I help boards overcome the Professional Services Transformation Paradox.
Professional services firms excel at transforming others – yet often struggle to transform themselves.
I help boards bring critical transformations under control - post-merger integration, technology, operating models, and global delivery structures.
Former CIO in a Big Four environment.
Advisor to executive management and boards with over 20 years of experience in professional services.
Led and supported transformations delivering over USD 350 million in business value.
I bring transparency to transformations that are at risk of going off track – and prevent costly misjudgments.
I enable boards, executive teams, and steering committees to act decisively so that transformations don’t fail – across technology, M&A, post-merger integration, operating models, and global delivery structures.
Economic Reality Review
My Economic Reality Review provides executive boards and leadership teams with an independent view of the actual economic reality of their firm beyond contribution margins, service-line P&Ls, and traditional management reporting. The review helps uncover structural profitability issues, hidden costs, economically unsustainable client and delivery models, and weaknesses within global operating and platform structures before they manifest themselves in declining profitability, rising complexity, or strategic misjudgments.
Transformation Reality Review
My Transformation Reality Review provides executive boards and leadership teams with an independent and unfiltered view of the actual state of large-scale transformation programs. The review exposes where governance structures, operational reality, technology, organizational dynamics, and economic assumptions have become misaligned, where risks are underestimated, or where problems are being filtered through management and steering layers. The objective is to create early transparency around the true feasibility, critical tensions, and structural risks of a transformation before operational issues evolve into strategic or financial damage.
Typical Engagement Situations
I am brought in by executive teams in professional-services firms, including Big Four and Big 10 environments, when transformations risk failing because of complexity, governance friction, operating-model misalignment, or insufficient transparency. My expertise covers technology as a core component, embedded in operating models, global network structures, and high-stakes strategic decision-making.
When transformations go off track
Supporting an executive team in a Big Four environment in stabilizing and realigning a critical transformation.
When post-merger integrations involve complex network structures
Supporting an executive team in a global professional services network in steering a post-merger integration – with a focus on operating model, technology platforms, and governance across multiple member firms.
When delivery models need to be realigned
Supporting an executive team in a professional services environment in realigning the delivery model – across a combination of technology, in-house, nearshore, and offshore structures.
Latest Research and Case Studies
My research on professional-services firms, private equity, platform economics, global delivery models, and transformation governance informs the work I do with boards. It is not separate from my advisory work. It is the intellectual foundation behind it.
8 Signs of troubled projects for project sponsors
19. April 2017
When you’re dealing with a troubled project, there are usually a number of red flags surrounding you. This article is written from the perspective of senior management (for instance the project sponsor, members…
Building Is the Easy Part…
6. March 2017
Agile Frameworks and books tell us how to build a product–that’s the easy part… What we are not told are equally important things like maintaining, operating, fixing and extending the built…
Paying Technical Debt
15. January 2017
The metaphor of technical debt in code and design can be defined as follows: You start at an optimal level of code. In the next release, you are adding a…