Consulting Uncensored

What does it really take to succeed as an independent sponsor in today’s private equity market?

In this episode of Consulting Uncensored, Neal McNamara sits down with David Acharya, Managing Partner of Acharya Capital Partners, to talk about the independent sponsor model, middle-market private equity, deal sourcing, and creating value without a traditional committed fund.

David shares his journey from investment banking to private equity and ultimately building his own platform, along with lessons from navigating COVID, partnering with strong management teams, building relationships with capital partners, and competing for quality opportunities.

They also dig into what’s happening in today’s deal environment, including valuation pressures, proprietary sourcing, seller expectations, and why David believes the deal itself should be at the center of business development and networking.

Learn more about David and Acharya Capital Partners:
Website: https://acp-co.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-acharya-20b370/

Connect with Neal McNamara:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nealmcnamara

Learn more about Virtas Partners:
https://virtaspartners.com/

Subscribe to Consulting Uncensored:
https://www.youtube.com/@ConsultingUncensored

#PrivateEquity #IndependentSponsors #MergersAndAcquisitions #MiddleMarket #DealMaking #ConsultingUncensored

What are private equity firms saying today about investing in professional services?  What is hot, what is not? 
 
In this episode of Consulting Uncensored, Neal McNamara provides his insights from the Canaccord Genuity Annual Growth Conference.   

Topics include:
 
 ▪️ Private equity investment in law firms
 ▪️ MSO structures and the risks facing investors
 ▪️ Lawyer mobility and portable client relationships
 ▪️ The rise of dedicated AI consulting practices
 ▪️ How AI is disrupting traditional service models
 ▪️ The emerging Co-CEO leadership trend
 
You can find more information about Canaccord at https://www.canaccordgenuity.com/.  

Subscribe to Consulting Uncensored for candid conversations about consulting, professional services, leadership, private equity, and the changing business landscape.
 
 #PrivateEquity #BigLaw #ProfessionalServices #ArtificialIntelligence #ConsultingUncensored

Consulting Uncensored Podcast, hosted by Neal McNamara, CEO of Virtas Partners, features a solo episode rather than a guest interview. Neil explains how a professional services firm can turn a potential client into an enemy through disrespectful conference communications, weak internal coordination, and poor leadership follow-through, showing listeners how to avoid damaging relationships before they can convert.

Neil brings the perspective of an industry veteran who has attended and presented at investment-bank-hosted professional services conferences. Drawing on his own experience as the potential client in the story, he connects relationship-based sales, managing director accountability, and personal brand risk to the everyday choices that shape trust in consulting.

Key Takeaways

• How careless event communications can make a potential client feel accused rather than welcomed.
• Why managing directors must intervene quickly when staff messaging damages a relationship.
• How relationship-based sales in professional services depends on respect before client conversion.
• The difference between changing event attendance criteria professionally and communicating it in a way that disrespects prospects.
• Why personal brand and a small industry network make careless client treatment especially risky.

Key Timestamps

[00:00:00] – Trailer
[00:01:40] – How investment bank conferences connect firms with potential investors
[00:03:33] – The team is warned they could be turned away at the door
[00:04:15] – Another banker reacts to the conference team’s response
[00:05:25] – The managing director stays silent as the registration is rejected
[00:06:35] – Poor communication becomes a leadership failure
[00:07:31] – How the managing director could have apologized and repaired the damage
[00:08:54] – One phone call could have saved the potential client relationship 

Disclosure: Portions of this episode (such as the introduction or promotional segments) use AI-generated voice narration produced under human editorial review.

🔗Follow Our Host Neal McNamara:
👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nealmcnamara

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👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/virtaspartners/
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Every Big Four practice has partners who haven't sat in front of a client, or sold a dollar of work, in years. Everyone knows exactly who they are. Nobody will touch them.

In this episode, Neal sits down with Angus Buchanan, Senior Advisor at Virtas Partners, who spent a decade in the British Army before working across three of the four Big Four firms, plus Accenture. From that rare vantage point, Angus names the thing insiders whisper: the "HUNC" partner (high units, no clients) and the model that protects them. 

