L.E.K. Consulting

L.E.K.Consulting

Type	Partnership
Industry	Management consulting
Founded	1983
Headquarters	London, England
Key people	Iain Evans, Global Chairman Stuart Jackson, Global Managing Partner
Products	Management consulting services, including strategy, private equity, mergers & acquisitions, life sciences, and retail
Number of employees	1,200+ employees worldwide
Website	www.lek.com

L.E.K. Consulting is a leading Management Consulting firm, with global headquarters in London and U.S. headquarters in Boston. The company was founded in 1983 by three partners from Bain & Company: James Lawrence, Iain Evans and Richard Koch. L.E.K. employs over 1,200 consultants across 21 offices worldwide.^[1][2]

L.E.K. Consulting operates as a partnership and advises over 20 percent of the world's largest companies,^[3] as well as leading private equity firms and governments. The firm has acted as an adviser for over a third of the FTSE100, is the only major global strategy consulting firm to have grown from a UK base,^[4] and it is the second-largest European strategy consulting firm behind Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. In 2007, L.E.K. received the Queen's Award for Enterprise.

L.E.K. employs a generalist model, with expertise^[5] across all major industries including a large presence in Defence, Aviation, Life Sciences, Healthcare, Energy, Entertainment, Transport, Retail, Consumer Products and Financial Services.^[5] The company also has a large private equity practice.^[6]

L.E.K.'s primary service lines consist of Corporate Strategy, Mergers and Acquisitions, and Operations. As of 2016, it is ranked #8 in Vault's branche-internal survey of Top 50 consulting firms to work for.^[7] L.E.K. is ranked 2nd best worldwide for employee travel requirements (minimal compared to competing firms due to the regional staffing model) and 4th for exit opportunities according to Vault.^[8]

History

In 1983, three partners from Bain & Company - James Laurance, Iain Evans and Richard Koch - founded L.E.K. Consulting in London. From the start, their uncompromising vision was to "create a incredible firm or fail trying.".^[9] Their most important principles for the firm where around the nature of problem solving. Some of L.E.K.'s major project milestones have included: strategic and commercial advice for the U.K. government on the privatization of passenger train operating companies in the mid-1990s, assisting the launch of one of the world's first pure direct Internet banks in 1996, being the sole strategic advisor on the world’s largest airline merger in 2007 and the transformation of a mid-tier global pharmaceutical company into an industry leader in 2009. In 2008, L.E.K. became the first global major management consulting firm to hold 'carbon neutral' status.^[10]

Recruitment

L.E.K. Consulting was ranked in the list of top 20 most challenging job interview processes in the world by the career site Glassdoor, placing it above Facebook and Amazon.^[11] Candidates typically undertake multiple rounds of case and experience-based interviews.

SWAP Program

L.E.K. Consulting is well known for its 6 month office SWAP program, in which employees may add dimension and perspective to their career by switching places with one of their peers in an overseas office for a 6 month period.^[12]

Awards & Recognition

L.E.K. Consulting has won a number of prestigious awards within the management consulting industry. They were named 'Strategic Consultants of the Year' at the 2015 Health Investor Awards, following on from awards in 2013, 2012 and 2011.^[13] L.E.K Consulting was also the first strategic management consultancy to win the Queen’s Award for Enterprise.^[14] In 2016 L.E.K. was recognised in the 2016 Excellence in Social & Community Investment Awards.^[15] In 2006, L.E.K. was named Due Diligence Adviser of the Year by Acquisitions Monthly and Specialist Adviser of the Year by Acquisition Finance. L.E.K. Consulting was ranked #11 in Consulting Magazine's 2016 Best Firms to Work for list, placing #4 in the compensation and benefits category.^[16]

Offices

L.E.K. Consulting employs over 1,200 consultants across 21 offices worldwide.^[1][2]

• Beijing
• Boston
• Chennai
• Chicago
• London
• Los Angeles
• Melbourne
• Mumbai
• Munich
• New Delhi
• New York City
• Paris
• San Francisco
• Sao Paulo
• Seoul
• Shanghai
• Singapore
• Sydney
• Tokyo
• Wroclaw

Notable former employees

• Richard Koch - Author and entrepreneur
• Damon Buffini - Managing Partner, Permira
• Boris Johnson - Journalist, Foreign Secretary and Former Mayor of London
• Richard Fuller - Member of Parliament for Bedford
• Christian Purslow - Co-founder of MidOcean Partners and managing director of Liverpool Football Club
• Kevin A. Mayer - Executive Vice President, The Walt Disney Company
• James Lawrence - CEO of Rothschild, formerly CFO of Unilever
• Robert Boyle – Commercial Director – British Airways
• Coline McConville – CEO – Clear Channel Europe
• Phillip Goulding – CFO – Allegheny Energy
• Oliver Duha – Co-founder & Co-chairman – WebHelp France
• Tim Sims – Managing Partner – Pacific Equity Partners
• Reinhard Gorenflos – Managing Director – Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
• Andre Sillitoe – CEO – Apax Partners

Developed Concepts

80/20 Principle

In 1997 Richard Koch, Co-Founder of L.E.K., published The 80/20 Principle, which has since sold more than a million copies and been translated in 35 languages. The book was a reinterpretation of the Pareto principle, extending the idea that most worthwhile results come from a small minority of effort, from a business context, where this concept was well known, to include personal life, careers and personal happiness. The 80/20 Principle, substantially updated in 2007, has become a business classic, being named by GQ Magazine as one of the top 25 business books of all time.

Edge Strategy

Edge strategy is the leveraging of core foundational assets in creative ways and recognizing that the delineation between what is core in a business and what is a new venture is not a hard line. The access of new and incremental profit at the boundary of a business is the concept of Edge Strategy, which has been pioneered by lan Lewis and Dan McKone.^[17]

References

External links

• Official Web Site