Justin Cooper joins Grant Thornton as partner in forensics wing
The UK branch of Grant Thornton has strengthened its forensics offering with the appointment of Justin Cooper. Arriving as a partner, he will head up the team helping clients with fraud and compliance analytics.
Will Davies, the head of forensic and investigation services at Grant Thornton UK, said, “We are thrilled to welcome Justin to the firm and our forensics team, to lead our data analytics offering. Justin has vast experience advising clients on how best to use their data to gain insights, implement process change and inform and guide decision making. He will be invaluable in further building our capabilities and enhancing the quality and breadth of our data analytics offering to clients.”
On his arrival at Grant Thornton, Cooper takes leadership of the firm’s forensics data analytics team. His primary area of focus will be in fraud and compliance analytics including transaction screening, know your customer (KYC) analysis, compliance and investigations. He will also be expanding the firm’s offering around corporate data analytics including working capital reduction, customer analytics, cost reduction and profitability analysis.
The role will see Cooper draw on more than 20 years of experience advising clients across a wide range of sectors including retail, financial services, real estate, manufacturing and oil and gas. He specialises in using data to solve complex business problems through data analytics, modelling and visualisations, and has extensive experience in large-scale data mining.
Before joining Grant Thornton, Cooper was data analytics lead for the EMEA region at Charles River Associates. The prior seven years saw Cooper work with Alvarez & Marsal, where he was most recently a senior director – leading the European data analytics team, developing products and go to market strategy across all service lines and sectors. He also spent eight years with AlixPartners, where he was a director.
Commenting on his latest appointment, Cooper added, “I’m excited to be joining Grant Thornton’s forensics team. Everyone has been so welcoming and I’m looking forward to working with such an impressive group of individuals. In my role, I will be focusing on expanding the firm’s data analytics capability within forensics and building a market leading team to support clients in using data to generate insights and overcome challenges.”
