BDO’s new head of deal advisory, Gurpal Ahluwalia: Sectorisation key to client focus

Gurpal Ahluwalia, the newly appointed head of deal advisory and strategy at BDO, believes a key goal for his new role is to present a sectorisation piece to the market.

Ahluwalia will be taking over the position from Peter Hemington whose tenure spanned ten years. He has a background in strategy advice in the life sciences sector and will take up the role from 1 July 2023.

Ahluwalia has led the commercial due diligence and strategy function at BDO since its inception five years ago. Within his own sector of healthcare and life sciences, he has over 20 years of experience as a doctor and a consultant.

“I’d really like us to join up across all BDO functions within sectors” says Ahluwalia, so BDO can present something “meaningful” to the market about how the firm operates.

The former surgeon believes the sectorisation piece will demonstrate to the market how knowledgeable the BDO team are in the areas that matter to its clients. Joining the business across advisory and other functions will be important in making the business “seamless” he says.

Once this is completed, Ahluwalia believes only then can the business become “truly” client focused.

BDO has been expanding rapidly lately and recently announced it advised on 362 deals in 2022 with a total value of £31.2 billion. Ahluwalia believes this is solid growth that provides a “good platform” for him to produce a “resilient” function going forward.

“Within advisory and strategy, there’s been some really good work to build a practice in a very resilient way.

“For example, when there’s some downturn in the deals, market, or deals aren’t getting pushed to the right, we can pivot into doing lots of strategy work, which is really helping us embed us and be useful to our clients for when deals do arise,” he notes.

Ahluwalia is keen to keep growing the firm but understands the impossibility of predicting the future and says he will aim to be “clever”, but admits “who would have guessed that the pandemic would come and change the world, I wouldn’t and I was a doctor.”

Experience

Ahluwalia started his career as a cardiothoracic surgeon and says this gives him deep sector knowledge that allows him to “add value” to his clients.

“I’ve actually prescribed a lot of the drugs that we’ll work on. I think that just gives you an innate understanding, which gets everyone comfortable very quickly. It’s not the be all and end all, but it gives you that immediate kind of fluency,” he states.

After finishing his career as a surgeon, Ahluwalia went on to work as part of the healthcare practice for the Boston Consulting Group for and then led the KPMG healthcare and life science strategy team.

Ahluwalia credits this period to where he gained his “commercial know-how, client book and network.”

He also learned an important lesson  on how to be a client focused business and how integral it is to draw together multiple functions within a business and “evolving that into BDO.”

Succeeding Peter Hemington  

Ahluwalia and Hemington will be working closely with each other in the companies transition period before their official changeover.

Ahluwalia was full of praise for his predecessor and says he is very knowledgeable about the “internal machinations” of BDO and knows how to achieve goals effectively.

“I think the thing that I need to do know is imprint my own way of doing things on the business, bringing some new ideas, and some innovation to the role,” states Ahluwalia.

Once he begins his role, Ahluwalia is keen to build on Hemingtons foundation and take the firm in a “fresh direction.”

Hemington will remain as a partner with the firm and will take on a leadership role focusing on developing BDO’s consulting business.

Preparations for the new role  

With some time to prepare before he starts his new position, Ahluwalia is keen to self-reflect to try and understand his personal style of leadership.

Ahluwalia is adamant he will not try and replicate Hemington and will endeavour to put his “stamp” on proceedings. A key characteristic to him is to be an “inclusive” leader.

“Over the next few months, I’m taking the time to meet, not only with the partners, but everyone in all the teams. I’ve set myself a little challenge of knowing who everyone is, by face and by name.”

“I want everyone to fee that they have a voice”, he adds.

Ahluwalia understands he will spearhead the team’s decision-making at BDO, but he is keen to do so in a “consultative” way.

“I love being at BDO and I think I can make a difference here. So, bring it on.”