The consulting industry is entering a more volatile phase as the Big Four (Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG) face a new kind of competition: former partners building well-funded firms designed to compete directly with them. As industry giants respond with aggressive legal action, they are forced to balance protecting their market share with broader risks around culture, talent, and long-term positioning.
In this episode, Neal explores whether these hardball tactics could backfire, impacting how firms are perceived internally and by the private equity players they rely on as major clients. Listen in to hear about the shift in power that’s reshaping the industry from the inside.
What You’ll Learn:
- Why private equity is betting on former Big Four leaders to build direct competitors.
- What makes this new wave of consulting firms different from traditional boutiques.
- How partnership agreements become “handcuffs” when senior leaders leave.
- Why aggressive legal action may protect firms in the short term but create cultural risks.
- What happens when PE-backed challengers are tied to major Big Four clients.
- How this shift could change partner mobility and competition in professional services.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
- “What are the current partners to take from the firm so aggressively and viciously attacking former retired partners?” – Neal McNamara
- “When you are suing a company that your global client owns, that seemingly would come with some serious risk to the client relationship.” – Neal McNamara
- “Does this potentially look like a firm just being a big bully and trying to come after a new startup competitor because they’re concerned about the competitive landscape?” – Neal McNamara
Resources:
- Neal McNamara: Website | LinkedIn
- WTS UK
- Unity Advisory Group
- KPMG International
- Deloitte
- EY
- PwC
About Neal:
Neal McNamara is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Virtas Partners, a consulting firm focused on helping companies navigate complex financial and operational transitions. Before launching Virtas, he led the Accounting Advisory Services business at KPMG, where he advised large corporations and private equity firms on high‑stakes transactions. Over more than 25 years, Neal has supported clients across the full ownership lifecycle, including separations and divestitures, spin‑offs, carve‑out financial statements, IPO preparation, finance transformation, interim CFO roles, and restructuring under Chapter 11. His work centers on turning complexity into clarity and long‑term value for sponsors, management teams, and stakeholders.
Connect with Neal:
If you lead a consulting, finance, or professional services team and want to stay close to how investors and private equity are really thinking about growth and value creation, connect with Neal on LinkedIn to keep the conversation going and share your perspective.
To learn more about how Virtas Partners helps clients navigate major financial transitions from acquisitions and carve‑outs to IPOs, restructurings, and other complex changes, visit the Virtas Partners website.
Read the Transcript:
Welcome to Consulting Uncensored, the podcast that pulls back the curtain on the good, the bad, and the ugly of the consulting world.
This is where real conversations happen about leadership, strategy, culture, and careers in consulting. Hosted by industry veteran Neal McNamara, each episode features candid discussions with consultants, executives, and firm leaders who are building, challenging, and reshaping the industry from the inside.
No filters. No fluff. Just honest insight into what actually works and what needs to change.
This is Consulting Uncensored. Here’s Neal.
Neal McNamara: For many years now, I’ve been writing about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the Big Four. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with that vernacular, the “Big Four” refers to the four largest consulting firms in the world: PwC, EY, Deloitte, and KPMG.
Now, some argue that I spend outsized time on the bad and the ugly—for which one could have a rebuttal of: sometimes they make it just way too easy to go there. In all seriousness, I do my best to call balls and strikes, layered with my own personal knowledge and experience from having worked in one of these large firms for twenty years.
Now, I’ll also be interviewing guests on their personal, unique, and “under-the-tent” experiences in these firms for, of course, an uncensored view; an inside look as to what it’s like in the largest firms in the world that have historically dominated our industry. Today, though, I want to touch on a couple of recent events.
One literally came out the day of this recording, so we’ll start with that one. It was announced today that a former global practice leader at EY is starting his own tax firm, WTS UK—also confirming that accountants are still not creative at all in coming up with names for their firms. Name aside, this firm has been backed by one of the largest private equity funds in all of Europe, EQT.
This continues the trend of senior partners leaving Big Four firms to form competing firms. Now, this is a relatively new development in our industry. Boutique firms have been founded by former Big Four partners for a number of years now, but it’s only recently that they are forming firms to directly compete against the Big Four. Until recently, boutique consulting firms were formed by people that were going after either a new or underserved market.
This is what I did when I founded my firm. I founded a firm to be completely different than the Big Four in effectively every way: from its talent strategy to its compensation, to its execution model, and ultimately to the end market that we were serving. Now, building a firm to compete head-to-head with your former firm comes with some serious complications, primarily due to the serious “handcuffs” that are put on Big Four partners if they ever do want to leave.
Which leads nicely into the next news topic on firms being founded to compete against the Big Four: Unity Advisors. This is a firm that was recently launched by the former head of EY UK and the former Chief Operating Officer for PwC UK. They are also backed by another global private equity fund, Warburg Pincus.
Well, now PwC is threatening serious legal action against Unity and taking specific action against former partners that have joined Unity, including withholding deferred compensation and—what some are rightfully referring to as a bit petty—eliminating their access to their healthcare plans. So listen, these partners signed partnership agreements, and they should be compliant with these partnership agreements or deal with the consequences when they choose not to.
I had to deal with this myself in founding my own firm, and for almost three years, I know for a fact that there were leaders at KPMG speaking to former employees and colleagues of mine and were told to keep an eye out and ensure that I wasn’t competing with the firm in any way. That said, this is much more complicated than just simple legal agreements.
Many of these former partners are retired. Many of them have very good friends that remain at their former firms. What are the current partners to take from the firm so aggressively and viciously attacking former retired partners? What does that do to a firm’s culture? What does this say to the market?
Does this potentially look like a firm just being a big bully and trying to come after a new startup competitor because they’re concerned about the competitive landscape? And something else that I haven’t seen written about yet, but I have to think is involved here, is: what about the relationship with a global private equity firm like Warburg Pincus?
At Warburg Pincus’ size, I have to think that it’s a multi-million dollar account for pretty much most of the Big Four. So, when you are suing a company that your global client owns, that seemingly would come with some serious risk to the client relationship. Well, we clearly have many more questions here than answers.
But as these industry matters evolve and develop, we will continue to report, analyze, and give our opinions, as this is a very exciting time in our industry.
And that’s it for this episode of Consulting Uncensored with Neal McNamara.
Want to join the conversation? Connect with Neal on LinkedIn to share your thoughts on today’s episode and join a community of consulting professionals who want to cut through the BS. Thanks for listening. There’s a new episode every other Wednesday.
We’ll see you then.