AlixPartners expands human capital advisory offering
Global consulting firm AlixPartners has launched a new practice which aims at helping companies recruit the right leaders for executive roles and manage their human capital transitions. The unit – named the ‘Leadership and Organisational Effectiveness’ practice – will initially start its operations in the US, but if successful, envisages expanding its operations into other markets within the firm’s footprint.
In its early years, AlixPartners traditionally focused on consultancy segments within the financial advisory landscape, with an emphasis on corporate turnaround and restructuring. Over the past 4+ decades – AlixPartners was founded in 1981 in Boston – the consultancy has grown into one of the leading consulting firms of the globe*, with currently over 1,200 professionals in the US, EMEA, South America and Asia. Besides the growth in size, the firm has also enlarged its service portfolio, expanding its traditional financial advisory heritage to include strategy consulting, performance improvement, information management and disputes & litigation services.
On the back of the firm’s growth track, the firm has now unveiled plans to further expand its suite of services, pushing deeper into the leadership and human capital marketplace. According to AlixPartners, its new ‘Leadership and Organisational Effectiveness’ unit will combine behavioural science and business strategy to “help executives manage change in themselves and in their organisations.” Ted Bililies, who joined the firm in 2013 after spending 10 years at CEO-assessment firm ghSMART and heads the new practice, explains: “The selection of a new executive leader for an organisation is a critical decision that requires a stable framework for success. We combine a highly sophisticated analytical approach with the latest in cognitive science and extensive business experience to provide management, boards and owners a very high level of confidence in their ultimate decision making.”
In addition to leadership assessment and selection, the new practice will offer propositions aimed at transforming cultures, implementing talent management strategies, organisational design, M&A culture integration and change management.
Existing capabilities
Although the service offering is new, the Leadership and Organisational Effectiveness practice will not be built up from the ground. The service area bundles several management, operations and human capital expertise that the firm already possessed in-house, with the difference that they now have been bundled into an integrated offering, supporting a more coordinated go-to-market approach. The team consists of several “experts with extensive behavioral science and business backgrounds,” says Bililies, including senior-level directors Rob Elsey and Dan Fisher. Elsey joined the firm’s Dallas office in 2014, after spending more than six years with the Center for Creative Leadership, while Fisher previously worked for New York-based HR consultancy Fisher Rock Consulting, and joined AlixPartners last year as well, based in New York.
Fred Crawford, CEO of AlixPartners, states that he is confident the new practice will be able to compete with the traditional HR consulting players and grow its footprint in the coming months. “Our professionals bring wide-ranging experience in both cognitive science and business, as well as the speed, common sense and results orientation that are the hallmarks of AlixPartners. Ted and his team add a compelling new dimension to AlixPartners’ service offering for clients looking to create and maximize value in today’s low-growth world.”
* A few months ago AlixPartners was named one of the 25 most prestigious management consulting firms in Europe.
