Asian centric strategy firm Solidiance expands into Australia with office in Sydney

Solidiance, the Asia focused strategy and management consultancy has opened its first office in Australia, marking the firms intent to continue its intercontinental expansion. The office is located in the MLC Centre, Martin Place in the heart of the Sydney CBD. 

The office which is based in Sydney is the third in as many years following a California and Berlin office opening in the past two years. Capitalising on their headquarters being based in Singapore, the firm boasts a home turf advantage by focusing exclusively on Asia, from East to West. The most recent previous additions to the firm’s focal ground from ‘Jordan to Japan, Dubai to Shanghai’ were offices launched in Beirut and in Abu Dhabi.

The move is designed to help both Australian companies enter the Asian market as well as to capitalise on the growth of Australia’s consulting industry. Solidiance’s intention with broadening its footprints south to Australia is to support in-bound and out-bound growth strategies for clients in Australia and Asia. The firm has performed over 880 cases of market entry in addition to M&A due diligence, competitive benchmarking, distribution channels, and marketing.

“Australia has a strong consulting market to begin with but the most attractive angle for Solidiance is our unique capacity to support Australian companies to enter and grow in Asia,” the firm’s long-time CEO and managing partner Damien Duhamel said, noting the clear trend for heavy investment in Asia by Australian companies.

The firm reiterated its intention to grow in Australia and praised the country for its stable domestic market growth, clear legal environment and highly-skilled workforce. “We have ambitious plans in Australia to cater to the local market, the inbound FDI segment, and obviously to Australian companies expanding in Asia. We believe our M&A and Digital practices will drive our Australia business,” Duhamel said.

Leading the new office will be Raul Heraud. Heraud has gained over 15 years of strategy consulting and finance experience working across emerging and frontier markets such as Latin America, China, Iran, the UAE and Korea. He will continue to serve the consulting firm as Head of Financial Services, overseeing its Private Equity, M&A and Financial Institutions practices. He has an MBA from Wharton.

After opening their first offices in 2006 in Singapore and China, Solidiance have rapidly expanded with the Sydney office marking the firm’s 15th overall. The consulting firm has stressed a heavy focus on emerging Southeast Asian markets and has established itself in every key ASEAN location. 

Speaking previously, Duhamel said; “Solidiance has been growing very rapidly since its inception. We however remain careful to drive growth as opposed to have growth driving our business. We rather grow slower but build stronger foundations and enjoy sustainable profits. Many young consulting firms are built around a nucleus of two-three people. We build systems to avoid over-dependence on our management.”

“Our coverage of emerging Asia is very solid already and we intend to leverage that further. We have been approached several times by large consultancies with the desire to acquire us but we think there is still plenty of growth ahead for us. So we will remain for a while the only Asia-focused growth strategy consulting firm. That suits us well.”