Founded in 2019 by a former Fortune 50 Chief Procurement Officer and a former PwC auditor. Today we’re a boutique strategy-execution architecture firm working with complex organizations across technology, healthcare, and government.
Nick Gunn
Co-Founder & CEO
Before NiVACK, Nick was Chief Procurement Officer at HP and HPE, where he led global procurement transformation across one of the largest technology enterprises in the world. He spent more than 30 years inside complex organizations, running functions, owning P&Ls, and rebuilding operating models from the inside.
Nick founded NiVACK because he got tired of watching consulting firms invent problems and hunt for revenue inside the companies he ran. He wanted to bring an executive’s perspective to consulting work, and to stay engaged until the work actually delivered.
Charles Gunn
Co-Founder & COO
Charles was a CPA and auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers before co-founding NiVACK. His audit background shapes how the firm runs: rigorous analysis, structured documentation, and an intolerance for work that looks impressive but doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
Charles got tired of telling clients what they were doing wrong without being able to help them fix it. NiVACK was built to do the second part.
We coined the term to describe how NiVACK operates differently from the firms we used to hire when we were on the other side of the table. It comes down to four things.
Most consulting firms hire junior associates, hand them a playbook, and put them in front of clients. We don’t. NiVACK runs close to a 1:1 ratio of experienced staff to early-career professionals. Other firms run 10:1 or worse. Every engagement is led by someone who has actually done the work.
Including when the truth is uncomfortable. Clients hire us because they want a clear read on what’s broken, not a polished deck that confirms what they already believed. We say things in the room that other firms only say after the engagement.
We don’t disappear after the final deliverable. Our work focuses on capability transfer, not dependency. The goal is for our clients to be able to sustain the work without us.
We don’t run scope-expansion plays. We don’t dress up activity as progress. We don’t bring in armies of associates to inflate the bill. Our overhead is low, our team is senior, and we price the work to be defensible.
Most strategies don’t fail because leaders chose the wrong direction. They fail because the organization can’t deliver them. Our work is to fix the architecture underneath.
Organizations that run on heroics burn out their best people and produce inconsistent results. We design systems that make outcomes repeatable.
The goal of every engagement is for the client to sustain the work without us. Capability transfer is built into how we scope and deliver.
Especially when it’s uncomfortable. We owe our clients clarity, not cover.
Beyond the founders, NiVACK is built around a small group of senior operators and analysts who share the same approach.
We don’t use up-or-out leverage. We don’t train juniors on client engagements. Every person on a NiVACK team is there to do work we’d be willing to put our names on.
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Translating strategy into structures, roles, and workflows that can deliver it.
Building decision rights, accountability, and execution infrastructure that produce outcomes.
Designing and building the leadership, workforce, and operational capabilities strategy requires.