Ashleigh James
Introducing The Alpinists, a brand-new series by Pemba that highlights businesses reaching new summits in their fields. In our inaugural article, we are thrilled to feature Simone Rennie from Rennie Advisory. Rennie help organisations across many different industries navigate and optimise their transition to a sustainable future through a suite of advisory services. Simone shares Rennie’s journey, the obstacles they have overcome, and the strategies that have driven their success.
Each article will spotlight a different business leader and their unique journey, challenges, and strategies for success. Stay tuned to discover more inspiring stories and valuable insights from these industry trailblazers.
Why was it the right time for Rennie to consider a growth capital partner?
Our first year was focused on getting established, putting the foundations in place, and building the Rennie brand in the market, client relationships, and our team. Our second year was focused on building the architecture – structures, systems, processes – to enable growth. With the pace of change, we really began to see the market opportunity to platform and scale a multi-disciplinary advisory business focused on the energy transition, climate change and decarbonisation, and the broader sustainability agenda. We could see that we needed to expand geographically, and we needed the ability to scale our offerings to respond to larger, more complex, and multi-disciplinary client problems. We had a clear vision of where we wanted to go, but we knew the time was right to seek a partner to support the next phase of our growth.
We saw Pemba as a great fit. Pemba’s values and approach to working with founders and providing practical support to execute on the vision and strategy really resonated with us and has proved very helpful.
Since partnering with Pemba at the beginning of this year, what changes have you seen in the business?
The most significant change has been the level of discipline, structure, and support inside the business to enable our growth. We appointed our Board and CFO earlier this year, we have expanded our HR team, opened in Sydney, and doubled our Perth, Brisbane, and Melbourne offices. Given our rapid growth over the past year, we’ve really tried to focus on our people and culture to ensure that we preserve what’s special about Rennie as we expand. Our leadership cohort is now 10 strong, and we’ve intentionally invested time in aligning on our strategy, our growth plan, and the importance of our leadership being the custodian of our culture and values. We are now in a position to seriously consider acquisition opportunities that align with our mission and values.
How is Rennie positioned differently to other consultancies in the market?
We try to bring the best aspects of larger firms within a mid-tier model with an overlay of values-driven leadership and accountability.
Often, smaller firms focus on only one main line of business. By bringing a continuum of strategy to execution through our Strategy, Capital Advisory and Business Advisory service lines, supplemented by specialist ESG & Sustainability and Policy & Reform service offerings, we can go further with our clients to help solve complex problems and partner them through the implementation journey – providing a credible alternative to the larger partnership models. Rennie is one of a limited number of multi-disciplinary firms in Australia that has been locally established over the last 10 years, and our clients seem to appreciate that. We are also becoming known for a certain way of doing things – careful scoping, a collaborative and bespoke approach, use of strategic frameworks and data driven insights, and delivery of high-quality outcomes.
Rennie continues to grow impressively, how is your business retaining its focus on values and strong culture as you ‘scale up’?
Culture is one of the biggest challenges in a fast-growing firm, as people come with different experiences and ways of working. We really try to focus on helping new starters understand “the Rennie way”, both across the way in which we engage with our clients and the way we interact with each other through the lens of our values. If we can stay true to what makes Rennie special, recruit and onboard effectively, and then ensure that our leaders are custodians of our values, our culture will be nourished and sustained as we grow.
What advice would you give to a business at the beginning of its sustainability journey? Where should they start and what support could a business such as Rennie provide to them?
In our experience, it’s important to align your sustainability journey to your businesses’ core purpose, values, and objectives. Ideally, sustainability should be integrated with your corporate strategy, rather than separate to it, which will help to achieve buy-in, accountability and resource allocation. A focus on the ESG risks and opportunities that are most relevant to your business and your key stakeholders is important. Looking at best practice and what your competitors are doing is useful but keep it relevant. Also, try not to bite off more than you can chew. Instead, develop a realistic and proportionate sustainability strategy, plan to mature your approach over time, and be transparent about that.
Rennie meets clients on where they are at in their sustainability journey, whether that be early-stage strategy setting, development of decarbonisation roadmaps or other sustainability solutions, supporting sustainable investment decisions, or reporting on sustainability outcomes. With climate-related reporting now mandatory in Australia, we are assisting clients in preparing for disclosure by providing fit-for-purpose advice and support across the various elements of the reporting framework.
Rennie was founded in 2021, what are you most proud of over these first years?
We’re most proud of the unique culture and workplace that we are creating – a place where out people can feel proud of the work they are doing with our clients and the impact they are making, while achieving work-life balance.
