Ashurst adds four ex-Big Four partners to consulting practice

Ashurst Consulting has added four new partners with Big Four experience to its consulting practice.

The consulting arm of global law firm Ashurst has significantly boosted its leadership stocks with the partnership addition of former Big Four partners: Philip Hope, Sid Maharaj, Elena Lambros and Tony Morris. They follow Philip Hardy, who joined the new venture as a partner last year after more than a decade in national leadership roles at Deloitte.

“Our unique approach to legal-led consulting quickly gained significant traction and positive client feedback throughout 2020,” said Hardy, who heads up Ashurst Consulting’s Risk Advisory practice. “We’ve seen many clients tapping into our new offerings in the past twelve months; we expect that to accelerate. We have also been surprised by the number of senior practitioners who continue to approach us wanting to join our team.”

Philip Hope
Newly named partner Philip Hope has been leading Ashurst Consulting’s Wealth, Investment Management and Superannuation line since the middle of last year, joining the firm after around four years with Deloitte. Prior, he had established niche financial services management consultancy Morse Consulting before its purchase by Deloitte in 2016, the latter where he would go on to be the lead partner for its Investment & Wealth Advisory business.

Sid Maharaj
A more than two-decade Deloitte veteran, Maharaj most recently served the Big Four out of Sydney as Global Cyber and Strategic Risk and Global Strategic and Reputation Risk leader. Originally joining the firm in South Africa, where he was made partner in 2006, Maharaj relocated to Australia in 2016 to take up a role as Chief Strategy Officer for Risk Advisory, then moving up the ranks to lead the nation-wide Risk Reputation offering.

Elena Lambros
Lambros brings over a decade of strategic transformation and technology implementation experience to Ashurst in both the financial services and public services sectors – having swung between roles at Deloitte and the NSW Treasury. For the past three years she has served as a partner in Deloitte’s Risk Advisory practice, her second stint at the firm interspersed with her most recent years at Treasury on financial management transformation reform.

Tony Morris
Starting out with the NSW Police Force in the mid-80’s, by early 2000 Morris was vacating a senior litigation role at WorkCover NSW to co-found and direct work health and safety consultancy The Brief Group, which ultimately merged with Deloitte in 2013. Since then, Morris has served at the Big Four as a Risk Advisory Partner in Reputational Risk, working closely with boards and executives to proactively manage OHS issues and risks.

Rapid expansion

According to Global Head Jamie Ng, the unanticipated success of Ashurst Consulting to date has accelerated ambitions, with an expansion of the service to the UK in the works and eyes on the US market thereafter. The consultancy also expects to double its headcount from 50 to 100 professionals by year’s end, and has an ambitious target of cracking $100 million in revenues by 2023 – necessitating the sudden bump in its partnership numbers.

“We see continued opportunities in the global consulting market, which has recorded year-on-year growth for the past five years across both mature markets and emerging economies. The sector has an estimated value of more than $250 billion and is expanding as the global economy grows,” said Ng, who has also spoken of plans to soon expand Ashurt Consulting into legal-led infrastructure consulting along with energy transition advisory services.