Right Lane Consulting adds Les Hems to senior team

Melbourne-based Right Lane Consulting has recruited Les Hems as a principal in Sydney, adding more than three decades of social sector experience.

Les Hems crosses after the past two years as a director at planning & design advisory Urbis, before which he spent a decade between Deloitte and EY as part of a research and social development career dating back to the 80s in the United Kingdom.

Established in 2011 by Marc Levy, who now serves as chair, Right Lane Consulting bills itself as a for-purpose’ strategy and management firm, a claim backed up being the first B Corp certified advisory of its kind in Australia.

Hems brings more than three decades of social sector experience, in areas such as mental health, housing, disability, and aged care. Starting out in the UK, he has worked as a senior researcher and director for a range of top-level institutions, including, among others, University College London’s School of Public Policy, and the centre for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

In 2009, Hems joined UNSW’s Centre for Social Impact as a director of research, before later switching to the Big Four, first at Ernst & Young and then Deloitte, where he served as a principal in the latter’s social impact consulting team. He commonly advises non-profit clients in areas such as strategy, transformation, service design, impact investing, and organisational capacity building.

Based out of Sydney, Hems is now one of four principals at Right Lane alongside Michael Livingstone, Zoe Pappas, and Gemma Pinnell, with Chiara Lawry serving as CEO since the consulting firm transitioned to a foundation and employee-owned structure in 2022 in line with its B Corp status. Katie Riuli and Helena McGeorge, both ex-Deloitte, are associate principals.

Other recruits

At the other end of the pecking order, Right Lane Consulting has also in recent months added at least one pair of senior associates, including Ben Johnston, who joined the firm from EY in its growing Sydney office toward the end of last year, and Priyadarshini Bose, who crossed from her associate role in the Melbourne office of global management consultancy Kearney at the beginning of January.

“I’m proud to have found a role in a firm that’s aligned with my values during a period where consulting jobs are hard to come by,” Johnston said upon joining, notably adding; “I’m always open for a chat if anyone wants to talk about a career transition after starting out at a Big Four. I owe a lot to all the people who agreed to speak with me over the twelve months it took me to plot my next move.”