Alex Kamenev to take over as CEO of Right Lane Consulting

Melbourne-based strategy and management firm Right Lane Consulting has appointed Alex Kamenev as its next CEO. He succeeds Chiara Lawry, who held the role for three years.

Alex Kamenev joins Right Lane Consulting from his most recent deputy secretary role with the Victorian Department of Education, before which he was briefly with PwC after more than a decade and a half across various government departments.

Right Lane has also added another government advisory veteran in Zac Hatzantonis as its new public sector leader, with Hatzantonis crossing from the partnership of Ernst & Young. Chair Marc Levy will step into an executive role during the transition.

“It was an easy choice to be part of such a purpose-driven firm with deeply ingrained commitments to social responsibility, transparency and accountability,” commented Kamenev, who will officially take up his new CEO post from next year. “It’s a super talented team bursting with good ideas, implementation know-how and offering excellent value for money.”

In addition to his recent policy strategy and performance work for the Department of Education, Kamenev has spent time in senior roles across multiple government portfolios including social services, precincts, justice, and health, and is credited with having helped shape some of Victoria’s most significant reforms during his more than two decades of public sector service.

Chiara Lawry

Kamenev replaces Lawry, who has served as Right Lane chief executive since the B Corp transitioned to a foundation-ownership model more than three years ago, taking over from Levy. Having altogether spent seven years at the firm after joining from Boston Consulting Group in 2019, Lawry now moves to law firm Maurice Blackburn as chief strategy officer.

“We are immensely proud of Chiara’s achievements and grateful for her contribution to our clients and our firm,” Right Lane stated. “During her leadership, Chiara grew our client base, strengthened our consultant development model, and led us into new domains including diversity, equity & inclusion, housing and homelessness, and the prevention of family violence.”

Zac Hatzantonis

Hatzantonis meanwhile joins the firm as a principal after spending the past two years as a partner at EY, before which she served for over a decade at PwC, including as federal social services client lead partner and social policy leader, again working on significant reforms. Earlier, she spent close to a decade in the state treasury and finance department advising across a broad range of programs.

“Alex is widely respected for bringing clarity to complexity, designing innovative organisational and financial models, and building trusted relationships with boards and executives, while Zac brings deep expertise in strategic planning, large-scale business cases, and program evaluations,having advised on some of the most complex and sensitive reform challenges in recent decades,” the firm said of its two new recruits.