When Steve Lukens joined Grant Thornton from IBM a few years ago as its advisory services lead, his mission was to identify a roadmap to build out the firm's advisory practice. His efforts paid off, as last year the firm saw 14.5 percent growth in its advisory practice, with double-digit growth on the horizon for the foreseeable future as it aligns its global strategy and hones its talent pool. The firm also has made recent investments in its financial services, healthcare and private equity practices, and now operates in 100 countries around the world with 4,500 billable resources internationally and 1,500 in the U.S., about what you'd expect from a firm whose slogan is "An instinct for growth". Lukens sat down recently with Consulting One on One .
Consulting: Talk about some of the new strategies you put in place that helped fuel the advisory practice's 14.5 percent growth?
Lukens: It's really following a playbook that's fairly well proven in the industry to focus deeper on industry expertise. We have had a lot of folks with expertise, but they weren't connected, across the country or globally. So really getting a strong focus on our industry insight and then taking that to larger organizations and solving larger clients. Coupling the industry focus with a large account relationship program has really driven a big part of our growth.
