He's a partner already although not very long standing.
Nov 2009:
PwC plans to triple consulting business in five years
One of the most encouraging bits of news we?ve had recently was the announcement by PricewaterhouseCoopers that it was planning to treble the size of its consultancy operation.
Leading the charge in the UK is Ashley Unwin, who was appointed head of the firm?s Performance Improvement Consulting practice in May. A former consultant, he was lured back into the fold after a stint in private equity and latterly the music industry.
?I was tempted back by the sort of vision offered by our chairman Ian Powell,? he says. ?If you look at the size of the market versus our penetration, there?s a significant opportunity for growth.?
Summing up the new approach as ?we are a professional services firm and we need to act like one,? Unwin believes that PwC is well placed to deliver on a five year plan to triple revenue even without any underlying growth in the market. However, this does not mean a renewed ?charge into technology? or even an acquisition spree.
?We won?t necessarily go into anything new,? says Unwin. ?But in many areas there?s an opportunity to provide a fuller suite of service than we currently do. For example, in regional and local government we?re fairly mature, we have a full suite of offerings, but we don?t have that in financial services. We have high levels of year on year growth but we are still consulting around a fairly narrow position in those areas.?
By integrating these ?discrete pockets of consulting? and the wider expertise of the firm, Unwin believes PwC can play to its strengths.
?If we just operate in point functions and skillsets, then we allow any niche consultancy to compete against us,? he says. ?We need to ask, can we provide a fuller response by combining skills in ways that others can?t?for example, putting forensic, technical and strategy skills together.?
Unwin acknowledges that achieving this means questioning older consultancy models.
?If we are running a portfolio business, then we have to acknowledge different skills will be ?hot? at different ties,? he says. ?We need to be able to balance it, so we can move the hot skills around really quickly. You can?t run a business like that on the basis that ?I have these 30 people reporting to me and I keep them busy?.?
A key part of Unwin?s strategy is the recruitment and development programme that kicked off in October with the aim of recruiting 200 graduates.
?The whole graduate piece is coming back,? he says. ?We?re going to have a proper training programme that will give them a set of core consultancy skills that will be highly relevant regardless of the area they work in.?