Australian consultants feature in Who’s Who Legal expert lists

International research agency Who’s Who Legal has released its latest expert consulting guide, lauding dozens of consultants for their track record and expertise, including several active in the Australian market.

Launched in 1996, Who’s Who Legal is an annual list of the foremost legal and consulting practitioners in 30+ practice areas around business law, forensics, litigation, arbitration, data and e-discovery, construction dispute resolution, and more.

Over 25,000 practitioners from around the world are assessed for the individual rankings, with this year’s edition featuring senior leaders from the Australian branches of FTI Consulting, Ankura, Alvarez & Marsal, HKA, Secretariat, and BDO, among those listed.

The appearance of FTI Consulting’s local Forensic & Litigation head Dawna Wright is now commonplace, with the Melbourne-based senior managing director having previously been named as Who’s Who Legal’s international ‘Investigations Forensic Accountant of the Year’.

A former partner at McGrathNicol and Deloitte, Wright has been with FTI Consulting for close to a decade now, and was once again listed in the forensics and financial advisory quantum of damages categories.

Also returning to the list in the forensics accounting category are senior managing directors John Batchelor of the firm’s Melbourne office and Mark Pulvirenti, a former AlixPartners executive director who joined FTI Consulting from Control Risks in Sydney in early 2020. Batchelor meanwhile crossed to the firm in 2010 after a decade with later KPMG acquisition Ferrier Hodgson, and previously co-led FTI’s Asia practice prior to returning to Australia in 2021.

Meanwhile, Stephen Rae, senior managing director and head of the firm’s Construction Solutions practice out of Perth, has also continued his multiple-year run on the list as a ‘Construction – Quantum Delay & Technical’ expert consultant, alongside office colleague Stuart Downes and Melbourne-based managing director Jon Dyson. The latter pair joined the firm in 2015, with Downes promoted to managing director earlier this year.

Joining the trio on this year’s construction experts list as an FTI Consulting representative is recent recruit Tommy Wakefield-Smith, who crossed to the firm as a senior managing director last month after spending the prior five years operating his own practice Synel Consulting, before which he held senior roles at advisories TBH and HKA.

In addition, Sydney-based managing director Christohper Hatfield has once again been recognised as a data and e-discovery expert.

As it continues to build up its Australian practice, fellow global restructuring firm Ankura has had three of its local professionals listed by Who’s Who: senior managing director Chris Clark, a leader of the firm’s construction disputes & advisory practice out of Perth; Melbourne-based managing director and quantum expert Peter Jerome; and Greg Meredith, a senior managing director who joined the firm from KPMG in March to establish its local disputes practice.

Elsewhere, another new recruit at a locally-building global firm, Grant Whiteley, who joined Alvarez & Marsal as a disputes & investigations managing director in Perth from the partnership of KordaMenta just last month, was also featured in Who’s Who Legal’s digital forensics expert category alongside five international colleagues.

Global consultancy HKA has two members featured in the list: Jonathan Humphrey and Kourosh Kayvani. Both are based in the firm’s Sydney office.

Maria Jockel, BDO’s Melbourne-based global immigration leader, was another leader to be recognised as an expert in their field.