The 2022 Fastest Growing Firms: Blue Ridge Partners Management Consultants, LLC

Number of Billable Consultants: 100

Client Industries Served: Business Services, Consumer Products & Retail, Financial Services & Payments, Health Care, Industrial Products/Distribution, Technology, Media & Telecom

Consulting Service Lines: Growth Strategy, Commercial Effectiveness. Pricing, Transaction Support

Website URL: https://www.blueridgepartners.com/

Blue Ridge Partners is known for our exclusive focus on accelerating profitable revenue growth, the #1 driver of value creation. Blue Ridge Partners provides business consulting services for Private Equity firms, their portfolio companies and Fortune 500 companies. We are known for rolling up our sleeves, being pragmatic in our recommendations and delivering tangible results that focus on the "how" of execution. In our work with clients around the world, we have amassed extensive knowledge of the issues that affect revenue performance.

Consulting: How would you say you've managed to maintain growth during the unprecedented past three years?

Corey: We have achieved exceptional growth during the last three years by staying focused on a single topic—accelerating profitable revenue growth within the private equity industry. Our style is very collaborative and highly impactful. We have a reputation for being fact-based, apolitical, and focused on ringing the cash register for our clients. Because of this style and the impact of our work, the vast majority of our new clients have been recommended to us by existing/former clients.

Consulting: What were the main factors that contributed to your firm's exceptional growth?

Corey: Our firm is fortunate to sit at the intersection of three forces that continue to drive our strong growth. First, we have focused on the private equity market. Their strong growth over the last 10-15 years has propelled our growth. Second, we exclusively work on issues related to top-line revenue growth. This is the #1 driver of value creation in businesses, which means our services are in high demand during the private equity holding period. Finally, we have established a reputation for closing the gap between PowerPoint recommendations and generating cash. Our clients know our suggestions will be pragmatic, implementable and impactful on their revenue performance.

Consulting: How is this year shaping up for your firm?

Corey: Our strong growth is continuing in 2022. YTD, our revenue is up more than 15% over a record setting 2021. We are currently sold out and starting new engagements requires a 6-8 week waiting period.

Consulting: How would you describe your firm's outlook for 2023? Where do you see the most opportunities?

Corey: We expect strong demand for our services through 2023. Global private equity firms hold nearly $2 Trillion in dry powder, which will be invested creating new opportunities for us in both due diligence and post close support. We are also building new productized service offerings that we expect to be in high demand in 2023.

Consulting: What would you say are your firm's biggest challenges in 2023

Corey: Our greatest challenge is finding enough qualified people to support our growth. We are highly selective—we hire about 3% of applicants. Applicants must demonstrate their capabilities in an online problem-solving assessment, an Excel assessment, PowerPoint assessment and case interviews. This is a time-consuming process but is necessary to ensure we hire fully capable team members. Finding enough qualified people that make it through this screening process is our greatest challenge.

Consulting: What does being named one of Consulting's Fastest Growing Firms mean to your firm, your employees and your clients?

Corey: The Covid era has been stressful in many ways for our people. They have been resilient and worked exceptionally hard to support the needs of our private equity clients. They were rewarded in many private ways but public recognition is highly meaningful for them. With our clients, we rarely/never talk about our firm's success since our priority is to care about their success. This selection will allow us to describe our success to our clients in a meaningful way—and this validates the confidence these clients have shown in us over the years.

Our firm culture is based on developing the whole person—professional life is about more than just doing your work. This recognition will expand the fulfillment of each person in our firm in a way they will view as highly meaningful.