Berkeley Research Group (BRG) is a global consulting firm that assists organizations in areas such as disputes and investigations, corporate finance, and performance improvement. Established in 2010 and headquartered in Emeryville, California, BRG has expanded to over 45 offices worldwide, employing more than 1,600 professionals.
Brief History and Growth of BRG
Berkeley Research Group (BRG) was founded in 2010 in Emeryville, California by a group of experts led by Dr. David Teece, a renowned economist and Berkeley professor. Teece had previously co-founded the economics consulting firm LECG in 1988, and launched BRG with the vision of a new model for attracting top talent, emphasizing collaboration, agility, and transparency. BRG grew rapidly from its inception – by the end of its first year it had roughly 200 employees and about $30 million in revenue, expanding to 10 offices across the U.S. and London in that initial period.
This early growth was fueled by recruiting highly credentialed experts (including academics and industry leaders) during a time when larger competitors were retrenching, allowing BRG to quickly establish itself in the consulting market. Throughout the 2010s, BRG continued to expand its service offerings and geographic reach. In 2017, the firm received a $62.5 million minority equity investment from Endeavour Capital to support further expansion.
By that time, BRG had grown to over 1,000 employees in 39 offices across five continents. The firm broadened its expertise by attracting teams and individuals from other consultancies and opening new offices internationally. A key growth move came in 2019 when BRG acquired Prism Healthcare Partners, a Chicago-based hospital consulting firm, to strengthen its healthcare practice.
The Prism deal expanded BRG’s healthcare consulting group to 350 professionals and brought specialized expertise in hospital performance improvement and revenue cycle management. By 2019, BRG had roughly 1,200 consultants across offices in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, reflecting its evolution into a global player.
Consulting Services, Industries, and Notable Projects
BRG is a multidisciplinary professional services firm offering advisory and expert consulting in three main areas: disputes and investigations, corporate finance, and performance improvement. In practice, this means BRG provides economic analysis, financial consulting, and strategic advice to address complex business challenges and legal/regulatory matters.
The firm is perhaps best known for its litigation support and expert testimony work. BRG’s team of economists, accountants, and industry specialists delivers independent analyses and testimony in high-stakes disputes – including major commercial litigations, international arbitrations, intellectual property cases, antitrust matters, and class actions. Its consultants have served Fortune 500 companies, global financial institutions, government agencies, and top law firms by providing objective expert reports and data-driven insights in court and regulatory proceedings.
Beyond dispute consulting, BRG also has a substantial corporate finance and advisory practice. This includes services like transaction advisory, valuation, restructuring and turnaround management, and bankruptcy case administration. BRG professionals advise companies, creditors, and other stakeholders in distressed situations and M&A transactions – for example, providing valuation opinions, serving as financial advisors in restructurings, and acting as interim management in crisis scenarios.
In the performance improvement arena (sometimes termed strategy and operations), BRG helps organizations enhance efficiency and profitability. The firm’s consultants work on projects involving process improvement, cost reduction, revenue optimization, and organizational strategy across various business functions. For instance, in the healthcare industry, BRG assists hospitals with improving operational and financial performance in areas like labor costs and revenue cycle management.
BRG serves a wide range of industries. Its client base spans sectors such as healthcare, energy and utilities, financial services, construction and real estate, technology and media, retail and consumer products, as well as the public sector. The firm has been called upon to advise on complex matters like large hospital mergers (providing valuation and regulatory analysis for transactions in healthcare), infrastructure project disputes, and major bankruptcies.
While specific client engagements are often confidential, BRG’s involvement in headline-making situations is evidenced by its roster of experts with roles in cases like regulatory inquiries, international investment disputes, and corporate bankruptcies. According to Chambers & Partners, BRG’s economic consultants have become go-to experts for high-profile litigation cases worldwide, offering deep expertise in areas from antitrust to cryptocurrency disputes.
Revenue, Workforce, and Global Presence
BRG has grown significantly in size since its founding. As of early 2024, the firm has more than 1,600 employees – including consultants, experts, and support staff – operating from over 40 offices worldwide. By early 2025, BRG reported having about 1,600 professionals across 45 offices globally.
This global footprint extends across North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and Australia, essentially spanning six continents. Major office locations include cities in the United States (such as New York, Washington D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles), London and other UK hubs, Asia (Beijing, Hong Kong), Australia, the Middle East, and beyond.
