EDITORS’ NOTE

Prior to assuming his current position, Michael Grindfors was Managing Director in the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs, after having spent 13 years with the Boston Consulting Group, where he was a Senior Vice President heading up the New York and Nordic practices. Earlier in his career, he led operational turnarounds for such international companies as Puma, Etonic, and Tretorn. A native of Sweden, Grindfors graduated from the Stockholm School of Economics.

COMPANY BRIEF

Though most famous for its work in corporate restructuring, AlixPartners LLP (www.alixpartners.com) has, over its 26-year history, become a broad-based global consulting firm. With services ranging from operational performance improvement to IT transformation, and from financial advisory to full corporate turnarounds, the firm has successfully built on its heritage of being a doer, not just a planner. With more than 700 employees, the firm operates through a network of 13 offices around the globe, with 6 in the United States, 5 in Europe, and 2 in Asia.

Are you happy with the current level of brand awareness for AlixPartners in the marketplace? What are you doing to build brand recognition?

We have a very crisply defined positioning and perception of our brand. That positioning is built on the fact that when clients have issues that really matter, they call AlixPartners. Internally, we say that our focus is on urgent high-impact situations. For example, a new management team might come into a company and want to work with a catalyst that can make change happen more quickly and with a higher probability of success. Another example might involve new owners coming into a financially challenged situation. The way we execute, and the way that our clients perceive us, is based on three things. First, we provide only experienced people to work with clients. We do not believe that the client should be paying for consultants who are learning on the job and who are basically just taking their post-MBA training at the client’s expense. Second, our capabilities are unique, because they span both financial issues and operational improvements – that’s very unusual. Third, we are willing to align our incentives with those of our clients, through a successful and established model. So the positioning of the firm is differentiated.

The way we have built the brand is with one great client success after another. We do not do a lot of advertising. We believe that the best way to build the brand in our space is to create a track record of very satisfied clients who will call us again when they need help and who will also talk to their colleagues and friends in the community about the experiences they’ve had with AlixPartners.

How broad is your target market?

It crosses all industries, because there is no industry that doesn’t sometimes need support in high-impact situations when, as we at AlixPartners put it, “it really matters.” Our capabilities span most industries today. We have a little more than 700 people working at AlixPartners, and we have particularly strong expertise in the areas of automotive, industrial goods, retailing, consumer goods, chemicals, telecommunications, and media. That said, there is hardly any industry in which we wouldn’t be able to work based on substantial previous experience.

Your growth has been particularly strong in North America. What is your outlook for growth in the region?

Our growth in North America has been driven by three different service areas: The first area is our leading position in turnaround consulting; the second area is performance improvement services; and the third area is financial advisory services. Those areas have grown very quickly for us, and not just in North America. Today, approximately one-third of our business is outside North America, primarily in Europe but increasingly in Asia, through our offices in Shanghai and Tokyo.

What opportunities do you see for the firm in China? Is it a difficult market in which to succeed?

There are two ways for us to approach the Chinese market. One way is to work with our Western clients from North America and from Europe; helping them decide how they should manage their China opportunities. Another way is to focus on domestically owned clients. So far, our focus has been to work with Western companies, rather than to work with local Chinese companies. We believe that the local Chinese market will be an important one going forward, but our focus over the next two to three years will be to continue working with Western companies with regard to their Asian strategies.

How about India?

India is very much on our radar screen. I don’t want to put a date on it, but it’s very likely that we will open an office in Mumbai sometime soon. In the meantime, we are already doing client work in India, even though we don’t have an office there. That’s what we did in Europe years back – we undertook client assignments in Europe before we put a physical presence there. I expect to see the same pattern unfolding in India.

Consultancy is very much a people business. Have you been happy with your ability to find and retain the talent you need?

In the six years that I have had the good fortune to work with the firm, we have grown annually by 35 percent on average. That has been possible because we’ve been able to recruit and retain great people. At AlixPartners, you get the best of the two worlds of consulting and line management. You have the benefit of variety associated with consultancy, and, at the same time, you have the benefit of seeing your work implemented – the end product is not just a report.

We do not micromanage people, and we encourage entrepreneurship. For instance, we try to find opportunities for positive reinforcement, rather than doing detailed follow-ups about why someone didn’t do something. As a result of all of this, we’ve had very low attrition. Ultimately, people like the kind of work we do, and they like the culture, and that’s the key for us to continue to succeed.