On March 1, 2019, Karrikins Group sold its Community Investment Solutions (CIS) practice to EY (Ernst & Young) and refocused the firm on leadership alignment, strategy consulting, executive coaching, and training. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Karrikins now operates as a single practice serving global enterprises through executive-level advisory and development.
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Key Facts
- Event: CIS practice sold to EY (effective March 1, 2019)
- What changed: Karrikins consolidated into one practice focused on leadership alignment and growth
- Where: Denver, Colorado (global client footprint)
- Why it matters: Enables deeper focus on executive alignment, strategy execution, and leadership development for enterprise teams
Quick Q&A
Q: What changed after the sale?
A: Karrikins now operates as a single practice focused on leadership alignment, strategy consulting, executive coaching, and training.
Q: Why EY?
A: The transition broadened CIS’s social-impact reach while allowing Karrikins to double down on executive-level transformation work.
Q: Where is Karrikins based?
A: Denver, Colorado—with global clients.
Original Announcement
(Denver, Colorado, March 18, 2019) Karrikins Group, a global behavior change firm, celebrates its Community Investment Strategy (CIS) team as they join international professional services firm EY, effective March 1. The sale will broaden the social impact reach created by CIS and will allow Karrikins Group to focus on its core work with global companies seeking to accelerate growth.
Prior to the sale, Karrikins Group operated as two independent practices: Business Growth Solutions (BGS), headquartered in Denver, Colorado, USA, and Community Investment Solutions (CIS), headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Moving forward, BGS will be known simply as Karrikins Group.
Founder and Group CEO Peter Sheahan said: “We started Karrikins Group with the bold ambition to change the world in two ways: by sparking growth within businesses and social impact within communities. While we continue to be passionate about community impact programs, we have found the most rapid, catalytic change comes from healthy private sector organizations. We believe that businesses are the most powerful vehicle for lasting transformative change. This move allows us to unequivocally focus on serving these entities through the most senior leaders to drive growth through disruption and transformation.”
Global leaders recognize the need to be agile with the ever-increasing speed of change, yet establishing new ways of working remains a top challenge. Companies that successfully grow through disruption and transformation have discovered that the key is alignment.
Karrikins Group President Bruce Siegel said: “EY’s acquisition is a great opportunity for our CIS colleagues and I couldn’t be prouder of all they have accomplished. Within Karrikins Group, we believe businesses are a catalyst for moving the world forward and we have found creating alignment within these organizations is a key predictor of success. Too often leaders mistake agreement with alignment. The gap between the two is where we believe great ambitions fail to deliver. Moving forward, we are excited to devote our full energies to bridge this gap – to move leaders from agreement to alignment, create clarity, and build accountability in pursuit of accelerated and lasting transformational change.”
About Karrikins Group
Karrikins: a group of compounds found in the smoke of burning plants that catalyze growth.
Karrikins Group is a global behavior change company that moves organizations towards greater growth and impact. We do this in two essential ways:
Engaging with executive teams to create clarity, commitment, and connection in alignment to a shared aspiration for continual growth.
Designing curated, catalytic experiences that disrupt the status quo and inspire the soul to manifest in action.
EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. For more information about the organization, please visit ey.com