They pull apart the machinery you only understand once you're trapped inside it: why "partner" is often a glorified employee with a nicer title, why the firms all claim differentiation none can prove, promotion metrics that reward selling and ignore leadership, and what firms actually do with a toxic rainmaker. 

Underneath it all: what is a partnership worth when it isn't really a partnership?

What You’ll Learn:

• What "HUNC" (high units, no clients) means and the partner problem no firm says out loud.
• Why the Big Four aren't nearly as differentiated as they all claim.
• What clients are really buying, and why it isn't the brand.
• The question every high-performing director should ask before chasing partner.
• Why deferred comp works like golden handcuffs you can't take off.
• Why politics, not merit, tends to decide who reaches the top.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• "You have the partner title, and clearly it's a partnership structure. But I think the reality is you are pretty much a glorified employee." - Angus Buchanan
• "It just comes down to the beer test. Who do you want to have a beer with? Whose company are you going to enjoy being in the most?" - Angus Buchanan
• "If you'll leave for money, you'll leave for money." - Neal McNamara

Resources:

• Angus Buchanan: LinkedIn
• Neal McNamara: Website | LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected]

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.

Every CEO is telling their teams to "do something with AI," so most firms hand out ChatGPT licenses, call it transformation, and move on. Then they ask it to forecast demand or reconcile five years of data, get a generic answer, and decide AI "isn't ready."

In this episode, Neal sits down with Ray Hsu, Vice President and General Manager at RapidCanvas, a native-AI company that pairs a secure, agentic platform with human experts in the loop. They explore the gap almost no one in professional services admits: the difference between AI that makes individuals a little faster and AI that changes how an organization actually operates.

They reveal the mindset shift Ray says most companies miss: stop treating AI as a tool, start treating it as a digital worker you hire, train, and trust over time. The conversation also turns to consulting pricing, where AI-driven headcount change will really land, and why leaving an "assistant" behind inside a client can matter more than the project itself.

What You’ll Learn:

• Personal productivity vs. organizational impact: why most firms never escape the first.
• What changes when you train AI like a digital worker and not a tool?
• Why AI cuts offshore roles first, not domestic consulting jobs.
• Why AI makes "outcome-based" pricing harder to design than it sounds.
• Why an AI "assistant" left behind keeps you in the building longer.
• What building real AI differentiation actually takes, and why we chose ‘build’ over ‘buy.’

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• “Don't use AI as a tool. Treat it as a role or a digital worker in your company.” - Ray Hsu
• “You have to really think about playing offense with AI. How do you reinvent yourself? How do you reinvent your consulting business?” - Ray Hsu
• “Everybody's blaming the RIFs on AI, as opposed to they're just not running their businesses as well as they should be… Total lazy excuse.” - Neal McNamara

Resources:

• Ray Hsu: RapidCanvas | LinkedIn
• Neal McNamara: Website | LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected]

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.

Have you ever watched a firm with real talent completely sabotage a relationship through sheer carelessness?

In this episode, Neal shares a firsthand account of being disinvited, and essentially accused of planning to crash a party, by an investment bank conference his firm had attended and presented at before. Neal uses the experience as a real-world case study in how poor communication, absent leadership, and a lack of accountability can turn a potential client into an adversary overnight.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why professional services is unforgiving when you disrespect potential clients.
• How one bad email can undo months of relationship-building.
• Why managing directors (not marketing staff) own client relationship failures.
• What "one phone call" leadership looks like and why it's rare.
• Why making enemies in a small industry is always costly.
• How to deliver a difficult message without offending the recipient.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• “In our industry, disenfranchising or disrespecting a potential client is about the dumbest thing that you can do.” - Neal McNamara
• “One call like that could have salvaged everything, or at the very least, it could have prevented somebody in the middle of this industry from literally doing a podcast on how bad you f**** up a potential client relationship.” - Neal McNamara
• “The world in this industry is so small, and personal brand is a real thing. Making enemies is just plain stupid.” - Neal McNamara

Resources:

• Neal McNamara: Website | LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected]

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.

