Peter Saville
Pete Saville has opened AlixPartners’ first Australian office in Sydney. He’s only just begun.
Finding a second wind in Australia
Pete Saville’s retirement was brief. After nearly three decades with Zolfo Cooper and AlixPartners in the UK, he stepped away from full-time partnership in 2023 and moved with his wife to Australia, her home country.
He didn’t, however, stop working. Based in Sydney, he continued to support the firm as an independent contractor, periodically returning to London, including to take part in the firm’s football tournament, the Cronus Cup, and to spend time with his four children spread across three continents. Back in Australia, he also found time to restore an ageing Land Rover with his youngest son. It was not exactly a quieter life. As he puts it, “retirement doesn’t really suit me.”
At the same time, AlixPartners was beginning to win work in Australia. By 2024, firm leadership was taking a serious look at whether establishing a permanent presence made sense.
“Once we’d assessed the market, spoken to clients, and tested whether this was genuinely a place we should be,” Pete recalls, “the answer was an unequivocal yes.”
The decision was announced on an all-firm call in late 2025, with Pete introduced as Country Leader. The reaction was immediate. “My mobile ‘phone lit up as soon as the announcement was made” he says. “Half the messages were asking to join, the other half were offering help.”
He also reconnected quickly with Australian alumni. “Those connections have been invaluable,” he says. “One meeting leads to another, and suddenly your network expands very fast.”
Pete sees the timing as important, both for Australia and the broader Asia-Pacific region. Australia, he notes, is becoming more economically interconnected, with rising levels of offshore investment and increasing expectations around governance and performance, despite the perception of a relaxed working culture.
“For AlixPartners,” he says, “there’s a real opportunity to help businesses navigate that change.”
The Sydney office opened on 15 January 2026 and its launch was deliberately modest. Pete was the one buying supplies for the office on the first day, commuting across the Sydney Harbour Bridge with bags of Yorkshire tea. In its first weeks, the priority was simple: ensure the office operated to the same standards as the firm’s 26 others.
Given the level of interest, it’s reasonable to ask why the firm hadn’t opened an Australian office sooner.
“Australia is a long way away,” Pete says. “And we’re rightly protective of our culture. You can’t just open an outpost. It has to look, feel, and perform like every other office in our network.”
That required a firm veteran to lead it, and the result is our 27th office, and our first in Australia.
“What we’re doing here matters, and it matters that we get it right” he says simply. “Now that we’re here, the focus is on delivering.”