Interview: Ruari Scullion, associate partner at management consultancy PEN Partnership, on its strategic Scottish expansion

“It's a really exciting growth opportunity for us,” says Ruari Scullion, associate partner at specialist management consultancy PEN Partnership, of its move putting down roots in Scotland.

The firm, which was established in 2012 looking to “challenge the traditional approach to consulting” and is headquartered in the City of London, has now officially set up a base in the Scottish capital, where it sees great overlap with its key sectors.

These include a core focus on financial services, working with major names in banking, insurance, and wealth- and asset-management, explains Scullion, who has been with the business for about eight years, following spells at EY and Allianz. And he adds that some of PEN’s key clients have a major Scottish presence, including Standard Life-owner Phoenix Group, and investment specialists Blackrock (which aims to grow its headcount in Edinburgh to more than 1,400) and Abrdn.

PEN’s move north of the Border comes after it examined the local business landscape – including scale and competitors – with a finetooth comb to determine if it really was a big enough opportunity. “The long and the short of it is we really think it is, and it's a really exciting thing for us,” says Scullion, who is himself a Scot, hailing from Broughty Ferry, and has relocated to Edinburgh from London to help build up its new division.

PEN Partnership associate partners Jenny Simpson and Ruari Scullion. Picture: Michael Gillen.

The Scottish operation has assembled a team of six, including fellow associate partner Jenny Simpson – and will “organically grow our team as demand for our services goes up and as we get more established”. And the new base taps into the firm’s bid to speak to clients face to face as much as is logistically possible. "Our clients, past, present, and hopefully future, in Edinburgh tell us, ‘there is value in being able to sit down with you over a coffee to shoot the breeze and get on a whiteboard and talk something through’. And we're definitely seeing that. One of the reasons that I'm really keen that we capitalise on what we think is a good opportunity in Scotland is actually being physically present. I think that will help us be successful.”

And he stresses to colleagues that the firm’s base north of the Border isn’t just to focus on the businesses that call Edinburgh home. “Scotland is the opportunity here, it's the perfect overlap with our area of focus and expertise,” he says of PEN, whose other sectors of focus include pharmaceuticals, retail and consumer goods, and whose strategic specialisms are customer experience and digital; operations and automation; change delivery and capability; and data and technology.

Scullion shines a spotlight on Glasgow, the location of Barclays’ major campus home to thousands of staff, and JP Morgan Chase that is moving into high-tech offices in the city centre spanning 270,000 sq ft; and Dundee-based Alliance Trust, for example. And he also flags some London-based asset-servicing firms showing increased interest in the Scottish market amid a broader trend of widening the business lens beyond the boundaries of the UK capital.

The consultancy has also been looking to in Scotland hire financial services stalwarts boasting decades of experience, having “ignited” talks in this regard, Scullion adds, as part of a planned organic expansion of its on-the-ground Scottish ranks. “We're quite lucky in that some of our partners that happen to be based in London have spent 25 per cent of their career working in Scotland, so we're reasonably well connected... we're looking at senior hires, junior hires, and everything everything in between.”

'One of the reasons that I'm really keen that we capitalise on what we think is a good opportunity in Scotland is actually being physically present,' says the PEN executive. Picture: Michael Gillen.

PEN’s laying-down of an Edinburgh base mirrors that of fellow management consultancy Alba Partners, seeing siblings and co-founders Richard and Carol Jacobs return to their Scottish roots, and hire the former head of Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE), of which PEN along with Alba is now a member. “We’ve had great engagement from everyone of all levels within that organisation to help us get established,” says Scullion of the trade body.

SFE, which represents Scotland’s £14 billion finance sector, in September launched a major campaign to attract fresh overseas investment, stressing the “unique strengths” that set the industry apart from key competitors, including “depth, breadth and maturity”. It then just over a month ago unveiled plans to help the sector boost the economy by a further £7bn per annum in coming years, double assets under management to £1 trillion by 2030, and see Edinburgh rank among the top 20 global financial centres, for example. SFE boss Sandy Begbie at the time said: “Scotland’s world-class finance ecosystem is an essential pillar of our economy, and we believe there is even greater potential just waiting to be unleashed.”

The new Edinburgh office of PEN, which in total now has a workforce of about 120 and turned over £23.5 million for the year to March 2023, complements its outpost in fellow financial services epicentre Geneva that debuted in 2021. Furthermore, the group was last year acquired by the UK arm of French-owned management and digital consulting firm Wavestone (which has about 4,000 consultants in 15 cities globally) in a deal worth up to £30m.

PEN at the time said: “The coming together of the two organisations fits perfectly with Wavestone’s strategic plan Impact – to accelerate the firm’s external growth in its target geographies – and matches PEN’s ambition – to expand in the UK and US – which is the perfect platform for our financial services and life sciences ambitions.”

Scotland looks set to play a key role in these aims, according to Scullion. “It's an exciting time for us as a business,” he states.