Scyne Advisory to cut around 100 roles as senior leaders depart
Less than eighteen months on from its launch and PwC public sector breakaway Scyne Advisory is preparing to cut 10 percent of its staff, with a number of its senior leaders having already departed.
The job cuts, which are being made alongside a move to fold the firm’s digital division into its broader transformations practice, are expected to tally around 100, with Scyne Advisory having already axed 90 positions less than a year ago.
The firm’s struggles, amid a wider market downturn exacerbated by a government cutback on advisory spending, have already seen the departure of a number of Scyne Advisory’s inaugural senior leaders, including half the firm’s original state leaders.
Taking on the top role in November, Scyne Advisory CEO John Ball told the Australian, “The redundancies are hard and challenging, and the organisation and our leadership team is absolutely focused on doing it in the most humane way possible, making sure we have empathy and compassion as we reshape the business.”
According to reports, the firm’s education practice is expected to be heavily hit by the cuts. The consultancy’s data & digital line will be incorporated into its strategy & transformation division as part of a restructure, to sit alongside finance, risk & cyber and infrastructure & property with a greater emphasis on tech and less so on traditional advisory.
“The market has changed a lot from when we started,” Ball told the Australian. “The notion of the reliable generalist is diminishing. There have been such incredible changes with technology that clients are seeing opportunities to gain efficiencies through things like artificial intelligence. What they want though is deep expertise on a particular matter.”
Emerging out of the PwC government tax scandal, Scyne Advisory opened its doors in November of 2023 after six months of preparations, but got off to an inauspicious start by reneging on offers made to dozens of former PwC staff to cross to the start-up alongside an originally estimated 1,300 or so partners and colleagues.
Leadership departures
Part of those preparations following Allegro’s purchase of PwC’s public sector consulting practice included the installation of an interim management and state & territory leadership team under the overall direction of acting chief and now managing partner Richard Gwilym. Of the other one dozen names on the original list, five have since left the firm.
That number includes former WA managing partner Tricia Tebbutt, who joined FTI Consulting’s recently-launched healthcare practice as a senior managing director last week, alongside now more than a dozen other senior Scyne leaders across the country. Former PwC trust & risk partner Iara Morris now leads the state, together with her role as national internal audit leader.
Tebbutt previously reported to national geographies and Victoria & Tasmania leader David Sacks, who also departed the firm last month with plans to exit the consulting industry altogether and “get closer to the action”. Sacks in his state leadership role has been replaced by Amy Senti, another two-decade PwC/Scyne veteran in Melbourne.
Meanwhile, initial South Australia leader Jamie Briggs, who then took up a role as Scyne’s head of corporate affairs, was reportedly poached by the Liberal opposition leader as a strategic advisor toward the end last year. PwC’s former national infrastructure strategy & economics leader Mark Thompson has led Scyne’s SA business since the end of 2023.
Strategy & go-to-market leader Emily Prior has also moved on, and since set up her own healthcare analytics boutique, while perhaps the most high-profile loss has been the defection of former Strategy& chairman Tim Jackson, who oversaw Scyne’s strategy & transformation service line before crossing to Oliver Wyman to help set up direct competition in Canberra.
