Alvarez & Marsal welcomes leaders Bernadette Cullinane and Lachlan McDonald
Professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal has recruited former Deloitte Asia Pacific vice chair Bernadette Cullinane along with ex-BCG partner Lachlan McDonald as managing directors.
Based out of Perth, Cullinane joins Alvarez & Marsal energy & resources team after spending close to the past decade at Deloitte, prior to which she spent the same length of time at Accenture after earlier career stints at ExxonMobil and Arthur Andersen Consulting.
Meanwhile, McDonald joins the practice in Sydney after serving over the past year as an executive director for tech start-up Future Secure AI, before which he spent five years at Boston Consulting Group following a career start with the likes of BHP Billiton, Santos and Inpex.
Bernadette Cullinane
“We’re pleased to welcome Bernadette to our energy & resources performance improvement practice,” the firm stated. “She brings 30 years of global experience delivering operational, commercial, and technology-led transformation across the sector, having led major programs in more than 30 countries to drive improvements in performance and cost efficiency.”
Among those countries are Singapore and the US, where Cullinane spent time with ExxonMobil after gaining an MSc in chemical engineering from the University of Houston and an MBA from Columbia Business School. She later moved to Perth and became a managing director at Accenture, where she led the WA management consulting practice and oil & gas sector work.
A decade later, in 2016, Cullinane joined Deloitte as a partner and Australia energy & chemicals leader, was later appointed head of energy, resources & industrials, and had since early last year served as vice chair for the Big Four firm’s Asia Pacific region. Among other areas, she brings expertise in digital transformation, operating model optimisation, and the energy transition.
“After thirty years in energy and resources, working across multiple countries and the end-to-end energy value chain, I still find this industry genuinely fascinating – and at this moment, more important than ever,” Cullinane said upon joining Alvarez & Marsal, noting that the current global energy crisis has “re-calibrated mindsets, strategies, and outlooks for the decades ahead”.
She continued; “History teaches us that energy shocks have triggered some of the most significant pivots in modern industrial history followed by waves of new technological innovation. The world doesn’t just adapt to energy crises; it transforms and reshapes around them. That’s the environment in which I’ve joined Alvarez & Marsal in Perth and what’s driving me to build a dedicated practice here.”
Lachlan McDonald
Meanwhile, Lachlan McDonald has joined the energy & resources performance improvement practice as a managing director in Sydney fresh off a one-year executive director stint at Future Secure AI, which is an automated ‘co-worker’ software start-up co-founded by former McKinsey & Company high-level partner Mehrdad Baghai and next year headed for a $1 billion IPO.
Before that, McDonald, a psychology and law graduate of the University of New England who then perhaps surprisingly kicked off his career in the mining sector, spent five years at Boston Consulting Group, making partner at the start of 2024. Earlier, he co-founded and led his own logistics blockchain company and heavy industries operations & procurement advisory.
“Lachlan brings over 16 years of experience as an entrepreneur and consultant, specialising in transforming mining, manufacturing, and energy companies,” said Alvarez & Marsal. “His expertise spans AI-led operations, value chain optimisation, and procurement, and has throughout his career led capital project optimisation initiatives and delivered strong productivity outcomes.”
