International law firm Bird & Bird today announces that its Baseline consulting arm is merging with Valeocon Management Consulting, creating one of the largest management consultancy firms linked to an international law firm.
The merged businesses will be known as OXYGY Management Consulting.
Baseline and Valeocon have worked together closely since 2015, helping clients transform their organisations and build capabilities as they respond to the rapidly changing business landscape.
Current Baseline CEO, Edoardo Monopoli, has been appointed CEO of the combined business, with current Valeocon CEO, Steve Crom, serving as Chairman of the Board.
The merger will allow Bird & Bird's lawyers and Valeocon's 70 consultants – who together have formed the delivery team on recent Baseline projects – to work even more closely together to support clients and accelerate the growth of the business.
Operating from offices in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the USA, OXYGY will work with clients' business and legal teams to resolve commercial issues in three key areas:
OXYGY aims to become a market leader on a number of uniquely integrated solutions designed to future-proof clients' businesses for the changing competitive, technological and regulatory landscape. This includes clients in the life sciences & healthcare, retail & consumer, tech & comms and financial services sectors, where there are particularly strong synergies between the Bird & Bird and Valeocon client base.
CEO of Bird & Bird, David Kerr says:
"Baseline has been working closely with the Valeocon team for a number of years now, so it's extremely exciting for us as a firm to welcome the new team under the OXYGY name. Baseline's offering has been a crucial part of our aim to go above and beyond providing legal advice to our clients. Being able to support them through periods of immense change and providing holistic solutions to help their businesses succeed has been extremely well received, so we look forward to leveraging this further working closely with the OXYGY team."
CEO of OXYGY Management Consulting, Edoardo Monopoli says:
"We are extremely excited to bring together the Baseline and Valeocon teams under the OXYGY brand. The business lines and solutions we've been developing together over the last few years both resonate strongly with clients and align perfectly with the Bird & Bird vision: to be the number one law firm in the world for organisations being changed by the digital world or those leading that change.
"They are also consistent with Valeocon's focus on working with clients in a way that is collaborative, authentic and fun and which helps them develop innovative and implementable solutions.
"As the business landscape continues to evolve, our collaborative approach and unique combination of legal and management consultancy expertise makes us well placed to help clients discover, design and deliver effective compliance, digital/data and expansion strategies.
"By merging now we plan to harness the potential of the solutions we've co-developed and to accelerate growth both for our business and the businesses of our clients around the world."
