The firm · Established 2009
A consultancy built by the people who had to implement the advice.
Founded by two operators who had spent a decade on the receiving end of consulting reports. Everything odd about how the firm works comes from that.
01 — Origin
The firm exists because of a gap we both kept falling into.
In 2008 both founders received a consulting report they largely agreed with. Neither was implemented — not because the analysis was wrong, but because implementing it meant changing a shift pattern or telling a plant manager their line was coming down, and the people who wrote the recommendation had moved on.
Longacre sells the second half instead of the first. It is why a partner is on site throughout, why a fifth to two-fifths of the fee depends on numbers your finance team verifies, and why we return at month six to audit whether it held. It is also why the firm is smaller than it could be.
“The report had been the deliverable. The change had not.”
02 — People
The people who turn up are the people who sold the work.
Eleven partners and principals, no analyst pyramid beneath them. Median nineteen years of operating experience before joining.
Founding Partner
Meera Vaidyanathan
Previously: Group Operations Director, listed speciality chemicals
Ran two speciality chemicals plants, then group operations for a listed manufacturer. Leads Margin Recovery and takes most first calls.
Founding Partner
Aaron Fischel
Previously: VP Supply Chain, industrial distribution
Twenty-one years in supply chain, including one failed integration — the one the firm was really built out of. Leads Supply Chain & Network.
Partner
Priya Anand
Previously: Finance Director, building materials
Joined in 2014 from restructuring, after two covenant breaches seen from the inside. Leads Performance Turnaround and chairs the independence committee.
Partner
Daniel Okonjo
Previously: COO, diagnostics network
Fifteen years in hospital and diagnostics operations, including a four-lab consolidation. Leads Healthcare Delivery and Post-Acquisition Integration.
Partner
Hannah Brecht
Previously: Head of Commercial Finance, packaged foods
Built the cost-to-serve method the firm now uses, originally to settle an argument about which customers were actually profitable.
Principal
Rahul Menon
Previously: Plant Director, auto components
Twelve years in plant and network operations across auto components. Runs the diagnostic phase on most industrial engagements.
Five further principals work across the industrial and consumer practices. We publish no headcount target, because growing the number is not one.
03 — History
Since 2009, and the engagements got shorter.
- 2009
Founded in Kozhikode by Meera Vaidyanathan and Aaron Fischel, after both left operating roles. Two engagements in the first year, both in industrial manufacturing.
- 2013
First fee-at-risk engagement, at the client's suggestion rather than ours. It has been standard on most work since.
- 2015
Bengaluru office opens. The firm declines its first enquiry outside the sectors it knows — a policy that is written down the following year.
- 2018
The six-month post-handover audit becomes part of the standard fee, after an engagement that looked successful at handover and had unwound by month five.
- 2021
Singapore and Dubai follow the client base rather than the other way round. Private-equity portfolio work passes a third of revenue.
- 2025
London opens for sponsor coverage. 184 engagements closed since founding, and the median engagement length is shorter than it was in 2009.
04 — Standards
How we hold ourselves to it.
Written into our engagement letters — a more reliable place to look than a values page.
- Conflicts
- We act for one party in a transaction, never both, and we will not diligence a deal we might later be paid to integrate. Priya Anand chairs an independence review before any engagement where the question could arise.
- Confidentiality
- Client names are withheld by default, including from our own marketing. Case studies are published only with written consent and with figures the client's finance function has signed off.
- How we count
- Impact is measured by the client's finance team against a baseline agreed in writing before work starts. We publish the six-month audit to the board whichever way it reads.
- Pro bono
- Two engagements a year run at cost for regional healthcare trusts. They are staffed by partners, not by whoever is on the bench, because otherwise it is a marketing line rather than a practice.
05 — Offices
Where we work from.
Five offices, opened in the order the client base asked for them. Work is staffed from wherever the relevant partner is, not from wherever is nearest.
Kozhikode
Principal office
Bengaluru
Industrials & healthcare
Singapore
Consumer & distribution
Dubai
Logistics & trade
London
Sponsor coverage
06 — Enquiries
If this sounds like the way you would want it done, write to us.
We also read approaches from operators considering a move out of line roles. There is no graduate intake — everyone here ran something first.
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