West Monroe Expands Human Capital Management Capabilities to Address Swelling Demand for People, Organization, and HR Consulting

CHICAGO—West Monroe, a national business and technology consulting firm, today announced the expansion of its human capital management (HCM) services to continue addressing the growing enterprise people needs. Launched in December 2019 by two industry veterans, the team has substantially grown and is continuing its acceleration into 2021 with even more aggressive expansion goals and hiring plans. The practice is led by managing directors Jeff Cox and David Hilborn, both former senior partners and business leaders with Mercer.

The firm plans to more than double the human capital management practice in 2021 by hiring dozens of seasoned professionals and scouting acquisition targets. Through the increased depth and presence, the team is expected to contribute 130% growth to the firm in 2021.

The expansion of capabilities will allow West Monroe to more holistically address market demand for transformation in digital, talent, and the changing workplace. In particular, the group supports human resources and organizational aspects of merger and acquisition transactions; enterprise organization design and HR function transformation; talent analytics and strategy; and the strategy, selection, and implementation of workforce technologies amid changing workforce needs. This complements other services West Monroe provides that help employers succeed through a corporate transformation, become a digital organization, drive more productivity through process redesign and automation, and help organizations manage through great deals of change.

“For years, West Monroe has been helping our clients drive business and financial value through our multidisciplinary approach. However, businesses must manage people assets with as much rigor and structure as their fixed assets to be successful in today’s evolving market landscape. All roads lead back to people,” Cox said.

West Monroe’s talent management and productivity research has highlighted a variety of factors that trigger new talent management challenges, including the integration of technology in business strategy, the digitization and automation of work, and industry disruption and growth. In fact, 56% of organizations surveyed believe they have a moderate to severe skills gap today.  

“People, organization and HR issues left to chance derail corporate transformation and strategy execution,” said Hilborn. “Now more than ever it is critical to have the right deal support, talent strategy, organization design and HR function in place to mitigate people risks and enable productive organizational change.”

Prior to joining West Monroe in 2019, Cox, was the global leader for Mercer’s M&A Transaction Services business and managed some of the firm’s largest global client relationships during his 20-year tenure. Through his work on more than 500 merger and acquisition transactions, he has advised both strategic and financial buyers as well as sellers on a variety of people issues. His expertise includes human capital strategy, global mergers and acquisitions, carve-outs and stand-ups, salesforce effectiveness, and workforce synergy realization.  

Hilborn, was previously the global Chief Operating Officer for Mercer’s Multinational Client Group responsible for a $1 billion global client portfolio. He held various practice and regional leadership roles over the course of more than 25 years with the organization, while also advising and managing relationships for the firm’s largest global and high-growth clients. He has deep expertise in diagnosing and designing organizations, developing people strategies, designing talent management practices, and transforming HR operations and technology.  

Along with Cox and Hilborn, Director Dan McGuire, and 20 other people have joined the firm’s human capital management team. Learn more about West Monroe’s services in human capital management.

About West Monroe
West Monroe is a national consulting firm that was born in technology but built for business—partnering with companies in transformative industries to deliver real, measurable results. Technology is who we are, it is not something we bolted on overnight, and we believe it is one of the greatest enablers of business value. That’s why we work in diverse, multidisciplinary teams that blend industry expertise with deep operational and technology capabilities to create quantifiable, financial value for our clients. Our 1,500 employees based in eight offices across the United States also own 100% of our business, so when you partner with us you know we are committed—because your success is our success. Our undeniably different approach breeds undeniable results.