Kai Balder and Hrishikesh Potey join Roland Berger's partnership

Roland Berger has grown its UK partnership team with the promotions of Kai Balder and Hrishikesh Potey in its London office. The duo were part of a global wave of 15 promotions across Roland Berger’s international operations.

The opening weeks of the year traditionally see a bumper list of promotions announced across the consulting industry. 2020 is no exception to this, with Oliver Wyman appointing four new Partners in its London office, FTI Consulting promoting seven Senior Managing Directors in its UK wing as part of 34 similar promotions globally, and Bain & Company added five new Managing Directors in its office in the capital.

Now, Roland Berger has also announced the election of a host of new Partners. In the UK, this saw due diligence experts Kai Balder and Hrishikesh Potey both promoted after lengthy stays with the firm.

Balder joined Roland Berger’s London office in 2009, and has since focused on industrial products and services, life sciences and private equity work. Functionally, he has strong expertise in portfolio reviews, business model innovation, target operating model design and commercial due diligence. He is currently the UK lead for B2B electronics at the firm, holding a Mechanical Engineering degree from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Potey meanwhile first arrived at Roland Berger as a Summer Associate in 2012. Inspired by his initial spell as an intern, Potey returned to the London office one year later, having completed an MBA at the London Business School. He became a Principal in 2018, and has worked with clients on a range of issues including business strategy, pricing and commercial due diligence. Potey’s main area of focus is M&A advice for private equity and corporate clients in sectors such as infrastructure, industrials and business services.

The UK promotions came as part of the elevation of 15 individuals across Roland Berger’s global operations, to support the company’s growth across its many regions. The other 13 new Partners included Christian Böhler, Ulrich Kleipass, Adrian Pielken and Volker Rothfuss in Germany; Frank Schrijver and Sjors van der Zee in the Netherlands; Johannes Distler and Hani Tohme in the Middle East; Viktoriya Bondarets in Ukraine; Truong Bui in Singapore; Stephan Essig in Qatar; Christian Heinis in France; and Konstantin Shirokinskiy in the US.

Elsewhere, 10 members of the firm’s partnership were also promoted to Senior Partner. Tom Gellrich, Jan-Philipp Hasenberg, Uwe Hörmann, Alexander Müller and Benedikt Rickmers moved up to the Senior Partner level at Roland Berger in Germany, while Brandon Boyle (US), Eric Kirstetter (France), Yuzuru Ohashi (Japan), Grégoire Tondreau (Belgium) and Ron Zheng (China) also join them.