Our Story
Fighting corruption and advising on environmental, social and governance (ESG) opportunities was not something any of fp’s partners had considered a life-long dream. Nikolai, Jakob, Zakiya and Chris came from different journalistic, diplomatic, political and commercial experiences, and ended up working together at one of the risk consulting industry’s founding companies in London in the mid-2000s. Only a few years later, the financial crisis hit and one by one each of the partners left to pursue other opportunities.
Yet the appeal of investigative research proved irresistible, and Nikolai and Jakob began collaborating as subcontractors for leading risk consultancies. The financial crisis had brought to the surface a host of corruption stories, fostering a new alertness for financial crime and intensified calls for corporate accountability.
In difference to the US and UK, the risk consulting sector in Germany and the Nordics lacked maturity and there was a niche for high-quality advice in this space. The time was ripe to seize the opportunity. Eyeing the market gap, Jakob and Nikolai took the leap to launch a fully-fledged business. fp was born in February 2012 and within six months the partners hired their first employee and rented an office in Berlin’s Schöneberg district.
Jakob started knocking on the doors of Nordic companies and it became clear that they were on the verge of a compliance wave. Soon enough, they realised that they had Russian, eastern and western Europe capabilities, but needed other emerging markets expertise and a German market specialist. Having since returned to Johannesburg, Zakiya’s experience in the industry and her regional expertise in Africa and the Middle East seemed a perfect fit and she joined fp in 2013. Not even a year later, the trio sought out Chris to join the partnership. Bringing with him a wide range of due diligence, compliance and business intelligence expertise, he further developed the German-speaking markets and strengthened the fp brand beyond the Nordics.
Diverse and complementary, the four partners were united in a common cause: driving entrepreneurialism with an uncompromising emphasis on quality and integrity. These twin traits helped them repeatedly win projects even when competing against Big Four bidders – a success demonstrating that clients value reliability and a bespoke touch over big names.
The growing reputation of the fp brand meant that private equity firms were soon asking fp to support them with their ESG analysis – a fledgling area in the mid-2010s. Hand in hand with our clients, we have developed a unique approach combining investigative research with an honest and creative eye for sustainable growth opportunities.
The company experienced a heavy blow when, in June 2021, our partner Zakiya passed away and we lost our presence in South Africa. This coincided with our launch of our distributed work model, which we called fp Flow.
One year later, Anna Hamer, an expert in complex integrity due diligence and strategic business intelligence, drawing on over 15 years advising financial, legal and corporate clients joined fp’s partner roster.
