Kestrel Advisory partnership re-elects Nikhil Rao as Managing Partner

The partnership of Kestrel Advisory has re-elected Nikhil Rao as managing partner, extending a term that began in 2025. The firm employs about 700 consultants and works predominantly with Indian industrial and financial services clients.

Rao’s original platform committed the firm to reducing its dependence on a small group of large retainer relationships, a position that was contested within the partnership. Two of the firm’s ten largest accounts have since been allowed to lapse.

He has continued to serve two clients personally through his term, arguing that a managing partner who stops doing the work is left running a professional services firm on second-hand accounts of how the work is going.