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Executive Technology Advisory for Professional Services Firms
Ryan Advisory is a founder-led executive advisory firm supporting accounting firms and professional services organizations where technology and security decisions materially affect integration outcomes, cost discipline, and client confidence.
The work focuses on operating effectiveness, transaction readiness, and investment governance—not delivery, staffing, or compliance execution.
How we work →
Technology & Security Operating Advisory
Executive advisory focused on how technology and security actually operate inside professional services firms. Covers integration, efficiency, cost discipline, and operating-model effectiveness to reduce waste and improve outcomes.
Transaction Readiness and Risk Stabilization
Advisory support before and after transactions to ensure technology and security environments are defensible, stable, and credible under diligence, client scrutiny, and integration pressure.
Executive Technology and Security Investment Governance
Independent executive perspective on how technology and security investments should be evaluated, sequenced, and governed in firms.
Where Technology and Security Quietly Destroy Value
In professional services firms, technology and security rarely fail in obvious ways. Value is lost quietly—through duplicated platforms that never get retired, parallel environments that run longer than expected, unclear ownership during integration, and remediation work that surfaces only after client confidence is tested.
These issues are not caused by lack of intelligence or effort. They stem from underestimating how technology, identity, data, and security obligations interact inside partner-led organizations where billable work, client expectations, and politics all compete for priority.
Ryan Advisory works with executive teams to surface these issues early, establish realistic sequencing, and translate technical complexity into decisions leaders can actually make. The focus is not perfection or transformation. It is preventing preventable cost, disruption, and distraction before they compound.
What Improves When This Is Handled Well
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Technology environments simplify instead of sprawl
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Parallel systems are retired intentionally, not by attrition
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Security obligations are addressed proportionally, not reactively
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Executive teams spend less time arbitrating noise
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Clients experience stability during change
When Firms Typically Reach Out
Ryan Advisory is most often engaged when leadership recognizes that existing models are starting to strain.
Common situations include:
• An acquisition or merger is underway, but ownership and sequencing across technology and security are unclear
• The firm is preparing for a transaction and needs to be defensible under diligence without disrupting delivery
• Post-close environments feel fragile, with rising operational noise and partner frustration
• Client questionnaires, audits, or insurance renewals are exposing gaps at the worst possible time
• Technology costs are increasing without confidence that outcomes are improving
In most cases, firms already have capable internal teams and trusted vendors. What is missing is experienced judgment that has lived through these moments before and can help leadership decide what actually matters next.
Why This Advice Travels
Ryan Advisory is led by a former senior technology and security executive with more than 15 years inside accounting firms and professional services organizations.
The founder, Nick Ryan, has held CISO and other officer roles at Top 10 firms, working directly with managing partners, CIOs, COOs, CEOs, and executive committees. That experience includes hands-on accountability through 24 mergers and acquisitions, spanning buy-side integrations, sell-side transitions, and regulated or client-sensitive environments where audit scrutiny and client expectations are non-negotiable.
This advisory is shaped by lived execution: owning integration outcomes, carrying technology and security budgets at the partner level, and operating in environments where decisions have commercial and reputational consequences. The perspective is not theoretical, vendor-driven, or retrospective. It reflects what actually holds under pressure inside professional services firms.
Ryan Advisory exists because many organizations underestimate how technology and security decisions compound during growth, integration, and transition. By the time issues surface visibly, options are narrower and more expensive. The work focuses on helping leadership teams see those inflection points earlier and act with clarity.
How Engagements Typically Start
Most Ryan Advisory relationships begin with a short, focused engagement designed to establish clarity without creating unnecessary commitment.
In some cases, this takes the form of a time-boxed diagnostic to assess technology and security operating realities, identify integration or transaction risks, and surface the few decisions that matter in the next 30 to 90 days. The objective is not to produce a comprehensive report, but to give leadership a clear, usable view of what is true and what requires action.
In other cases, engagement begins during an active transaction or period of transition, where executive advisory support is aligned to diligence, readiness, or early integration milestones. The work is scoped around decision points rather than hours, and involvement scales with the level of risk and complexity.
From there, some firms proceed independently with improved clarity. Others continue into an executive advisory retainer during integration, stabilization, or investment governance. Engagements are designed to reduce friction and improve decision quality—not to create dependency.
Start a conversation →Â
Start a Conversation
Ryan Advisory works with a limited number of clients at any given time to preserve senior involvement, discretion, and decision quality.
If you are navigating an integration, preparing for a transaction, stabilizing a fragile environment, or reassessing technology and security investments, an introductory conversation can help determine whether advisory support would be useful.
There is no standard pitch or predefined scope. The objective is to understand the situation, assess where experienced judgment may add value, and decide together whether engagement makes sense.