Bondi Partners appoints Jeremy Thorpe as managing director for consulting
Former PwC chief economist Jeremy Thorpe has taken on a new role as consulting managing director for Bondi Partners, the advisory established by ex-Australian treasurer Joe Hockey.
Moving on from a brief stint at expert advisory Sapere following his departure from PwC after more than a decade and a half, the Big Four firm’s former chief economist and Canberra office boss has now crossed to Bondi Partners.
Thorpe has been recruited as Australia managing director for consulting and will co-coordinate with Bondi’s advisory team in Washington, where co-founding partner Joe Hockey established the firm after serving as ambassador to the US.
“Bondi Partners provides unrivalled experience navigating the critical intersection of policy, politics and the private sector,” Thorpe said of his switch from Sapere, noting the growing geopolitical battle over issues such as the energy transition and AI supremacy. “This is a real opportunity to apply my economic, policy and broader consulting experience in a slightly different context.”
Thorpe spent the early part of his career as an economist with the Australian Productivity Commission and Commonwealth Treasury, before a brief stint at Coopers & Lybrand followed by a decade at Allen Consulting (now ACIL Allen). He joined PwC in 2007, later serving as Canberra office managing partner and NSW government lead prior to his five years as chief economist.
According to the Bondi Partners website – which this author was for some reason blocked from accessing during the course of penning this article – the firm provides cross-border investment and advisory services in areas such as mergers & acquisitions, supply chain, and market entry, backed by its “unique experience and networks to interpret, forecast and manage opportunities and risks.”
Bondi Partners
Established by Hockey in 2020, Bondi notes national and cyber security, consumables, medtech, and critical minerals as among its areas of focus. His foray into consulting isn’t alone among ministerial contemporaries, with former house leader Christopher Pyne ultimately harangued out of joining the defence practice of EY before starting his own advisory business, Pyne & Partners.
Elsewhere, former foreign affairs minister and long-term Liberal Party deputy leader Julie Bishop stepped up her own self-branded consulting practice last year, while across the aisle, ex-Western Australia Labor premier Mark McGowan, who copped plenty of heat from the right for his strict approach to border lock-downs during the Covid-19 pandemic, joined Bondi Partners in 2023.
Hockey, meanwhile, served as Australian treasurer from 2013 to 2015 under the Abbott government, and was famously captured smoking a cigar after delivering the highly unpopular austerity-styled 2014 federal budget. He was later appointed as Australia’s ambassador to the US upon his parliamentary retirement, a position he held until early 2020 before establishing Bondi.
A tentative voice on the newly-reelected US president during his ambassadorial tenure and since, Hockey recently said of the next four years, while urging local concessions; “It’s going to be a huge volume of disruptive activity, from virtually the moment Donald Trump swears the oath onwards. Australia is right down the priority order, and there’s no upside in ‘us’ being up the list.”
