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Ankura Consulting Group
Founded in 2014 by a group of professionals leaving FTI Consulting, including co-founder Roger Carlile, Ankura was built to be a more agile, conflict-free...
Ankura Consulting Group
Founded in 2014 by a group of professionals leaving FTI Consulting, including co-founder Roger Carlile, Ankura was built to be a more agile, conflict-free alternative to the industry's legacy advisory firms. The firm's initial focus on disputes, investigations, and turnaround services reflected the litigation-heavy backgrounds of its founders. It quickly established a reputation in the US middle market by advising on high-stakes fraud cases and post-acquisition disputes for private equity sponsors. Ankura's strategy spans risk management, forensic accounting, data analytics, and cybersecurity. The firm is frequently retained as a neutral examiner or to provide expert testimony in federal court cases involving complex financial restatements. Significant public mandates include serving as the court-appointed monitor overseeing corporate compliance at Binance, and providing advisory services on some of the most high-profile ransomware incidents in the US healthcare and financial services sectors. Its client base is concentrated among law firms and private equity deal teams managing portfolio company crises across North America and Europe. Through strategic acquisitions, the firm has expanded its technical capabilities. The integration of cyber intelligence firms brought capabilities in dark web monitoring and proactive threat hunting, alongside traditional reactive incident response. The firm also houses a dedicated restructuring practice that has taken on advisory roles for municipal governments and large-scale senior care operators under financial distress. Ankura frequently co-advises with firms like Kirkland & Ellis and Weil Gotshal on the operational aspects of Chapter 11 reorganizations, providing the performance improvement and liquidity management strategies that law firms cannot. Ankura's structural differentiator lies in its partnership model. Unlike the Big Four accounting firms, Ankura does not conduct financial statement audits for public companies. This deliberate avoidance of audit work means the firm faces significantly fewer independence conflicts, allowing it to provide both expert testimony and turnaround management for the same corporate entities — a dual capability its audit-conflicted competitors cannot offer.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
2014
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Washington
Corporate office
Washington, DC, United States
Principals
Roger Carlile
Chief Executive Officer
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
What kind of advisory work is Ankura best known for?
Ankura is uniquely positioned at the intersection of forensic accounting and cybersecurity. It is retained for sensitive, high-stakes investigations involving alleged fraud, complex commercial litigation, and state-sponsored data breaches. Unlike a pure management consultancy, Ankura frequently provides expert testimony in federal court and serves as court-appointed compliance monitors, as seen in its 2023 appointment to oversee Binance for the US government.
How did Ankura originate?
Ankura was founded in 2014 by a group of senior executives, including CEO Roger Carlile, who departed FTI Consulting. The firm was designed from the start to be a conflict-free platform focused purely on disputes, investigations, and risk advisory. It deliberately rejected the traditional audit-tax model of larger competitors to avoid independence restrictions that block advisory mandates.
What is Ankura's mandate in the Binance monitorship?
In November 2023, Ankura was appointed as the independent compliance monitor for Binance as part of the exchange's settlement with the US Department of Justice. The firm is responsible for overseeing and reporting on the exchange's anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance program over a multi-year term, giving it direct insight into the operational compliance of a major crypto exchange.
How does Ankura's conflict model differ from the Big Four accounting firms?
The Big Four are structurally limited by their role as external auditors for public companies. Since Ankura does not perform statutory audits, it can serve as both an investigative expert and a turnaround manager for the same client. This lack of audit relationships opens the door for mandates—particularly in fraud investigations and performance improvement—that its larger, audit-conflicted rivals must turn down.
Who are Ankura's typical clients?
Ankura's primary clients are law firms, private equity sponsors, and corporate boards. Am Law 100 firms retain the firm to provide independent forensic analysis or expert testimony during litigation. Private equity deal teams use it to stabilize portfolio companies facing liquidity crises or cyberattacks free from the conflicts that restrict their incumbent audit firms.
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