Doctus has developed ThePipeline approach to account management and business development to assist professional firms penetrate new markets and win new clients. Denis Mahony leads this new venture. He has vast experience working with the major players in the professional services sector.

ThePipeline team have developed marketing and sales strategies, set up sales campaigns, and won significant bids for their clients.

ThePipeline has developed a number of services to meet the needs of professional firms. They include business development, sales effectiveness training and bright Pipeline, a sales enablement software tool. In the present business climate only the fittest (in every sense) business development teams have a hope of competing and winning new business.

ThePipeline will give your business development partners the expertise and confidence to win. We will meet with your people and give you our straightforward assessment on how we think they perform and how we believe they can improve.

It will cost nothing for our views and more for our knowledge but we assure you, it will be worth it.

About Us


Business development solutions
ThePipeline consults with professional services firms that seek to enhance the ‚sales’ element of their marketing mix. Our fee
generating solutions, sales training and software programmes have all been developed in the modern professional services
environment and are designed to help improve profits.

Backgrounds that fit
ThePipeline is a new business made up of people who have worked at senior-level roles with Andersen, Clifford Chance, Gemini
and PA Consulting. We have three kinds of professional sales experience:

• selling a firm’s professional services to clients as business developers;
• selling strategic advice to professional services clients as consultants; and
• developing sales strategies and providing sales training and coaching to partners as in-house business development
managers/partners.

Fresh ideas
ThePipeline’s solutions range from proven account management programmes and bid support strategies to result-oriented
campaign management services. Our training services include a leading edge Win More Proposals school, a tailor-made Selling
Professional Services course, and an effective workshop on Developing new Business. ThePipeline’s software is designed for
partners and managers, with responsibility for sales and business development, who seek greater visibility, control and success
from their practice groups’ activities.

How can ThePipeline interest you?
As a member of your firm’s business development team you may have an interest in:

• learning about new and alternative ways of implementing a profitable business development strategy;
• knowing that your fee earners are receiving the most appropriate sales training; and
• seeing how software solutions can promote new fee income.

When considering ways of enhancing your sales activities, it is important to select consultants that offer a modern perspective
which is balanced with the right background. What’s more, you want experience which fits with your way of doing business and
respects your organisational culture. ThePipeline’s people have worked in a variety of partnership cultures at national, regional and
European levels and understand how to successfully deliver the results many firms desire.

Denis Mahony
Denis has spent 20 years in senior sales positions at professional services firms. Prior to starting ThePipeline in 2002 he was Andersen’s partner for business development (sales) for seven years. He worked closely with board-level partners in designing a
sales infrastructure that could be used by central and regional practices. He was the key architect for the firm’s sales programme which helped increase fee income by providing tools and processes to fee earners.

Denis played an instrumental role in upgrading Andersen’s bid strategy. He managed a team of internal and external consultants through the review, analysis, design and implementation stages of the strategy. The end result brought significant improvements to rates of success and the quality of engagements.

Training programmes for sales effectiveness were another area in which Denis played a key role as architect. The Bid School, Successful Selling and Selling to SME’s were some of the courses designed and delivered by him.

Prior to joining Andersen, he was the managing partner of Doctus, a change management consultancy, which was renowned for punching well above its weight. Denis supervised large engagements with a variety of organisations such as BNFL, Iberia, GUS and local governments; helping them to achieve cultural and process changes to their way of doing business.

Before setting up the consulting business six years earlier, Denis held sales positions with PA Consulting and Gemini Consulting. He managed senior roles in IT and business process engineering during the crest of the IT systems revolution.

Matt Sullivant
Matt has spent ten years in senior sales positions for professional services firms and multinational blue chip organisations. Prior to starting ThePipeline he was Andersen’s business development manager for over five years. He was the first business developer to join the firm with Denis and successfully managed the difficulties associated with growing a ‘green field site’ in a partnership environment.

Matt was at the heart of Andersen’s sales activities, leading targeting campaigns that grew from a single concept – and concluded with significant fee engagements. He also led penetrative sales strategies into key accounts and helped develop compelling cross-practice solutions for broader markets.

He was key to assisting with the design and delivery of the sales effectiveness training courses made for the fee earners. Matt also supported countless major proposals to victory by providing strategic advice at both front and back ends of the proposal process.

Prior to joining Andersen, he worked for seven years with one of Japan’s largest multinational businesses. Matt was responsible for growing a portfolio of accounts comprising Japanese hi-tech manufacturers and trading houses. He travelled extensively throughout the East Asia region negotiating directly with the senior management of world-class businesses.