BrazilTrailblazing Dutch consultancy Twynstra takes on global challenge
A Dutch consultancy with extensive strategy, policy and project management experience is expanding its global footprint. Twynstra Gudde brings sustainable solutions to public and private clients tackling crucial climate and energy-related challenges in some of the world’s most vulnerable locations.
Few European consultancies can rely on such an extensive global footprint as Twynstra Gudde. Through its membership of Cordence Worldwide – an international alliance of independent consulting firms – the Netherlands-based company is able to provide its expertise to clients and partners in more than 70 locations.
That expertise lies primarily in the emerging fields of energy transition; smart sustainable transport; water governance; climate change; and asset management. Both the Netherlands, and Twynstra in particular, are also well ahead of the curve in their understanding of the circular economy – a radical alternative to current policy making that extracts maximum value from resources.
Having cultivated a strong reputation in the Netherlands, where the firm employs around 300 consultants, Twynstra is now in high demand abroad. Clients are keen to leverage its strategic advice and functional knowledge to help execute some of the most ambitious sustainability projects underway across the world. It helps that Twynstra has decades of experience assisting public/private partnerships, which commonly underpin major energy and infrastructure projects.
To rise to the challenge, Twynstra Gudde has expanded its client footprint to a remarkable degree in recent years. Hugely important sustainability initiatives from Colombia to Bangladesh enjoy the support of the Dutch management consultancy. Netherlands-based projects have traditionally been the firm’s chief source of revenue but, under the leadership of Managing Partner Zenzi Pluut, Twynstra is now firmly eyeing a more international status.
“We are particularly strong in strategy and policy development, governance and cooperation issues, interest management, and project and programme management”, says Pluut, who leads the firm’s water, energy, transport and infrastructure projects in the Netherlands. “Our consultants have the desired knowledge and expertise in these functional areas and can then bridge the gap to, for example, spatial planning, mobility and infrastructure, or to water and climate adaptation,” she continued.
Pluut believes that advising clients on energy transition projects is among Twynstra’s greatest strengths. She also nurtures Twynstra’s relationship with Cordence Worldwide, which grants the consulting firm exclusive access to international markets. Through Cordence, Twynstra leverages a local presence in Europe, the US, Japan, China, India, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, while harnessing the specialist knowledge of more than 2,600 consultants. The alliance has a larger presence than A.T. Kearney (58 offices) and Roland Berger (50 offices) and is on par with Strategy&, the strategy consulting arm of Big Four firm PwC.
Going global
Also part of the Cordence Worldwide alliance is US consulting giant North Highland. A prime example of Twynstra’s work abroad saw them partner with North Highland and a Chinese design consulting firm to advise one of the world’s largest energy companies on the future of sustainable transport.
In South America, Twynstra was hired to help establish Colombia’s National Center for Water Modelling. Dutch expertise in water infrastructure management is held in high regard around the world and Twynstra, with its specialised sustainability and water management focus, was drafted in as a key consulting partner.
Twynstra conducted diagnostics, stakeholder analysis and established an implementation plan covering organisational design, sustainable financing and strategic positioning. The firm also provided advisory services to the Dutch government on its future relationship with the new centre – necessitated by catastrophic floods in the country.
In Bangladesh, the Dutch consultancy is a consulting partner on the country’s Delta Plan 2100, a comprehensive strategy to secure the country’s extremely vulnerable coastline. Closer to home the Dutch firm is working with European partners to advise the Netherlands on the creation of a zero-emissions bus fleet by 2025.
