About Us

Philip Gore-Randall has extensive experience in large private and publicly-held international organisations. He spent the first 25 years of his career at Arthur Andersen. Besides several managing partner roles, he was elected UK Managing Partner in 1997, having previously run the UK and European Assurance and Advisory practices. In 2001, he became Managing Partner and COO for the worldwide practice, and the following year he co-led the worldwide dissolution of Arthur Andersen. He then became COO of Aon UK, following two years as CEO of its Risk Services division.

In 2007, Philip joined the Board of HBOS plc as COO, when it was one of the five major UK-based international retail banks and served in that role until it was acquired by Lloyds Banking Group in 2009. He was also the HBOS Integration Director leading up to, and after, the acquisition.

Since then, Philip has built up a portfolio of non-executive roles, which currently include serving as Chairman of three other international private-equity-backed businesses:

• Forensic Risk Alliance, a leading international forensic accounting, data analytics and e-discovery business

• Fircroft, a leading global provider of technical recruitment services

• RAK Logistics, an international logistics business

He is also:

• Director, Samena Capital, an Asia, India and MENA-focused alternative investments (principally private equity) group

Adviser to RAK Ceramics (the world’s largest ceramic tile manufacturer) and RAK Economic Zone in the UAE

His previous non-executive roles include Chairman of two international private-equity-backed businesses—ERM (a leading international environmental consulting firm) and Equiom (a multinational trust and fiduciary business); Director of esure (insurance company) and Topaz Engineering and Marine (a leading provider of offshore vessels and services to the oil and gas industry); an independent member of the International Executive of Lovells (now Hogan Lovells), the international law firm.

Philip has an MA in Geography from University College, Oxford, and is a Chartered Accountant.

Robert King is the Chief Executive Officer at Acuity Knowledge Partners, managing all lines of business of the global organisation. He joined Acuity in 2017 as CEO and is based in our London office. He oversaw the business transition from corporate ownership to private equity and management ownership and has been pivotal to the rapid growth and diversification of the business in recent years, including the addition of new service lines and locations, as Acuity has scaled to serve over 500 financial services clients.

Prior to Acuity, Robert worked for Moody’s Corporation for 20 years, in a variety of roles. He was appointed Executive Director of Global Sales, Customer Services and Marketing in July 2013 after having previously managed the Moody’s Analytics Sales team for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He also spent four years, based in Hong Kong, managing Moody’s Analytics Sales teams for the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, he has served as Global Head of Sales for Moody’s Enterprise Risk Solutions business.

Before Moody’s, Robert worked in the private banking division of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

Robert is a father of two children and an avid follower of English Premier League football and the England cricket team.

He holds a Master of Eastern European Studies from University College London, University of London, and a Bachelor of Political History from the University of Sussex.

Ian is CFO, managing Acuity’s global Finance team spread across seven countries. He joined the business in 2021 and is based in our London office. He is responsible for providing value-added business insights and driving organic and inorganic business growth; maintaining investor relations with both equity and debt funders; formulating, advising on and implementing strategic initiatives that drive growth in enterprise value; and tax, treasury, financial control, FP&A, change and transformation, and finance operations.

Since joining Acuity in May 2021, Ian has helped the business drive significant organic growth with increasingly insightful datasets. His key deliverables are executing Acuity’s first acquisition in 2022, a debt refinancing in 2022 and a successful PE-to-PE exit with the sale to Permira in 2023.

Ian has more than 25 years of financial services experience in investment banking, private banking and private equity-owned companies.

Prior to Acuity, he was managing director at HSBC, working in New York, London and Geneva in CFO, COO, strategy and transformation roles. Before this, Ian worked at Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and Bankers Trust, based in London and Sydney. He also worked as CFO of LeasePlan UK for three years. He is experienced in managing large international teams.

Ian enjoys travelling, having lived in several countries, and is always looking to try new cultural experiences. He loves sports, especially football, rugby and cricket. He is married and has three teenage children.

Fellow Chartered Accountant – Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales; trained with PricewaterhouseCoopers. He holds an honours degree in Economics from the University of Manchester.

Damian leads all sales, account management and marketing activities at Acuity. He joined the business in 2015 and is based in our London office. He has more than 32 years of financial services experience in sales, marketing and commercial product development, and experience in leading large commercial teams.

Prior to Acuity, he was a managing director at Moody’s Analytics, leading sales teams in Europe and Africa, and was instrumental in the integration of Copal Amba with Moody’s Analytics. He was also a managing director at Standard & Poor’s for 10 years, heading all sales, marketing and client services, armed with his substantial credit, lending and risk experience. He is also experienced in digital transformation, product development, M&A, integration/divestiture and setting up joint ventures.

Before this, he held senior commercial roles at Thomson Financial, Financial Times Group, Barclays and Hill Samuel.