As a private company, BRG does not publicly disclose its financial results. However, industry observers note that BRG has achieved strong year-over-year growth, roughly doubling its revenue every four years since inception. This growth trajectory suggests that BRG’s annual revenues have reached the high hundreds of millions of dollars.
The firm’s sustained growth has been organic, through hiring and building new practices, as well as inorganic via strategic acquisitions like the Prism healthcare consulting merger. Today, BRG is recognized as one of the larger specialized consulting/advisory firms, though it remains smaller than some publicly traded competitors in terms of revenue.
BRG’s global presence and workforce diversity are central to its identity. The firm emphasizes that its network of experts includes individuals with varied backgrounds – from PhD academics to seasoned industry executives and former government officials – hailing from many countries. This diversity enables BRG to assemble multidisciplinary teams for client engagements.
Being privately held and manager-owned (with external investment partners), BRG has flexibility to open offices where client demand dictates. Over the past decade, it has established offices in key financial centers and jurisdictions known for international arbitration and finance, aligning with its focus on disputes and transactions. The current scale (1,600+ staff) and geographic reach (45 offices worldwide) represent BRG’s most recent available metrics on its size and footprint.
Market Differentiators and Thought Leadership
BRG differentiates itself in the consulting market through its blend of academic brainpower and practical business experience, as well as a culture of innovation. The firm prides itself on having world-class scholars and subject-matter experts among its senior ranks – for example, Executive Chairman David Teece is a prominent academic, and other affiliates have included former White House economic advisor Laura Tyson and renowned industry experts.
BRG “combines world-leading academic credentials with world-tested business expertise,” which it argues allows for more rigorous analysis and creative problem-solving. Clients facing complex analytical questions (like economic impacts, damages quantification, or regulatory policy issues) often turn to BRG for this reason. The firm’s talent model – inspired by Silicon Valley – is also a differentiator.
BRG was built to be “agile and connectivity-focused,” breaking down traditional consulting silos. Unlike some competitors that operate in rigid practice units, BRG often handpicks interdisciplinary teams for each project, enabling cross-collaboration between economists, industry specialists, data scientists, and others. This agile, no-silos approach (combined with incentives for collaboration) has been a key to attracting and retaining top talent in the firm’s view.
Thought leadership is another pillar of BRG’s market positioning. From its early days, BRG emphasized “Intelligence that Works” – delivering insight that is not only theoretically sound but also actionable for clients. The firm and its experts regularly publish research and analysis on emerging issues.
BRG produces a biannual, peer-reviewed journal called BRG Review, featuring original research by its consultants on topics in economics, finance, and law. It also publishes a digital magazine and podcast series under the ThinkSet brand, which provides commentary on business trends and includes interviews with industry leaders.
In addition, BRG professionals frequently author articles, contribute to academic journals, and speak at conferences. For instance, BRG economists have published studies on subjects like tax policy and international trade that garnered attention in policy circles. The firm’s commitment to advancing knowledge in its fields helps bolster its credibility and keeps its consultants at the forefront of current developments.
BRG has also been investing in technological innovation as part of its services. The company highlights its capabilities in advanced data analytics, including the use of AI and machine learning tools for tasks such as fraud detection, big data modeling, and predictive analytics. By developing proprietary analytics platforms and leveraging cutting-edge techniques, BRG aims to offer clients deeper insights (for example, in e-discovery for investigations or in financial modeling for transactions).
This focus on innovation sets it apart from more traditional consulting firms. Additionally, BRG fosters a culture of thought leadership through recognition: its practices and experts often appear in industry rankings and awards. BRG has been named among Forbes’ Best Management Consulting Firms in recent years and has top-tier rankings in specialist areas (for example, Chambers Global ranks BRG as a Band 1 firm worldwide for economic analysis in litigation support).
Comparison with Peer Firms
BRG operates in the competitive landscape of global consulting and advisory firms, particularly those focused on disputes, financial advisory, and forensic analysis. Key peers include firms like FTI Consulting, Guidehouse (formerly Navigant), and Alvarez & Marsal (A&M), among others. Compared to these, BRG is a younger and somewhat smaller firm, but has carved out a strong niche.
FTI Consulting (founded 1982) is significantly larger, with over 7,700 employees in 31 countries and revenues of about $3–3.5 billion. FTI offers a broad suite of services – from corporate finance/restructuring and economic consulting (similar to BRG’s offerings) to areas like technology (e-discovery) and strategic communications that BRG does not provide.
