GK Strategy merges consultancy and investor arms into unified brand
Strategic communications and public affairs consultancy GK Strategy and its sister political due diligence adviser, GK Intelligence, have merged. The rebrand sees GK shift to a lower case ‘gk’ and adopt a new colour palette, which it says better represents its make-up as a “dynamic, youthful disrupter”.
Founded a decade ago by Robin Grainger and Luke Kennedy, consulting firm GK provides political due diligence services to the private equity market. Across the group, the agency has recorded double digit growth for 9 consecutive years, entered PR Week’s Top 100 and is forecast to achieve turnover of more than £3 million in the 2019 financial year.
Among gk’s major engagements in recent years, the firm has played a key role in assisting leading consultancies across the industrial spectrum with meeting client demand. This includes corporate communications consultancy work for Thermo Fisher Scientific; assisting with local authority communications consultancy services for Travis Perkins; completing Select Committee training and political advisory services for one of the Big Four accounting firms; as well as work with a range of Private Equity houses across the UK and internationally.
To celebrate 10 years of operation, while bringing the businesses together to push forward with growth plans as a united force, the firm has undertaken a full rebrand, which includes the merging of its Intelligence and Strategy wings.The news comes after a period of continued strategic change for gk, which has recently hit the milestone of advising Private Equity clients on M&A transactions totalling more the $15 billion overall. In May 2017, this saw gk welcome the Coalition-era Minister of State for Schools and Minister of State David Laws to its team as a strategic advisor.
The rebrand sees the company reposition itself to reflect the changing realities of the consultancy market. Businesses are taking action to meet the increasing risks stemming from political instability and the merging of the offline and online worlds. For example, a small issue in one element of a company can be publicised at lightning speed through social media – causing it to become a critical issue for the entire business. With this in mind, the elevation of communications/reputation roles within a business to the ‘C suite’ level is essential, while integrating political due diligence with every day business is also a must.
To help clients combat this, the newly branded, lower-case, gk will also increase its environmental, social and governance (ESG) offer to help them minimise risks by putting effective management processes in place from the outset. This focus on reputation will continue through to the communications end of gk’s work. This is also important as gk and consultants more generally are steadily finding that all audiences, be they political, corporate or consumer, have shorter attention spans. This requires a new emphasis on research-led strategy combined with an effective story-telling, to ensure key messages resonate with target audiences.
Commenting on the rebranding, CEO and co-founder, Robin Grainger, remarked, “It’s a really exciting moment for our business… We invented political due diligence for the private equity market, created digital due diligence and are now busy expanding our ESG offer. This diversified expertise represents how we think and enables us to think laterally and to take a long term view about all of our work – from understanding and managing risk to delivering thought-provoking campaigns and engagement. As one team, GK Strategy’s offer is clearer to clients and will enable us to be an essential part of their sustainable, long-term growth.”
