Consulting

Savannah Group, a UK-based executive recruitment firm, has entered insolvency and been listed for sale after a failed pivot to AI-driven talent acquisition. Revenue fell 20% YoY (£15.6m to £12.4m), debt costs spiked 5.5x, and net profit halved. The company invested heavily in MapX, an AI recruitment platform launched publicly in February 2023 after internal development since 2019.

Leadership read: Savannah Group committed capital to a product business — MapX — without severing its dependency on the recruitment revenue that was supposed to fund it. The insolvency filing reveals the structural trap: the firm bore the full cost of hiring engineers from Apple, Google, and Nest, rebranding, and launching a B2B SaaS product, while simultaneously absorbing a 20% revenue contraction in its core search business. Debt service costs rising 5.5x against a halved net profit is not a technology failure; it is a capitalisation failure. The company was operating a venture-scale product bet on a professional-services balance sheet. This is one of twelve restructuring signals we have tracked in the last 90 days, and while the set is broad, the pattern most relevant here is the divergence between firms that restructure around AI to cut costs (Cloudflare, redirecting headcount heavily into engineering) and firms that attempt to productise AI as a new revenue line without the capital architecture to support the transition. Savannah sits firmly in the second group. Globant's client losses and restructuring charges amid a strategic pivot offer a comparable cautionary data point. The pattern surfaces a durable demand problem: companies at the intersection of professional services and AI-product development face acute shortfalls in commercial leadership capable of pricing, packaging, and selling software to buyers who previously purchased their services. GTM execution in that seam — where the customer relationship is deep but the buying motion is entirely different — is the functional gap this category of failure consistently exposes.

curated · 2026-07-04 · context →

Sony laid off hundreds of developers at Bungie, the studio behind Destiny 2 and Marathon, during the same week PlayStation CEO Hideaki Nishino recommitted to live service game efforts.

Leadership read: Workforce moves like this mark the contracting side of consulting hiring conditions.

curated · 2026-06-27 · context →

Ripple secured preliminary approval for Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) license from Luxembourg's CSSF under EU's MiCA regulation, plus an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license enabling regulated payment infrastructure operations in Europe.

Leadership read: Alliances like this can broaden consulting commercial leadership bench strength.

curated · 2026-06-27 · context →

Supercell is launching 'Clash for the Stache', an interactive live fan experience for Clash of Clans, running July 15–September 7, 2026 in San Diego, timed to Comic-Con.

Leadership read: Product momentum tends to widen consulting product and commercial leadership bench strength.

curated · 2026-06-26 · context →

Dell Technologies has experienced massive revenue and stock growth driven by soaring sales of AI computing equipment, including AI-optimized servers which rocketed 757% to over $16 billion in Q1 2026. The company is selling a 'full stack' of computing infrastructure (workstations, servers, storage, networking, and services) for AI model deployment.

Leadership read: Product momentum tends to widen consulting product and commercial leadership bench strength.

curated · 2026-06-26 · context →

Publicis Groupe is acquiring LiveRamp, a independent audience and identity data vendor. This acquisition will displace LiveRamp's existing brand clients who will need to source alternative identity resolution and audience data platforms.

Leadership read: Consolidation of this kind shifts demand toward integration and transformation leadership bench strength in consulting.

curated · 2026-06-26 · context →

Transurban signed a Development Framework Agreement with Virginia Department of Transportation to assess a 6x larger expansion of the I-95 Express Lanes, adding ~120 lane miles and 140% capacity increase. Financial close anticipated 2029.

Leadership read: Market entry of this kind typically deepens demand for consulting leadership bench strength in the region over the following 12–18 months.

curated · 2026-06-26 · context →

Judo Bank issued a warning on provisions, signalling increased loan losses. Share price tanked significantly, reflecting strains in the economy and concerns about multi-sector loan deterioration.

Leadership read: Restructuring typically reshapes consulting leadership bench strength toward transformation and turnaround capability.

curated · 2026-06-25 · context →

PMG is running a global AI hackathon at Cannes Lions with up to $500,000 in prizes to identify and recruit AI-savvy talent (developers, marketers, creatives). The competition signals aggressive talent acquisition in AI engineering and LLM-based product development for advertising services.

Leadership read: A hiring build-out like this points to deepening consulting executive bench strength over the coming quarters.

curated · 2026-06-25 · context →

Novigi, a financial services technology provider, is expanding into New Zealand as the technology partner to Apex Group, which is integrating Mercer New Zealand's fund administration operations.

Leadership read: Market entry of this kind typically deepens demand for consulting leadership bench strength in the region over the following 12–18 months.

curated · 2026-06-24 · context →

Blockchain.com launched institutional payments infrastructure in Brazil, appointing financial payments veteran Fabrizio Spada to lead the expansion and trading across Latin America

Leadership read: Market entry of this kind typically deepens demand for consulting leadership bench strength in the region over the following 12–18 months.

curated · 2026-06-24 · context →

Darktrace joined OpenAI's Daybreak Cyber Partner Program to explore defensive AI integrations for secure AI adoption and organizational resilience

Leadership read: Alliances like this can broaden consulting commercial leadership bench strength.

curated · 2026-06-22 · context →