'AI raises the floor, people raise the ceiling': PwC US CEO on India venture, Big Four race and GCC push

Mumbai: PwC is positioning India at the centre of its global consulting strategy by combining its Indian consulting business with the US firm's India advisory operations, marking a shift towards India becoming a more integrated part of PwC's global consulting business, with more global work flowing into the country and greater access to PwC's global capabilities for Indian clients, Paul Griggs, CEO of PwC US, told ET in an exclusive interview.

The combined venture will employ roughly 40,000 people and establish a single non-regulated consulting structure in India, allowing the new entity to invest more heavily in artificial intelligence, technology, engineering, talent and new solutions. "Separate businesses are one thing. But connecting businesses in a way that enables seamless delivery and the full complement of the resource stack, alongside AI, and combining the power of two very well-established markets, the US and India, is a massive unlock for us," Griggs said.

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The planned joint venture underscores a larger trend in how global consulting companies organise their workforce and capabilities, as customers look for teams that combine industry and functional expertise with technology, engineering, data and AI capabilities.

The venture will be managed and run from India, with PwC India holding 49.9% of the stock. Sanjeev Krishan, chairman of PwC India, will oversee the operations.

"This is not a passive investment into a business; it's an active investment into a business," Griggs said. "Sanjeev will be responsible for a significant part of the growth of our global consulting business."

Krishan said the consulting business would have a significant scale from day one.

"On day one itself, without doing anything, we will be almost a $1.5 billion business, and the opportunity for Indian partners and teams to contribute to the global growth is a massive one," he said. "The scale would create significant investment capacity even before the businesses realise synergies, including investment in AI, technology and upskilling of employees."

Griggs said that the two businesses contributing to the venture were already high-growth operations, providing the new organisation with predictable revenue and exposure to expanding markets.

"That is going to create significant investment capacity in technology, resources, people, learning assets and the solutions that we provide, with a strong balance sheet that enables us to invest alongside our clients in the outcomes that we deliver," he said.

The deal heats up the Big Four consulting battle in India, with PwC bringing scale and global capabilities, Deloitte pursuing an aggressive, investment-led and innovation-driven approach, while EY remains largely a momentum play.

"We want to move away from just doing execution work for our biggest clients and also get into their strategic mindset. With so much value in motion, I think it's a great opportunity, and we want to create greater relevance for PwC by getting to a higher level of discussion with them," said Krishan.

For PwC India, one of the biggest opportunities is its work with global capability centres, where the firm sees scope to combine its local expertise with global client relationships and reduce friction between the two. "We want to take the 'us (PwC US) and them' away. We want to create a 'we' from a GCC client segment standpoint," Krishan said. The structure will also change the way global consulting work is delivered through India.

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Griggs said more global activity would be rooted in Indian talent across the full organisational stack, from partners and directors to managers and associates, rather than being concentrated at the lower end of the leverage pyramid. PwC's strategy also represents a fundamental shift in the consulting industry, as AI reshapes how value is generated and delivered.

"In the AI world, AI raises the floor, but people raise the ceiling," Griggs said. "We look forward to doing that for clients domestically here in India, for clients domestically in the U.S. and, frankly, for clients all the way around the world."