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    Case Study

    dss+: Carving out a sustainability consulting leader

    By Benoit F. Leleux, Giorgio Pignalosa, Larissa Margot Bieler, Mojisola Onabanjo Akinkunmi and Nicolas Campodonico
    20 pages
    February 2025
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    Reference: IMD-7-2639

    The case examines the entrepreneur-led carve out and buyout of dss+, DuPont’s safety and sustainability consulting division, by Gyrus Capital and dss+ management team. dss+ (formerly “DuPont Sustainable Solutions”) played a pivotal role in high-risk industries such as oil, gas, and chemicals, providing critical consulting services at a time when global regulatory pressure on operational safety and sustainability was intensifying. Gyrus Capital, a mid-market private equity specialist, came together with the management team to engineer the buyout, based on the firm’s strong and predictable revenue streams, long-term client relationships and specialized expertise in safety and sustainability consulting. What emerged out of the 2019 transaction was an independent sustainability consulting powerhouse with over 1,500 consultants around the world. By 2024, dss+ was still expanding rapidly in terms of staff and domains of expertise, not to mention geography, and had to respond to quickly evolving external and internal demands, with clients increasingly expected to be served globally on a full range of sustainability-related services. With a strong sense of purpose (saving lives and creating a sustainable future), a potent pitch line (Protect. Transform. Sustain), over 750 clients on 1,800 projects across 41 countries, a global team of 1,500 people and plenty of organic growth across 7 core industries, the company was clearly heading for the stars. Yet, new questions loomed: Was it time to start managing that wild growth, deepening competitive advantages and building functional moats? How would dss+ remain competitive? Was it time to put a few new initiatives on high octane fuel: Leadership? Digital transformation? Global growth? Some totally new ideas?

    Learning Objective
    • Understand the strategic considerations behind an entrepreneurial management buyout.
    • Discuss recruitment-related issues and governance of professional consulting firms.
    • Investigate the evolution of sustainability consulting.
    • Analyze the role of private equity funds in enabling management teams in their value creation transactions.
    Keywords
    Finance, Entrepreneurship, Sustainability, Buy-out, Value Creation, Safety, Private Equity, Governance, Consultancy, Environmental Social and Governance, Industry Innovation, Industry Infrastructure, Responsible Consumption, Responsible Production
    Settings
    World/global
    dss+, Gyrus Capital, Inflexion, Services, Environmental Services, Healthcare, Health and Medical Services, Services, Public Safety, Business Management Services, Consultancy
    2018-2024
    Type
    Field Research
    Copyright
    © 2025
    Available Languages
    English
    Related material
    Teaching note, Video
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