Damian has been happily married for over 33 years, blessed with three children and two beautiful grandchildren. He enjoys spending time trekking in the countryside. He also enjoys sea and snow sports and spending time with his two dogs.

Chanakya is Managing Director and Co-head of Global Delivery Operations and oversees the Investment Research, Specialised Solutions, Financial Marketing Services, Lending Services and Compliance business units.

In his past 19 years with the firm, Chanakya has managed multiple roles. In his last stint, he managed the Colombo delivery centre that provides investment research, quants, data science, commercial lending and FMS services to Acuity’s global clientele. He was also responsible for all aspects of research delivery and client relationship management for the Investment Research business unit. This unit is responsible for buy-side, sell-side and private wealth management clients who use Acuity’s equity and fixed income research.

As a founding employee, Chanakya has played many other roles, including heading strategic initiatives and launching new-analyst training programmes accredited by the CFA Institute.

Prior to joining Acuity in 2003, Chanakya covered the banking sector and telecom sector as an Analyst at DFCC Stockbrokers, Sri Lanka. He was also a founding employee at Frontier Research, a boutique investment research firm in Colombo.

Chanakya leads Acuity’s inter-generational Network—BRIDGE—involved with fostering an understanding among generations and promoting inter-generational dialogue and at the same time challenging generational stereotypes and beliefs.

In his free time, Chanakya spends time pursuing adventure sports such as dirt biking, mountain biking and kayaking. He also owns a motorcycle and is a weekend runner.

Chanakya is a CFA charterholder and a fellow member of ACCA (UK) and CIMA (UK). His exemplary leadership in the financial services research sector was recognised when he was listed twice in the 40 under 40 Business Leaders in Sri Lanka Awards hosted by the Echelon Magazine.

He is an experienced business leader respected in Sri Lanka for being an innovator, disruptor and builder of business by creating jobs and developing new ways of doing old things.

Sumit is Managing Director and Co-head of Global Delivery Operations and oversees the Investment Banking, Private Markets and Consulting businesses. Sumit is responsible for organisation strategy, planning and overseeing daily business operations, development of new products and services and overseeing client-servicing excellence. He is also involved in development and implementation of policies for business growth and expansion.

With over 20 years of experience, he was one of Acuity’s first employees and was instrumental in setting up the initial business teams and laying the foundation for industry best processes to differentiate Acuity’s operations from the competition.

Sumit led Acuity’s subsidiaries as Chief Operating Officer and was responsible for business reorganisation, transformation and growth. He also launched multiple new services and business units. In addition, he led a number of strategic initiatives, including management and integration of acquisitions, and growth of technology products, and provided oversight to the China delivery centre.

Before joining Acuity, Sumit worked as a Senior Consultant with a leading audit firm, managing statutory and internal audits. He is a Chartered Accountant with The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).

As the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) Leader, Sumit is focused on building an inclusive workplace. He is also part of the CSR and the POSH committees.

Sumit enjoys reading autobiographical, business, spiritual and philosophical books; and loves travelling, especially road trips. He is a paw parent to a three-year-old Shih Tzu.

David has more than 20 years of experience in the technology sector. He leads technology, innovation and digital transformation for Acuity since 2017 and is based in our London office.

In his current role, he heads our digital transformation programme that delivers new digital services to augment the capabilities of our analysts in delivering world-class services to clients. David also leads the team that offers software-as-a-service digital products that clients can use.

In addition, he leads our innovation process – designed to augment our capabilities with new solutions, processes, and tools, and introduce new technologies and ways of working to improve internal business processes and outcomes for clients. He is also responsible for information technologies and information security.

Prior to Acuity, David worked for Moody’s Analytics for 10 years as a managing director leading the development and delivery of several credit risk products, including leading the division dedicated to bank capital stress-testing solutions. Before this, he worked as a consultant for Frog Design and ThoughtWorks in San Francisco, where he assisted numerous large firms with their technology transformations.

He is a champion for Employee Resource Groups, especially focused on bringing women to technology. He heads Illuminate, the company’s internal innovation programme.

David is interested in technology and enjoys travelling and spending time with his two dogs. He has a background in computer and data science and has studied contemporary leadership theory at the University of Cambridge.

Avadhesh has around 24 years of experience in human resource management at companies in the UK, Ireland, the US and Europe. Apart from being the CHRO, he leads Acuity’s compliance, corporate services and CSR activities. He joined the business in 2016 and is based in our Gurgaon office.

Prior to Acuity, Avadhesh was regional head of HR at Moody’s Corporation. Before this, he held HR leadership roles at GE Capital, CMC Ltd and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd in India and other countries.

Avadhesh holds an MBA in Human Resources from the Delhi School of Economics of the University of Delhi, with a graduate degree in Economics. He is certified as a Global Professional in Human Resources (GPHR) by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), USA, and is a regular speaker at Indian national HR and CSR conferences.