Canberra consultancies A23 and Parbery expand interstate
As consultancies continue expanding to the nation’s capital, two Canberra-based firms – Parbery and A23 – have recently branched out, opening respective new outlets in Adelaide and Sydney.
For Parbery, which was founded in Canberra by former Synergy Group and KPMG director Nick Chapman in 2017, the new Flinders Street base in Adelaide cements its recent gradual expansion into South Australia.
Meanwhile, digital consultancy A23 has set up shop in Tower One, Barangaroo in Sydney after first being established in Canberra in 2016, with a further expansion into Queensland via a Brisbane office currently in the works.
A23
A23’s expansion agenda is being led by co-founder Simon Metcalfe, who toward the end of last year handed over CEO duties to fellow co-founder Natalie Legg to take on the Chief Growth Officer role. Since its inception, A23 has swelled to a team of around 60 professionals generating annual revenues in excess of $30 million, with the aim of growing by a further 75 percent over the next three years.
As part of its strategy and push into new markets, the consultancy is looking to further broaden its clientele beyond its public sector bread and butter, having to date predominantly served a range of federal departments, higher education institutes, and state agencies in areas such as cloud, data and analytics, digital transformations, cybersecurity and IT strategy and infrastructure.
“At a macro level, I want us to grow beyond Canberra with more private sector clients,” Legg, a proud Kamilaroi woman, said upon her appointment. “At a cultural level, I want to lead a company with clear communications and a positive culture. I hope we can continue to be an employer of choice, championing diversity with more women and people from diverse cultural backgrounds.”
Parbery
Recently adding former RSM and Accenture practice leader Luke Williamson as its seventh partner, Parbery is of a similar size to A23 with a team of around 60 professionals and likewise places a heavy emphasis on workplace culture. One of its partners, Trevor Woolley, has been leading the management consultancy’s growth in Adelaide over the past year or so alongside defence department recruit Adam Costantini.
In addition to defence and government clients, Parbery also serves the non-profit and small business sectors in a range of areas including strategy development, business performance improvement, organisational transformation, and project and program management, as well as through financial advisory and assurance. The firm said that its new SA office was part of a strategic objective to better support its local clients.
Canberra
Parbery and A23 join Synergy as among home-grown Canberra consultancies currently looking beyond the territory, at the same time as a number of firms are moving in in a bid to capitalise on the Big Four freeze. In addition to of course Scyne Advisory, other big players to have recently established a base in the capital include Oliver Wyman, while RSM launched a local management consulting practice at the start of the year.
