West Monroe

Kevin McCarty, Dean Fischer, and Doug Armstrong co-founded West Monroe in 2002. McCarty and several founding partners previously worked at Arthur Andersen's business-consulting practice, leaving during the firm's collapse following the Enron scandal. The founders structured West Monroe as a partnership focused on technology and operations consulting before expanding into direct investing.

West Monroe is primarily a management and technology consultancy that also operates a dedicated investment arm. The firm generates the majority of its revenue from fee-for-service advisory work for corporate clients. Its private equity activities focus on control and growth investments in middle-market companies where the consulting business can deploy operational expertise.

MSD Partners, the investment firm that evolved from Michael Dell's family office, acquired a minority stake in West Monroe in 2021. The investment recapitalized the partnership and provided growth capital for acquisitions. MSD holds a minority position; West Monroe remains majority-owned by its active partners.

West Monroe sources investments primarily through its consulting-client relationships and a dedicated corporate-development team. The firm avoids formal auction processes when possible, instead originating proprietary opportunities from companies that have engaged West Monroe for advisory work. This model reduces competitive bidding and aligns with the firm's post-close operational playbook.

West Monroe targets mid-market buyouts and growth-equity investments in North America. The firm does not publicly disclose standard check-size ranges, but its portfolio companies typically generate between $20 million and $200 million in annual revenue. Investments are concentrated in business services, healthcare analytics, energy transition, and enterprise software verticals.

West Monroe invests through a combination of partner capital and its MSD Partners minority facility. The firm has not publicly raised a traditional blind-pool private equity fund. This structure allows it to hold investments without fund-life constraints and to finance acquisitions opportunistically, funded by MSD's credit lines and the consulting business's operating cash flow.

West Monroe has not publicly disclosed explicit exclusionary sectors. Its historical investment focus has been in business services, healthcare, energy, and enterprise software. The firm's risk appetite runs toward sectors where its consulting expertise applies operationally, which implicitly limits exposure to consumer-facing businesses, hard-asset manufacturing, and speculative biotech.