Following a career at IBM, PwC, PW and Grant Thornton working-in and working-on those firms, John Groarke has enthusiastically mentored the consulting and advisory world – sole practitioners, boutiques, brand-name firms – since 2005. Known as Australia’s “Mentor to Consultants”, John helps consulting, professional advisory and services-oriented enterprises to confidently breakthrough with relevant, distinctive, focused, sustainable and profitable businesses.

Central to John’s work is increasing the value of those businesses. In the early 2000s he worked on preparing PwC Consulting in ANZ for a global IPO, or sale, as the entity to be known as ‘Monday’. Over a 15-month period he was credited with having a significant role in improving the profitability, and thus the value, of the strategy consulting practice. PwC Consulting was sold to IBM in 2002, and John continued in a merger integration role for the strategy practices in 16 Asia Pacific countries.

Today, many of his 129 clients seek to enhance their value to satisfy their M&A objectives. So John reverse-engineered what a valuer looks for, in order to create pragmatic sets of tactics for growth that would attract an optimal valuation from a valuer. He has subsequently developed six ‘plays’ for selling a consulting / advisory enterprise.

John teaches consulting business courses at the University of Sydney’s Centre for Continuing Education. He has also presented workshops for a variety of third-parties, including Business Enterprise Centres and the Careers Service at Macquarie Graduate School of Management. He has been a conference speaker for the Hargraves Institute and the Institute of Management Consultants, twice.

John holds a bachelor’s degree in Computational Science & Statistics and a post-graduate diploma in Computing Science. In his spare time, he enjoys soccer (coaching and spectating) and digital photography.