Strategy & Transactions team. Lachowicz brings 16 years of experience spanning IT M&A, IT Strategy, and IT Transformation programs for leading global corporations across the Manufacturing, Energy, Life Sciences, Insurance, Banking, and E-commerce industries. Before joining EY-Parthenon, he worked at Deloitte, where he gained significant expertise in the field. In his new role, he will support clients in shaping and leading technology-enabled M&A Transactions and Strategic Transformations, leveraging his extensive expertise to deliver impactful results.
Roland Berger has hired Geoff Versteeg as Senior Partner into their Regulated and Infrastructure team in the UK. Before this move, Versteeg was at Bain&Co. as a Partner in their Energy and Natural Resources and Advanced Manufacturing and Services practices.
Following 15 years at Bain & Company, José von Roth has crossed to Simon-Kucher from Bain&Co., where he has been appointed a Partner in its German entity. They have over 16 years of consulting experience, with extensive expertise in the technology side of commercial strategy and pricing, including advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
Market Intelligence
Technology
Chinese company DeepSeek has released an unexpected and groundbreaking app that has rocked Silicon Valley to its core, causing serious damage to U.S. AI stocks. The company has quietly entered the global AI scene by providing a cheaper yet equally effective alternative to current U.S. technology. One key reason for this is that Chinese computer scientists have long had to work around the limited availability of advanced computer chips due to U.S. government restrictions.
Darktrace, a global leader in AI-driven cybersecurity, has announced the proposed acquisition of Cado Security (Cado), a UK-based cyber investigation and response solution provider for hybrid and multi-cloud environments. The acquisition is expected to be completed in February. Cado was founded by CEO James Campbell and CTO Chris Doman. It provides broad support across multi-cloud, container, serverless, SaaS, and on-premises environments, eliminating blind spots in incident response. Prior to founding Cado, Campbell served as a Director at PwC, where he built the Cyber Incident Response service.
Salesforce, the world’s most widely used CRM platform, is launching a new AI Innovation Centre in Riyadh, selecting IBM as its collaboration partner. The establishment of the centre in Saudi Arabia coincides with Salesforce’s decision to set up a regional headquarters in Riyadh. This announcement comes shortly after the U.S. tech giant pledged to upskill over 30,000 Saudi citizens by 2030. All three announcements were made during the World Economic Forum, currently taking place in Davos, Switzerland.
Orchid Security, a New York-based company specializing in identity-first security orchestration, has raised $36 million in seed funding. The round was co-led by Team8 and Intel Capital, with support from CapitalOne and industry leaders. This funding will accelerate Orchid’s use of large language models (LLMs), enhance platform development, scale up its sales and support teams, and strengthen its marketing efforts.
Quorum Cyber is continuing its expansion in North America with the acquisition of Kivu Consulting. Kivu is a trusted partner in the global insurance, legal, and government sectors, specializing in digital forensics, cyber incident response, business restoration, and ransom negotiations. This acquisition bolsters Quorum Cyber’s rapid global expansion and follows its recent purchase of Difenda, a North American company specializing in Microsoft Security Managed Services.
MorganFranklin Consulting’s cybersecurity practice announced on January 13 that it has completed a private equity-backed management buyout from MorganFranklin Consulting (a Vaco company). MC Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm, will take majority ownership of the cybersecurity practice. MorganFranklin Cyber will continue to be led and operated by its founding leadership team and partners: Pete Schile, Keith Hollender, and Jonah Dimeo.
Mitiga, a cybersecurity company specializing in threat detection, investigation, and response for cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) environments, has raised $30 million in a Series B funding round led by SYN Ventures. This investment will support Mitiga’s expansion across North America and Europe.
SailPoint, a leading identity security and governance company, is planning a return to the public market after several years of major growth under private equity ownership. According to a regulatory filing, the company—founded in 2005—originally went public in 2017 before being acquired by Thoma Bravo for $6.9 billion in August 2022.
Technology solutions and services provider World Wide Technology (WWT) has signed an agreement to acquire all issued and outstanding common shares of Canada-based Softchoice for C$1.8 billion ($1.25 billion). Subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, the transaction is expected to close in late Q1 or early Q2 of 2025.
Strategy Consulting
The UK branches of EY and PwC are reportedly falling behind in meeting their targets for female representation in their partnerships. In contrast, Big Four rivals KPMG and Deloitte are on track to meet their respective goals. According to reports, EY’s UK arm set the most ambitious target among the Big Four, aiming for 40% female partners by 2025. However, current data suggests the firm has only reached 28% so far. Meanwhile, PwC is still 3% shy of its more modest 30% target for 2025. Since 2021, PwC has only increased this percentage by 1-2% per year, meaning a larger leap is needed to meet its goal before it reports its new figures later this year.
FTI Consulting has announced the expansion of its Tax practice into Saudi Arabia, appointing Wael Osman to lead the new offering in the kingdom. As a $3.5 billion consulting firm with a global presence, FTI Consulting first established its Tax practice in the Middle East in early 2023, launching its operations in Dubai. The practice has since grown significantly and is now expanding into Saudi Arabia.
KPMG UK’s partners received their highest-ever payouts in 2024, as cost-cutting measures helped boost profits despite a sharp slowdown in revenue growth. The firm’s UK partners saw their earnings increase by 9%, reaching an average of £816,000 for the fiscal year ending in September. Revenue growth slowed to just 1%, reaching £2.99 billion—a significant drop compared to the 9% and 16% growth recorded in the previous two years. However, profits rebounded by 11% to £404 million after KPMG took steps to manage costs. In June, the firm cut 200 roles amid slowing demand and froze pay for approximately 12,000 UK staff. At the same time, the number of partners was reduced to its lowest level in over two decades, which contributed to the increase in individual payouts. The profit recovery reversed an almost 20% decline from the previous year and resulted in a 20% increase in the firm’s 2024 bonus pool for non-partner staff.
West Monroe, a Chicago-headquartered management consulting firm, has strengthened its financial services sector by acquiring The Hartsema Group. Additionally, Brett Mastalli has been appointed as the firm’s new Banking Practice leader, and Wade Spencer has joined as a Managing Director.
European consulting group EPSA has expanded its presence in the Nordics with the acquisition of Inventura, a specialized procurement consultancy based in Norway. With over 3,500 employees across 40 countries, EPSA has a strong global presence, though the Nordics had remained an untapped market until now.
Altman Solon, a strategic consultancy focused on the technology, media, and telecom (TMT) sectors, has launched a new office in Stockholm—its 15th worldwide. This marks the firm’s first office in the Nordics, positioning it to serve clients in Sweden as well as Denmark, Norway, and Finland.
The Dutch arm of Baker Tilly has entered into a strategic collaboration with Inflexion, a British private equity firm. According to insiders, this is the largest deal ever closed in the Dutch accountancy sector. Inflexion has acquired a 48% stake in Baker Tilly from the firm’s 40 partners, who have now repurchased a 52% stake through a newly formed cooperative entity.
Global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal has opened its first office in Ireland. The move to Dublin coincides with the firm’s launch of a new corporate finance practice in the country, which will be led by a former Big Four expert.