PwC India and PwC US to merge consulting arms into 40,000-strong joint venture
PwC India and PwC US are combining PwC India’s consulting business with the US firm’s India-based acceleration centres into a jointly owned platform of 40,000 employees. PwC US will hold 50.1% and PwC India 49.9%, with PwC India chairperson Sanjeev Krishan leading the new venture as chief executive.
The joint venture takes in PwC India’s consulting operations – management, technology, and risk consulting – together with the India-based capabilities of PwC US Advisory, built up over the years in its acceleration centres. PwC India’s audit, tax, and deals businesses, along with certain government advisory work, stay outside the new entity.
For years, those acceleration centres have delivered work for American clients from behind the scenes. The transaction puts them in the same house as the consultants serving clients in India itself – and hands the running of them to the Indian firm.
Who controls what
On paper, PwC US is the majority owner, with 50.1% of the shares against 49.9% for PwC India. Operating control, however, will rest with PwC India, including control of the acceleration centres that PwC US has run until now, according to Krishan. That makes the venture a jointly controlled entity, he said, rather than a subsidiary of the US firm.
Krishan, who chairs PwC India, will take on the chief executive role at the joint venture alongside that position.
Paul Griggs, senior partner and CEO of PwC US, said the firms that succeed will be those that stop viewing markets, capabilities, and delivery as separate. The combination brings PwC’s advisory talent in India and PwC US together as one team, he said, with the relationships, expertise and scale to deliver for clients and the wider PwC network. The aim, he added, is to build something clients cannot get elsewhere.
A bigger PwC India
PwC India currently employs about 33,000 people. The joint venture is set to launch with 40,000 once the acceleration-centre workforce is added; the size of that workforce has not been disclosed separately.
The financial step is of the same order. The deal is expected to lift PwC India’s business from $1.3 billion to about $2 billion on day one, subject to approvals. The firm now aims to grow fivefold in three years – a considerably steeper target than the threefold growth over five years set out in its Vision 2030 plan.
The combined platform is meant to serve clients in India, the US and other markets, covering needs from strategy and transformation through to technology, engineering and AI, while expanding managed services at scale.
The signing marks the start of the process rather than the end. Completion requires regulatory approvals, including clearance from the Competition Commission of India, and is expected in the first half of 2027. Until then, PwC US and PwC India will continue to serve clients through their existing structures.
