Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance

The two vignettes within “Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance” (HBS No. 122-024) present various issues relating to governance in professional service firms (“PSFs”). In the first, the Managing Director of a U.S. consulting firm contemplates whether to bring on outsiders to sit on the firm’s Executive Leadership Board and the potential implications of doing so. In the second, a U.S.-headquartered Private Equity firm’s Managing Partner for India was excited about the opportunity to acquire another Indian firm but worries about the potential resistance from the firm’s Global Management Committee. This vignette has deliberately been written as a PE firm so as to allow participants from PSF firms to step away from their immediate organizations and reflect on the broader issues that are involved. This vignette attempts to explore the meaning of being a global firm in the context of PSF and the methods to realize a PSF’s global ambitions. The vignettes allow students to discuss a breadth of issues related to the governance and strategy of PSFs.