A&O Consulting appoints Tom Lodder Managing Director
Allen & Overy has announced the expansion of its regulatory consulting business with the appointment of Tom Lodder as Managing Director at A&O Consulting. Lodder will be based in London, with a remit covering the UK, Europe and the Middle East.
69% of law firms see Deloitte, PwC, KPMG and EY as major threats to their market share, following successful forays into a host of other segments by the gang of four. Indeed, in the last two years in particular the Big Four consulting and accounting firms have been making waves in the sector, purchasing mid-tier firms and opening offices in new markets as they seek to draw an annual revenue of $30 billion from legal services, once they have fully expanded into the legal scene.
Like the advertising and design space, however, this is by no means a one-way street, and the legal services sector is also making notable moves to expand into consulting work. Magic Circle firm Allen Overy (A&O) is no exception to this, and has sought to park its tanks firmly on the lawn of the consulting industry with the expansion of its regulatory advisory wing on multiple fronts.
The international legal practice – with a separate regulatory consulting business – commands a workforce of approximately 5,500 people, including some 550 partners, working in 44 offices worldwide.The firm hopes this positions it to fill a gap in the market, with advisors that have both in-depth legal and technical insight and expertise from regulatory, firm and professional services backgrounds, as well as offering scope and scale to deliver tailored business outcomes.
With the threats of Brexit and a myriad of other legal shifts on the horizon across the world, client demand to provide more strategic consulting and regulatory advice has seen A&O Consulting grow rapidly already. A&O Consulting launched in Australia with the appointment of Lee Alam, and, having launched in 2018, the firm’s UK wing has now been bolstered with the appointment of Tom Lodder as Managing Director.
Lodder was most recently Managing Director, Head of Regulatory Policy at Barclays, a position he had held since 2016. He qualified as a lawyer with Clifford Chance then moved in-house to Barclays where he spent time in both Singapore and London. Most recently, he had been leading policy globally on key strategic regulatory issues such as Brexit, US regulatory recalibration, capital and resolvability and market infrastructure regulation in Europe and Asia.
Speaking on the appointment, Sally Dewar, Chief Executive Officer of A&O Consulting commented, “We’ve had a really positive response from clients since our launch last year and we’re already working on several mandates. Having Tom on board with his deep regulatory expertise and global experience will help us to build out our high-quality offering further. Combining legal services with consulting and regulatory advisory services allows us to provide a one-stop offering for our clients, which in turn creates cost efficiencies through knowledge transfer and a deep understanding of the client in areas where a strategic initiative is borne out of a regulatory change or action.”
Related: KPMG legal consultancy coming to UK as global arm booms.