Get Growing: West Monroe Partners eyes 500% growth for New York office by 2025

Chicago-based West Monroe Partners has aggressive growth plans for its New York Office, which is currently at 125 employees but will be about 750 by the end of 2025, says Gil Mermelstein, a Senior Managing Director and a member of the firm's Executive Committee and Board of Directors and New York office lead. "As an epicenter for business, New York City is home to hundreds of enterprises that are staples in the U.S. economy, but most face issues of industry disruption, digital transformation, and talent management," Mermelstein says. To prepare for the hyper growth, the firm just signed a ten-year lease at Worldwide Plaza at 825 Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. Mermelstein sat down with Consulting to discuss the firm's planned growth.

Consulting: Can you take me through a little bit about how you landed as WMP's New York office lead?

Mermelstein: I was employee No. 1 in the New York office when I joined the firm at the end of 2010. I was a Partner in London with BearingPoint, which is a strategic partner with West Monroe. When I was there we took BearingPoint Europe private and ended up with an alliance with West Monroe in North America and that's how I got to know Kevin McCarty and Dean Fischer and everyone at West Monroe. There was an opportunity for me to come back to the U.S. and start an East Coast practice for a small firm—I think West Monroe was about 200 people mostly in Chicago at that time. Fast forward to today and we are now about 125 people in New York—all organic growth, we haven't done any acquisitions in New York—focusing on Financial Services, Private Equity, M&A, Energy, Utilities and Healthcare. Over the years as we've added practices we've started to look more like the broader West Monroe. We've experienced very robust growth and I think our story resonates really well on the East Coast. It's a huge market and we still have a very low market share. So, that's where we are today.