Reflecting on our purpose
Sharing our annual Ingenuity Review is always very special.
It’s a moment for all of us to consider how it feels to be part of this very special team. And 2022 was another year of great accomplishments. Superb results for our clients. A stronger, closer team for each other. And a truly impactful contribution to the communities in which we live and work.”
Value for clients in every act
Our strategy is clear. We work with clients to accelerate new growth ideas, from concept, through design, development, and to commercial success. And we revitalise organisations, building the leadership, culture, systems, and processes to make innovation a reality.
Partnering with passionate, forward-thinking leaders, we’re in pursuit of the most important issues facing the world: putting consumers at the heart of every decision, creating healthier lives, building future-focused organisations, designing businesses for better, keeping people safe, and creating a more sustainable planet. We believe these issues offer tremendous opportunities for our clients.
Working with PA, you’ll find strategists, innovators, designers, consultants, digital experts, scientists, engineers, and technologists. With deep sector expertise, and years of experience leading organisations, tackling the toughest of industry challenges. We’re the only company to deliver end-to-end innovation, not just talk about it, but really do it.
In 2022, the launch of our Alliances, Platforms, and Products strategy — with offers like PulPac, a sustainable replacement for plastic — further enhances our end-to-end innovation offer.
Our clients say working with us just feels different. We’re nimble, expert, multidisciplinary, and collaborative; coming together with clients in perfect combinations, creating value that endures.
Many minds, meaningful work
We often talk about ingenuity as a mindset. At PA, we’re privileged to see it in action every day.
Throughout the year, we welcomed more than 1,300 new colleagues, grew our partner team by more than 50 new partners, and promoted over 800 people.
We also welcomed two new teams: Design Partners, an outstanding product design and innovation agency in Europe. And The Cambridge Group, a leading strategy consulting business in the US. Both teams are a real win for our clients: further strengthening how we accelerate end-to-end innovation in areas including design and business growth.
Our employee inclusion and diversity networks have gone from strength-to-strength. We added a new focus on neurodiversity, and bolstered our support to working families.
And we celebrated our people’s talents, with a record year for promotions, as well as our Purpose Awards for those who went above and beyond in support of our clients or team.
We’ll never lose focus on building an environment full of autonomy and empowerment — where people can find the projects and experiences that build vibrant and exciting careers and bring their best selves to work.
Creating opportunity in our communities
Our teams’ skills and experience deliver value for our clients — and also enrich people’s lives and careers in the communities where we live and work.
Take our PA in the Community programme as an example. Joining forces to ‘inspire people, particularly those facing disadvantage, to be the innovators and leaders of tomorrow’, our people gave more than 10,000 hours of their skills and expertise in a wide range of educational, learning, coaching, and mentoring initiatives.
Last year, we launched The PA Foundation, whose mission aligns to our PA in the Community programme. With a commitment to distribute £10 million in five years, we’re furthering the impact our people are already making.
Over the course of the year, we gave over £1.2 million to charities and non-profit organisations doing amazing things in the places we live and work.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to The PA Foundation — your support is invaluable.
Tackling the climate imperative
Climate change. It’s such an urgent issue — every one of us has a role to play in addressing it. At PA, we’re working every day to accelerate our clients’ responses to climate change to create a more sustainable world.
From designing more sustainable products and packaging, through to supply chain innovation, and enabling the energy transition, our depth of innovation experience delivers impact that is bringing more industries closer to net zero.
Our responsibilities also extend to how we operate. And so, within PA, we’ve set science-based targets to ensure our environmental practices contribute to limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5C, and that we reach net zero by 2040.
We’re better together
In 2022, we generated fee income of £785 million, growing our business by 14 percent. We also celebrated the first anniversary of our relationship with Jacobs, which is already presenting exciting opportunities to combine our respective strengths, offering clients expertise unmatched in the market.
As we prepare to celebrate our 80th year, our purpose remains as core to who we are today as it was at the very beginning.
Looking forward, we’ll continue to evolve our business: for our clients, our people, and our communities. As we do, one thing’s for sure: we’ll never lose our focus on building a positive human future.
To our clients, thank you for your trust. And to our people, thank you for everything you do.
A message from our Chair
I’m immensely proud of how our teams have come together to resolve complex issues and deliver ingenious thinking that helps organisations to adapt and thrive. In an unpredictable world, PA is the innovation partner today’s senior leaders can rely on.”
