Collaborative Consulting Completes Acquisition of SMART Consulting Firm, LLC – Business Wire (press release)

BURLINGTON, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Collaborative
Consulting, a consulting services firm, today announced it has
completed its acquisition of SMART Consulting Firm, LLC. SMART is a
boutique firm that has deep industry experience in both the buy side and
sell side of the capital markets industry. SMART is a recognized expert
in managed accounts, global custody, fund and trust accounting, and
exchange traded funds (ETF) processing.

“One of the primary reasons SMART chose to work with Collaborative
Consulting was because they measure success by their clients’ success,
and we believe in that same philosophy”

SMART specializes in business development, and enterprise and project
management in the capital markets industry.

The acquisition of SMART comes only a few months after Collaborative
broke new ground with its “onshoring” initiative and the hiring of over
40 new IT specialists, jobs that in the past would have gone offshore to
facilities in places like India and China. The Collaborative
Domestic Solutions Center (CDSC) opened in Wausau, Wisconsin earlier
this year focusing on onshore application development and testing and is
on track to hire up to 200 IT experts within the next few years.

“Through the acquisition of SMART Consulting Firm, Collaborative will
solidify its capabilities in financial services adding strong business
expertise and management consulting capability to its existing extensive
systems architecture and implementation capabilities,” said William
Robichaud, President and CEO of Collaborative Consulting.

Now leading Collaborative’s Financial Services division are former SMART
co-founders Brett A. Ginter and David H. Gardner. They will be joined by
former SMART associates James Penman, Director, and Tom Valente, Senior
Principal, both in key practice leadership roles.

“We are excited about what we’ve achieved at SMART Consulting Firm and
what we can achieve together now that we are part of one of the
Industry’s strongest IT consulting firms in the financial services
space,” said Brett Ginter of SMART Consulting Firm, LLC.

“One of the primary reasons SMART chose to work with Collaborative
Consulting was because they measure success by their clients’ success,
and we believe in that same philosophy,” said Gardner.

Collaborative is a leading management and IT consulting services
organization dedicated to helping clients achieve business advantage
through the use of technology. The company delivers a comprehensive set
of consulting services to clients across multiple industries, focusing
on business architecture, information management, application
architecture and development, software performance and quality, and
program management. Collaborative also has a set of focused services
targeted at the life sciences and financial services industries.
Collaborative is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts.