HRG last month named commercial performance manager Paul Dear its latest head of consulting. Dear leads a new international senior team with executives based in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. It also appointed Peter Burtness as head of consulting in North America. Burtness has been handling North American consulting engagements from the United Kingdom since he joined the organization as global consulting principal last year.
Burtness, now based in New York, currently is a one-man show in North America, with analytical and project management support from the European team. The company eventually will add more consultants in the region, he said, but not a separate sales force.
Meanwhile, Marion Klar now heads consulting in mainland Europe. Clare White now serves as the head of consulting in the United Kingdom, and will oversee consulting in the Nordic region.
This unit's leadership has seen many changes. In July 2007, HRG appointed American Express Business Travel and IJet Intelligent Risk Systems veteran Lee DeVet to head the consultancy's regional operations. He left a few months later.
In August 2008, head of the global consulting unit Ian Flint left HRG
(BTNonline, Aug. 6, 2008). His previous consulting business, Flint & Associates, was purchased by HRG in 2006. Mike Orchard oversaw the division on an interim basis following Flint's departure.
Flint's business and Andrew Menkes' Partnership Travel Consulting, which HRG also purchased in 2006, were the foundation for HRG Consulting. Menkes initially was president of HRG Consulting but departed within three months for an executive post with now-defunct Eos Airlines. He reopened his consulting shop after regaining naming rights from HRG.
"In the past, probably what failed was there really wasn't the experience and relationships built up with HRG Consulting in the U.K.," Burtness said. "Maybe the focus wasn't so much on the delivery of fee-paying engagements, but more on the development of HRG in general."