Bird & Bird merges Baseline consulting arm with Valeocon

Baseline, the consulting arm of international law firm Bird & Bird, is to be merged with Valeocon Management Consulting – with the new entity to be called Oxygy Management Consulting.

The digital transformation-focused international law firm Bird & Bird – which has over 1,300 lawyers across offices in Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and North America – is set to merge its consulting arm, Baseline, with Valeocon Management Consulting, the latter which includes offices in Singapore and Tokyo among its eight worldwide. The new entity will be known as Oxygy Management Consulting.

“Baseline’s offering has been a crucial part of our aim to go above and beyond providing legal advice to our clients,” said Bird & Bird CEO David Kerr. “Being able to support them through periods of immense change and providing holistic solutions to help their businesses succeed has been extremely well received, so we look forward to leveraging this further working closely with the Oxygy team.”

Creating what Bird & Bird describes as one of the largest management consulting firms linked to an international law firm, the combined businesses (which have been working closely together since the establishment of Baseline as a joint venture in 2015) will be headed by current Baseline CEO Edoardo Monopoli, who founded Valeocon in 2004, while current Valeocon CEO Steve Crom will serve as Oxygy’s Chairman of the Board.

“We are extremely excited to bring together the Baseline and Valeocon teams under the Oxygy brand,” said Monopoli. “The business lines and solutions we’ve been developing together over the last few years both resonate strongly with clients and align perfectly with the Bird & Bird vision: to be the number one law firm in the world for organisations being changed by the digital world or those leading that change.”

According to the firm, the merger will allow Bird & Bird’s lawyers and Valeocon’s 70-strong team of consultants to work even more closely together in supporting clients (including those in the healthcare, retail, tech, and financial services sectors), with Oxygy to operate from offices in Europe, the US and Asia Pacific with a focus on three key areas; Regulatory Compliance, Digital and Data-driven Transformation, and Business Expansion.

“As the business landscape continues to evolve, our collaborative approach and unique combination of legal and management consultancy expertise makes us well placed to help clients discover, design and deliver effective compliance, digital/data and expansion strategies,” said Monopoli, who further noted Valeocon’s focus on working with clients in a way that is “collaborative, authentic and fun” – helping them to develop innovative and implementable solutions.