Industry Management consulting Headquarters London, United Kingdom Number of employees 1,200 | Website www.lek.com Founded 1983 Type Partnership | |
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 Founders Richard Koch, Iain Evans, James Lawrence Subsidiaries L.E.K. Consulting LLC Profiles | ||
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.
Contents
- History
- Recruitment
- SWAP Program
- Awards Recognition
- Offices
- Notable former employees
- Social Impact
- 8020 Principle
- Edge Strategy
- References
L.E.K. Consulting operates as a partnership and advises over 20 percent of the world's largest companies, 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, 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 across all major industries including a large presence in Defence, Aviation, Life Sciences, Healthcare, Energy, Entertainment, Transport, Retail, Consumer Products and Financial Services. The company also has a large private equity practice.
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. 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.
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.". Their most important principles for the firm were 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.
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. 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.
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. L.E.K Consulting was also the first strategic management consultancy to win the Queen’s Award for Enterprise. In 2016 L.E.K. was recognised in the 2016 Excellence in Social & Community Investment Awards. 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.
Offices
L.E.K. Consulting employs over 1,200 consultants across 21 offices worldwide.
Notable former employees
Social Impact
L.E.K. Consulting have a strong history of engaging with the not for profit sector and assisting local community charities. Further, the firm was awarded “The Payroll Giving Quality Mark” from the Charities Aid Foundation for their commitment to fostering a culture of philanthropy in the workplace. The firm's social responsibility program covers both pro bono consulting work and volunteer support for charitable organisations. In the past, L.E.K. case teams have completed pro-bono consulting work for Save the Children, the Red Cross, the Carbon Trust, a hospital provider in East Timor and disaster relief strategy in Sichuan Province, West China.
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 Alan Lewis and Dan McKone.