What separates great business development from everyone else?

In this episode, Neal sits down with Grant Marcks, Partner at The Riverside Company, to explore why winning work in private equity and consulting depends on patience, credibility, and long-term relationship-building.

Grant explains how thoughtful “no” responses can create future goodwill, why silence damages trust, and how strong references compound across tight professional ecosystems.

The conversation also dives into what private equity investors actually want in consulting firms, including specialization, recurring revenue, retention, growth, and infrastructure that can support scale.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why great business development starts with long-term relationship thinking.
• How thoughtful “no” responses can strengthen future deal flow.
• Why reputation compounds across bankers, founders, consultants, and service providers.
• How “sourcing” and “closing” require different skills in consulting.
• Why private equity loves specialized, recurring, growing professional services firms.
• When buy-and-build works better than building new services organically.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• “Don't let yourself get caught up in the day-to-day transactional part of this job. Think about every interaction you have as an investment for the future, whether it be three years, five years, 10 years down the line.” - Grant Marcks
• “Leave good references in your wake... it can't just be the five that you put on a reference card. It has to be the fact that I can sub rosa call really anyone that you've worked with before.” - Grant Marcks
• “You're only as good as your last deal, and you're only as good as whatever that business owner is going to tell the market.” - Grant Marcks

Resources:

• Grant Marcks: The Riverside Company | LinkedIn
• Neal McNamara: Website | LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected]

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.

Most investors are laser-focused on the exit. StoicLane Co-founder and President Matt Foran is playing a completely different game: acquiring fragmented, founder-led businesses in finance, insurance, and real estate, and turning them into best-in-class organizations they intend to own indefinitely.

In this episode, Neal sits down with Matt to explain the philosophy behind StoicLane's permanent capital model, from $300M+ deployed across 87 acquisitions to their accounting firm roll-up, Archer Lewis, and an AI strategy built on 100% leadership adoption.

Listen in as Matt shares what it really takes to build a professional services portfolio, why they scrapped their sales team, and how they move leaders across platforms in ways most PE firms would never consider.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why StoicLane chose buy-and-build and what their tech background made possible.
• What separates a permanent capital vehicle from a traditional PE fund.
• How StoicLane built 87 acquisitions across 5 platforms targeting $550M in revenue.
• Why Archer Lewis disbanded its sales team and what that reveals about demand.
• How AI is augmenting professional services teams.
• Why industry experience isn't always the prerequisite for leading a portfolio company.
• Why the seller-doer "unicorn" is the hardest hire in professional services.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• "We should go out and simply get the client base, and then apply our technological skills in a way that optimizes these organizations." - Matt Foran
• “Ultimately, our responsibility is to operate these in a way in which we would own them forever.” - Matt Foran
• "In other areas of the world where there are these statements of AI creating significant disruption, significant concern, we're excited about it." - Matt Foran

Resources:

• Matt Foran: Website | LinkedIn
• Archer Lewis
• Neal McNamara: Website | LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected]

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.

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. 

To read the full show notes and explore more resources on consulting, private equity, and growth, visit the Virtas Partners website: http://virtaspartners.com

Most consulting leaders say “people are our greatest asset,” then design firms where the best people burn out, stall out, or quietly leave. In this episode, Neal sits down with Jason Gandy, CEO of Performance Improvement Partners, a technology advisory and private equity–focused consulting firm, to examine what it actually looks like to lead from the front in a modern consulting business where careers, culture, and revenue all collide. 

Listen in as they discuss the real implications of running a player coach model, refusing to “promote on potential,” and treating delivery as more than just fulfillment work. You’ll hear how leadership style, business development strategy, and compensation design connect in consulting and private equity portfolio company work, as well as why those links quietly determine who stays, who leaves, and how fast your consulting firm can grow. 

To read the full show notes and explore more resources on consulting, private equity, and growth, visit the Virtas Partners website: http://virtaspartners.com