Successful Growth At True Partners Consulting In Just 3 Years

March 25, 2009

Three years ago, almost to the day (March 22, 2006), we blogged about True Partners, a a niche tax and advisory consulting firm in Chicago, with 25 Andersen alumni and CEO Cary McMillan, who was head of Andersen’s Chicago office and then CFO of Sara Lee. At that time, the start-up had 25 personnel and offered an alternative to SOX-restricted Big Four firms.

At that time, we also said, “TPC’s performance in the marketplace will bear close watching.”http://bigfouralumni.blogspot.com/2006/03/andersen-alumni-launch-true-partners.html

We were brought again today to True Partners Consulting while researching another completely unrelated topic, and were pleasantly surprised to find terrific growth in personnel, services and recognition over these three years. Clearly, they have established themselves in the marketplace and appear to be doing well despite the current difficult environment in professional services.

Here’s what Crain Chicago says: “With revenue expected to climb as much as 35% this year, to $43 million, Mr. McMillan says the firm will add 50 more professionals to its staff of 225 consultants.”So by the end of 2009, TPC will have 275 professionals, which is a 11x growth from its small beginnings just three years ago, and more than $40 million in sales, up remarkably from a small (but unknown) level in 2006.

TPC was also gained 9th place in Crain’s Chicago’s 20 Best Places to Work, with this testimonial, “…True Partners believes it\'s essential to create opportunities for staffers to interact. So there\'s free beer and wine after 5 p.m. and a big-screen TV, Nintendo Wii game system and pingpong table for quick escapes from the daily grind. True Partners won’t hire anyone who can\'t pass the collegiality test and will not keep anyone on board who doesn't display respect and selflessness toward peers.”

With an expanded set of services:
Tax and Business Consulting
Federal and State Compliance
Private Equity Services
Tax Risk Management
Unclaimed Property

and now at 9 locations in US and Europe, TPC seems to have had a great start and terrific growth. Kudos to Andersen alumni for this success. We’ll come back to see how TPC is doing, hopefully in less than three years from now.