A&M, founded in 1983, is another major player specializing in turnaround and transaction advisory. A&M is privately held but large, with over 10,000 employees globally. It is best known for its turnaround management and restructuring leadership.
Guidehouse, which absorbed Navigant Consulting in 2019, has also become a formidable peer. Guidehouse is a private firm (backed by private equity) that has roughly 17,000 employees and about $3 billion in annual revenue. Guidehouse’s origins were in government consulting (spun out of PwC’s public sector arm in 2018) and it greatly expanded its commercial consulting with the Navigant acquisition.
All these competitors offer some overlap in disputes, financial advisory, and operational consulting. However, BRG emphasizes its academic brainpower, specialized approach, and agile culture as key differentiators. In the forensic and disputes niche, BRG has a singular focus on expert analysis and testimony, whereas peers like A&M or FTI also engage heavily in turnaround management or communications.
Recent Leadership and Strategic Changes
In the past few years, BRG has undergone notable leadership and ownership changes as it enters a new phase of growth. In February 2025, TowerBrook Capital Partners, a global private equity firm, announced it would acquire a majority stake in BRG. This investment represents a transition in BRG’s ownership: TowerBrook is buying out the stake of Endeavour Capital (the 2017 investor) and infusing capital to support BRG’s next stage of expansion.
As part of this deal, BRG’s long-time leader and co-founder David Teece is stepping down as Executive Chairman, though he will remain with the firm in a professional capacity. Day-to-day leadership now fully rests with Tri MacDonald, who will continue to serve as BRG’s Chief Executive Officer and President. MacDonald has been with BRG since its early years (he was previously President and has effectively led operations), so this move solidifies the handover from an academic founder to an experienced executive practitioner at the helm.
The TowerBrook partnership is a strategic development aimed at fueling BRG’s growth. TowerBrook is known for investing in professional services firms, and BRG’s management noted that the new capital and support will help drive “profitable growth and success in the coming years.” Strategically, this likely means BRG will pursue further expansion of its service lines and possibly make additional acquisitions or talent investments, similar to the Prism Healthcare deal, to deepen industry expertise.
The firm’s distinctive culture and model were cited as key attractions for the investor – TowerBrook’s team highlighted BRG’s “experienced team of experts, distinctive culture and innovative growth model” as the basis for its strong market position. In practical terms, clients and employees might not see immediate changes aside from accelerated growth initiatives, but the backing of a larger investor could enable BRG to compete for larger engagements and expand into new markets more aggressively.
Operationally, BRG has also made adjustments to support its growth. It has continued hiring senior talent across practice areas and opening offices in new locations. In recent years the firm expanded its presence in regions like the Middle East and Africa, achieving the milestone of having offices on six continents.
Internally, BRG has invested in infrastructure such as improved cybersecurity and IT systems – underscored by the firm addressing a cyberattack in 2023 that prompted enhancements to its IT security, coinciding with the due diligence around the TowerBrook deal (no client data was reported compromised, but it served as a catalyst for strengthening systems). The firm also navigated the remote-work environment during the COVID-19 pandemic, developing more flexible work arrangements for its consultants, and has emphasized initiatives in diversity and inclusion as part of its strategic priorities.
In terms of leadership additions, BRG has brought on industry luminaries to lead or advise its practices. For example, in the last few years, the firm added senior experts in areas like energy and climate, healthcare analytics, and ESG (environmental, social, governance) to respond to emerging client needs. These additions reflect a strategic broadening of capabilities – e.g. building an ESG advisory capability to help companies with sustainability strategy and compliance.
The overall leadership structure, aside from Teece’s transition, remains stable. Key figures such as Chief Revenue Officer Philip Rowley and other managing directors continue to drive practices and client relationships. In summary, BRG today is in a period of evolution and expansion.
The infusion of private equity investment in 2025 and the accompanying leadership shift mark an inflection point, positioning the firm to scale up while maintaining the expert-driven, agile approach that has defined its first 15 years. With a stronger capital base, BRG is poised to further challenge its larger rivals in disputes and financial consulting, continue innovating (in areas like AI-driven analytics), and extend its global reach – all under the guidance of a leadership team blending the vision of its founders with the operational savvy of seasoned executives.
The coming years will show how well BRG can retain its unique culture and high-end focus as it grows, but its track record of doubling revenue every few years and building a premier brand in its niche suggests it will remain a prominent player in the consulting arena.
Sources
The information above is compiled from recent analyses and credible reports, including the firm’s own publications and reporting by reputable outlets.
