Philadelphia-based consultant buys McConnell International
Clinton Rubin purchases federal consulting firm founded by former OMB tech chief in a move to enter stable federal market.
A Philadelphia-based management consulting firm has purchased McConnell International LLC, a consulting firm in Washington founded by a former chief of information and technology policy at the Office of Management and Budget.
Clinton Rubin LLC bought McConnell International, which advises companies on how to win federal business, for an undisclosed sum in a move to enter the stable and lucrative government market. Most economists believe the nation is entering a recession brought about by the upheaval in the financial industry.
"This is a great market in pretty tumultuous times," said Brad King, who joined Clinton Rubin in September and will become president of McConnell International. King was chief executive officer of Serco Group Inc., an outsourcing services company with contracts with national and local governments in the United States and Canada.
Bruce McConnell, who founded McConnell International in 2000 after leaving OMB, said he sold the firm to focus more on working in the field of collaborative technologies and cybersecurity. "I felt like I wanted to do other things," he said.
McConnell said he plans to consult with clients on how government can use new tools to work together and how those technologies may affect the operations and organization of government in the future. McConnell's other venture, Government Futures, which relies on predictive market theory to provide insight into future outcomes in government operations, is not part of the deal.
Clinton Rubin does not plan not to make immediate changes to McConnell International. King said, however, he does plan to add analytic services to the firm's offerings. For example, McConnell International may take on some of what King called the "thornier issues that the industry is dealing with." For instance, the firm might study how the government will approach the economic rescue plan Congress recently passed to unearth federal opportunities not readily apparent to most companies, King said.
McConnell left government after directing the International Y2K Cooperation Center, which was established under the auspices of the United Nations and World Bank. The center coordinated the work of more than 170 governments, private firms and organizations in a global human and electronic network that worked on solutions to fix computers for the Y2K bug.